lunar eclipse :: as it happens

Maybe this a bad ideas, beacuse it is a very cloudy start, but i'll try it anyway. I'll be updated this post as the eclipse happens. But remember the most recent pictures will be at the top, so read the sequence from bottom right and backwards up to top right.

PS I was a bit stressed trying to do this and keep watching for breaks in the clouds, but I think it worked out in the end.

The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Last night was not promising for good eclipse photography tonight, whilst it was beautofull all day it clouded over at sunset. GOOD for a sunset photo, but the moon was hidden and hazy. Setting my camera to all automatic was definitely BAD, even after i switched to MF (manual focus, to stop the lens processing backwards and forwards unable to make up its mind how tho focus, the light metter obviously got fooled by the strong contrast and the bright light flared out. The best I got at 8:35PM was still UGLY (I have better shoots of the detail on the moon, the haziness here is probably atmospheric moisture). I found switched back to manual and low ISO (200 is as low as I can get) with the fstop at f8 and 1/250, and a tripod! I'm expecting to have to change the length to maybe 5 minutes plus during totality

The MrEclipse web site, mentioned in the pre-quel post, scroll two posts down, is still the best reference with hints on photographing the lunar elcipse I have found. Its Table 3, an exposure guide may be very useful for those judging how to change manual settings during the eclipse

Unfinished

for photo friday :: Unfinished

It is one of my homebrews, strawbery blonde, and I am actually finishing it as I post this.

Pre-quel :: lunar eclipse, techniques & hints

MrEclipse.com has a good summary of techniques and hints for lunar eclipse photography, along with some excellent examples. The eclipse takes a while and a big advantage of having a digital camera is you will have plenty of time to review your photos and perhaps make some adjustments, or why not get out tonight and try a few of the techniques discussed in the link above.

Even if you don't plan to photograph it, it is an event your should make an effort to get outside and watch.

Photo Opportunity, lunar eclipse

Want to know what an eclipse of the moon has to do with chickens nibblies and Christopher Columbus? Listen to the latest science show podcast, and find out why it will turn red. In any event the full eclipse, visible across eastern Australia, should be a photographers delight, The eclipse will last from 5:52pm to 11:22pm Eastern Australian Standard Time, 28th August 2007. With the most interesting red phase at 8:37pm. I hope to get a decent 15 minute apart sequence, so I'm hoping it won't be cloudy. (Remember the tripod)

Ten to 8 Tuesday night till about 9:20pm will be the best time to view the lunar eclipse from the east coast of Australia.

There is a fact sheet about the lunar eclipse on the Astronomical Society of Australia wesite

Massive photomosaic panoramas

I am still continuing to push the limits of just how many photos I can stich together. The top photo is just from 8 photos, but the botom photo is a composite of 20 photos. It would seem that autostitch is only limited by available memory, but large images stitching does take time, still the detail is worth it.

lyrebird walk

lyrebird walk, originally uploaded by imageo.

Multiphoto panoramas can be constructed for close subjects. In fact the modified perspective view they give can be charming. This is the photo of a straight section of creek passing under the log I am standing on, to take the photo, yet in the image the creek cuts a sweeping curve. The main difficulties in close up panorama sticking relates to parallax problems (see the broken stump on the left hand side of this image, the image merge has had trouble because adjacent photos can see behind it)

late winter forest floor

a glimpse of sunshine

the dunny

the dunny, originally uploaded by imageo.

Eat your heart out kenny

Recycled for PhotoFriday's topic primative

a momentary redness

PhotoProject :: Doh!

Web-sites that let you upload and have fun with your photos are great, but few and far between. There should be more! I get a technews from the melbourne age (via email) one of the links was called make fun of yourself, which covers a few fun places to enhance your portrait photos. I liked the simpsonize yourself site, but I'm not sure very much actual face recognition software was used in my portrait. If you are keen, there is also a virtual makeover. Both are just a cleverly different way to advertise but still they are fun!

Photo Friday :: Wet

The short life of a foam bubble on wet sand


This is a series of photos "spliced" together with autostitch. They record a bubble from surf foam and froth being blown along the beach. I have used the stitching of images to capture birds in flight but it works particularly well with this bubble as it slips and slides in the wind.

For PhotoFriday's topic Wet

The tea tree flowering myth

There was a myth when I was a boy growing up in beaumaris (just south of melbourne) that the snapper would start biting as sson as the tea tree started to flower. All the boats boobing around out on the bay suggested to me it may just be a truthful bit of folk lore. This weekend I saw the first tea tree bloom of this year and the beach was packed with fisherman. The myth must work for the salmon running as well.

Getting up close

Macro photography was for a long time a very specialised field, but most digital cameras will let you get within 20-30cm and still be in focus. Often these "up close" photos will bring out a strange composition and view that grabs everyones interest. Often you will have a button (or menu selection) that looks like a tulip (or some kind of flower) to set your digital camera into macro mode. In anycase it is probably worth having a look in your camera manual under the topic macro photography

Photo Friday :: Loud

Also taken at Port Douglas, during their reef and rainforest carnivale, for photo friday's topic loud.

Photo Friday :: Vacation

A balmy tropical evening at Port Douglas (far north Queensland)

for Photo Friday, topic Vacation

Digital Cameras on planes

you know the announcement

All electronic devices, including PDAs, laptop computers, handheld games and toys must be switched off during take-off and landing.

Looking back on my photos of my last trip I can see several of the better ones where taken out the plane window, so I got to wondering whether a digital camera is one of those electronic devices that must be turned off during take off and landing. I must admit I assumed it is but as I started to look on the net there is certainly a lot of angst about whether things such as mp3 players and games are really a serious threat, but blogsphere opinion isn't very official is it! I am happy to assume that devices that pump out radio signals may be a problem. So I decided to checked out the restrictions on the qantas website, and maybe all these restriction and particularly ban on using mobile might just be a thing of the past soon.

Well despite a reasonable look around I can not even find mention of a ban on using digital cameras (well assuming they are not fitted with blue tooth wifi or GPS). So happy snapping in the sky.

revisiting a little wonder

I have mentioned Paint.NET before, it began life as a student project as a very simple to use replacement to microsoft paint, but it has grown and blossomed in the open source community




Really the best part of this "little" program is its user interface, designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. That is not to say that it doesn't support layers and have a lot of image manipulations and filters only found in more expensive graphic & photo manipulation suites. Don't expect it to do everything but you might find a plug-in that does exactly what you wanted, or a on-line tutorial to help you follow the right steps. It is being updated all the time. Check it out

Nice spot for a village

More of Melbourne, originally uploaded by imageo.

This is a bit of a play on John Batman's original quote, but Melbourne is still a nice place to come home to.

Getting a good photo from the tiny modern jet airplane is not so easy, there is the light on the concave shape the multiple pans and strong light over the scene, lots of thong to spoil the photo but once and a while the lighting can be just right and you are in the right place at the right time(seconds later the plane turned and i just had sky!)

The Block Arcade (revisited)

The Block Arcade, originally uploaded by imageo.

My photo of the block arcade (above), in central melbounre, has been included in the updated schmap guide to melbourne, under the historic buidlings category.

two panoramas

Inverloch looking towards Point Smyth

Venus Bay Beach

Busy [as green ants in the daintree]

For Photo friday : Topic busy

These green tree ants [Oecophylla smaragdina] are busy at the work of collecting food, and garden maintenance in the daintree forest.

Putting the sky back

Winter in Melbourne can be a great time for photography, when the sun comes out! The low light puts the landscape into strong relief and enriches the colours, but at the same time that makes it a very hard task for your cameras light metering to make the correct decisions about exposure. So you tend to either end up with a nice blue sky and everything else in shadow or foreground detail and a washed out sky. So if you want detail in the foreground detail in your photo, maybe it will be best to get a light reading low (point the camera down a little and half press the button to set both focus and the exposure settings) then lift the camera (without releasing the button) and frame the photo and shoot (press down fully). Then is you want a blue sky (not everyone will bother) you can use on of the graduated tint/filters, such as the one in picassa, which you will find under the effects Tab, to put a light tint over just the sky. Graduated tints help keep the sky lighter near the horizon, and thus the sky stays natural looking.

How precious are your photos?

I like to backup my photos at the end of each month. when I first started taking photo that meant part filling a CD, now I have my new camera and three 1GB cards plus the 256MB card that came with it. That means I can take pretty much a whole DVD worth of photos at once, so now I usually have closer to a DVD, if not several just to backup one months photos.

Am I being paranoid?

NO being a geologist that takes his computer into the field, and wherever I travel, I know computer and hard drives are not the best place to store your precious digital photos. Sooner rather than later something will happened, maybe a disk crash, maybe a software hiccup, a virus or worm, your computer might be stolen or "someone" just accidentally deleting the whole directory, with a mouse click or two.

BUT don't just make one copy make TWO and it is strongly recommended that you store one copy at a different location (it doesn't have to be a fire proof bank vault but it should be a secure location, ie maybe not in grandad's shed)

FINALLY there is a big difference between backups and archive

So I think I'll write a few blog post over this month explain all my backup strategies (learned from decades of experience in electronic data collection not just photography)

Kalista : Feeding the birds

The native birds, specifically parrots, lorikeets, galahs and cockatoos, have learned that they will get a good feed from vistors & picnickers at Grant Reserve, Kalista, deep in Sherbrooke forest. This is really a great spot to get some terrific photos. Remember, it is important to only to feed them wild bird seed mix, not bread, which fortunately you can buy at the nearby kiosk.




Here is the location of Grant Reserve, Kalista (as a yahoo! map link)