Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set - The Zoo - 29th July

Clare Bowditch and the Feeding Set were back in Brisbane this weekend. And this time I didn't miss her!

The other Alpha Geeks can attest to my infatuation with Clare's acoustic ministrations (I was going to write aural, but you people either don't know how to spell or have dirty minds!), and me constantly sighing "Ahhh... Clare!" promptly followed by a disambiguating yell of "BOWDITCH!" since roomie ClaIre always walks into the room with a look of concern on her face.

It was simply awesome! I love the Zoo, a very easy going atmosphere, plus I discovered another act which I enjoyed, Andrew Morris, who has been getting some air play on JJJ recently. Very Bernard Fanning if I have to say.



So Clare B and TFS played a whole bunch of songs from their album "What was left", which I so dearly enjoy (there isn't a week when it's not played at least once!)

For the lowly price of $22 dollars I was entertained for more than 3 hours! Awesome!





The band say that they are going to take a break from touring and start work on a new album which I am longingly waiting for!

For the band's homepage click here

For links to the rest of my photos from the night click here



N.B.: Wrote all about the night and not about how I went with the photos! I guess this is starting to be a diary of my learning experiences with photography and the D200. All I had was my ONLY lens for the moment, the Tamron 90mm f2.8 Macro which equates to a moderate telephoto on the D200's sensor (135mm for those in film speak). It turned out to do a decent job, especially where I was in the audience.

I found the fancy matrix or centre weighted metering modes would do an alright photo but they tended to underexpose most of the frame due to bright reflections of the stage lights on instruments or shiny bits. The most reliable way I found of getting a decent exposure was to switch the camera to manual mode, leave it on the widest aperture (f2.8) and diddle with the shutter speed and ISO settings (god bless digital!), depending on whether I needed a fast shutter to freeze hands and instruments or if I wanted to go for less noise and risk a hand-held 1/30th or 1/15 (where's my Vibration Reduction lens!?).

Spot metering on the regions I wanted to expose for allowed me to set my shutter speed and ISO and recompose to take the photo. Yes I could have done this in Shutter priority mode and used the exposure hold button, but it seemed to be easier to do it this way since I had to balance the "film" speed as well.

Yet another area I need to get better at, I think it would help to have a faster lens as well like an f1.4 or f1.8 or heaven forbid a Nikkor 58mm Noct f1.2

Love and Hate

Not an original idea by any means, just my own attempt at it.

Not as easy as I first thought, having to take into consideration the direction of the lighting shadows as well as the position of the camera and the usual DOF issues. Excellent for practice though!

Is it a bit cheesy with the pink saturation? Should I go with a complete greyscale image?

Danger Zone

Update: Sadly, I've just read that the Grumman F-14 Tomcat which was made famous by Tom Cruise in Top Gun (or should I say it made Tom Cruise famous), has been retired from active fleet duties for the USNF, and will be decommissioned entirely in September. Definitely one of the sexier planes in the US inventory, it really made me want to be a defence force pilot, until I found out that we only flew F/A-18s.



Whenever I see a motorcycle do a wheelie, I think instantly about that scene from Top Gun when Tom Cruise is riding his bike next to the run way...

So there was this motor cycle stopped at some traffic lights near Roma street station and I snapped off a quick pic, I then motioned with my hand for the guy to pull a wheelie, thinking "nah he's not gonna do it..." But he gave me a thumbs up! Awww yeah! Thanks Dood whoever you are!

Revvin' up your engine

Listen to her howlin' roar
Metal under tension
Beggin' you to touch and go

Highway to the Danger Zone
Ride into the Danger Zone

Headin' into twilight
Spreadin' out her wings tonight
She got you jumpin' off the track
And shovin' into overdrive

Highway to the Danger Zone
I'll take you
Right into the Danger Zone

You'll never say hello to you
Until you get it on the red line overload
You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go

Out along the edges
Always where I burn to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity

Highway to the Danger Zone
Gonna take you
Right into the Danger Zone

Highway to the Danger Zone

Freelance... On assignment for OCAU... Portrait photography

Update: Jo and Rinn, I've emailed my photos to Matt, I'm guessing he's burning a CD for you ladies, so check with him. Ta hash

So I'm an Alpha geek right? So I then belong to online computer forums, in particular, OverClockers AUstralia (OCAU). Why? Coz I run my computer at speeds higher than it was rated. Why? To exploit what everyone else is missing out on, faster computers for lower prices. So call me a geek if you will, but only if you acknowledge I'm an Alpha geek.

I digress...

On the weekend a group of four stalwart OCAU photographers braved poor light conditions to visit various places about Brisbane. One of them also knew some pretty lady friends who didn't mind having their photo taken either. So here are the ones I've had a chance to work on.

I still have a ways to go, but I'm happier with the results of my recent portrait work. I think it helps to have people who don't mind getting their photo taken rather than pulling a funny face or giving you a birdie.

More to come, including a very funny non-verbal communication with a motorcycle rider at a traffic light.


Just friends


Just friends II


Just friends III


Unrequited


Dark eyes


Alley Angst


Alley Angst II


Flowers for me?


Rinn

Waterdrops II

So, I was home by myself again and I thought "hmmm, I should really have another crack at the waterdrop pictures."

I was given a simple physics lesson by this astute 14-year old. Yup, to get a nice big splash you need kinetic energy, Ekin, which happens to equal (mv^2)/2. Now I don't have much control over the mass of the water drops m, but I do have control over it's velocity or more precisely the distance over which the drop accelerates due to gravity! ie v2^2 = v1^2 + 2gd (where g is the gravitational constant 9.8m/s^2 and d is the distance between the shower head and the bowl, v1 is initially zero). Duh!

All this was simply put by my 14 year old acquaintance as
"The kitchen sink is too small :( try the shower!"

So I did! And I think the results have speak for themselves compared to the 1st lot. I think the biggest achievement was switching the SB-800 into repeating mode for just a single cycle at 100Hz. This mean the shortest flash duration in one blast lasting 1/100th of a second!













I think I've coming up to the limits of what I can do with the equipment I have. The next stage after this, is a laser or audio trigger for the shutter and strobe. I don't think the SB-800 was meant to do more than this, anything more than this definitely requires some specialised equipment.

I've played around with the white balance on the computer to make the drops look a little more interesting







I also tried a few with a coloured gel on the flash for some alternative colourings





The rest of them are on my Picasa webalbum here. I'm thinking of printing out a few, maybe you could suggest which ones are most appealing for you!

Whilst you are bumming around websurfing check out this dood's page, Liquid Sculptures, it's amazing what you can do with the right equipment!

Original waterdrops here

Gio Blogs III

Like all good trilogies, things must come to a close (i.e. Star Wars Ep 3-6, and Lord of the Rings and possibly Pirates) and not left open ended (The Matrix and X-men).

As I said I've had a pretty busy fortnight, last Tuesday I had a day trip... to MACKAY!, in order to extract my data collectors that have been recording for the last two months, and thank goodness there is some interesting data in there!

Here is a photo of my field site, Mackay has a 6m tidal amplitude at a Spring tide so that beach extends out 1.8 kilometres or so from high tide mark. The tidal flats are covered in little solider crabs like these ones in Moreton Bay.


I flew back the same day, and was completely buggered. Bear in mind I had been up the day before at 0230 for the soccer final! Plus on the Sunday I was on North Stradbroke and Rogaining on the Saturday and bowling the night before that and returned on previous Tuesday from Adelaide.

This didn't stop me from going out the next night to take pictures of Brisbane with the new doobyschmacker! Gio kindly joined me for dinner at the amazing Chez Laila (home of the world's best Falafels, the food that unites the Middle East according to Wikipedia! Those Lebanese and Israelis should remember that!). She was unbelievably patient as I snapped lots of long exposures, I wish I had a remote for the camera so I could use the bulb setting instead of the maximum 30s metered exposure.


These tiny pictures don't do the resolution of the camera justice! At 100% crop, you feel like a voyeur looking in office windows!


Try as we might we somehow couldn't manage to hold still for the rear curtain synch flash


Looking back towards Kangaroo Point


The Nepalese Pagoda that the monks forgot to take down after the World Expo '88

Also went to a photo exhibition that was part of the Brisbane Festival on the weekend past, called "Democratic Republic of Congo: Forgotten War", which was as sad and haunting as centre piece photo taken by a photojournalist attached to Medecins Sans Frontieres of an AIDS sufferer in the Congo. See it if you are in Brisbane


The following Sunday, all the Uni crew turned out in Gyatt park, despite the intermittent weather, to farewell Gio. Little did we realise that rather than a quiet BBQ with engineers, we had a whole host of people enjoying the free Brisfest live Jazz in the Park. It was very enjoyable and thankfully the weather held off. The best part of the afternoon was lobbing heavy steel Bocce balls at maurading young children and watching the looks of horror on their parent's faces! Ahhh, it's the little pleasures in life.

So in all it was sad to get to know Gio as well as we did, knowing full well that she had to go home eventually, but hey at least we all have a place to stay if we ever decided to go to Viareggio, Italy! So I bid a fond farewell to Gio at the airport and promised that I'd call in on her when I'm next in Italy... which happens to be exactly two months to the day! Not many days to learn some openers in Italian really.

Ciao Bella! See you soon!

Gio Blogs II

Update:
More pictures on Picasa Webalbums
North Straddie

Another post for our convivial Italian friend! As I said, I've had a hectic fortnight along with others attempting to show Gio the finer parts of life in Australia.

This began with a day trip with Mark, myself and another exchange student, Maiko (from Japan this time) out to North Stradbroke Island for some ice cream and whale watching, including a walk around the gorges on the tip of North Straddie and a fantastic view from lunch at the Point Lookout pub.


Maiko, Mark and Gio


I'm sure they were explaining something to do with coastal systems, I was too far away with the 70-300mm AF-D


Go you Tamron 90mm Macro! This lens is awesome even wide open, with enough reach so that you don't scare away the wildlife. Looking to get some teleconverters to augment this f2.8 lens!


As cheap as the 70-300 D might be, it still spanks most consumer camera lenses






Straddie's beaches are amongst the best




unflappable

I was trying to practice my panning action shots again, but have concluded that I suck for the moment no matter how smooth I try to be





A tired Gio, enjoying the sun



This long and arduous day was followed by a couple of hours sleep before waking up for the France v Italy FIFA world cup, which I was kicking myself for not bring my camera to.

Claire has match coverage here. And we really saw how red blooded the Italians can be, what with the cursing and cussing from our, as Claire put it, "mild mannered" Tuscan.

Gio was most impressed with Australia's ability to take sides in any sporting contest and root for the team as though they were our own! I sided with the enemy, the Italians, whilst James and Claire barracked for the Frenchies! Here are a few more photos from my crappy mobile(argh! caught out without my tools!)






Viva le faux Eiffel tower! This one even rates a mention in wikipedia! look here under reproductions


Claire and James looking on with bated breath in the closing moments of the match


Despite only a couple of hours sleep nothing can repress a winning smile, especially just after you've rubbed Claire's nose in it!