My boy the sheep and a sunset

Sunset on Christmas night. DH bought me a new tripod so I had to try it out. I love it.











A quick snap from the Kinder Christmas play. Chris made a very cute sheep.

Lavender

A shot from my garden tonight. It's not real sharp coz of the wind, but I really like the purple against the green.

Dave Surfing

This weekend we went camping with the people from my husband's work. I was too slack to get up at dawn to take photos of the sunrise over the beach, but I did get some photos of one of the guys surfing. It really was too far away for my 70-200 lens, but I wasn't going to wade out into the surf and they weren't coming in any closer. As you can see by the wet suits, even though it's summer down here, the water is still cold.

Mainly Pelicans

These are some photos I took a few days ago. The colour is pretty bad, especially in the first one. Getting the exposure right on the pelicans was trisky - I think some of the white feathers are a bit blown out. The last one is a mother swamp hen (or a Pukeko - a my Kiwi DH would call it) feeding her chick. I deleted the first two coz the colour was just toooooo bad, I'll repost them after I re-edit.

dots, chalk, celophane and a red balloon

I took these for a Canon competition recently. You were sent these four hings in little boxes an you had to take a photo that in some way used each thing (including the boxes, but I couldn't think of one for that). So here are my entries. I didn't even make the finals or anything, but I was pretty happy with them. You can check out the finalists on www.canon.com.au/photo5/

How can something this pretty be a weed?

Down by the river these Pelargoniums are growing wild. I know they are a weed and should probably be removed, but they sure do look pretty.

Changes

Well as you can see I have made a few changes. Now I just have to fix my header photo. I have been so slack up-dating this blog. I have been taking photos, I just haven't had a chance to edit them and up load them. Here's a photo from yesterday. Now daylight saving has started here, it doesn't get dark til after 8:30 pm so we have been going out for walks after dinner. The kids love it and it gives me a chance to take sunset photos, now I just need some spectacular sunsets (and a new tripod and some graduated ND filters).

Portraits

Portraits really aren't my thing, but I have been trying to get better. There are some from last week. In the first two i was trying for the character portrait look. I used my wide angle lens to give the distortion (usually this is the bane of my life, but I thought I would run with it on these shots). The last one is my DD- I was trying to work on catch lights and getting her eyes sharp. All CC welcome and appreciated.

Wild weather

Just a couple of quick pics I took yesterday. The weather here was so bad - gale force winds, rain, hail, thunder. The sea was incredibly rough. I was nearly getting blown over taking these. Thankfully it has been better today - we are off camping on Monday, so fingers crossed for fine weather.

somedays the light is just perfect

iso 100, f 16, ss 1/50

A couple from this weekend

iso 100, f 22, ss 1/2 sec

I took this one tonight with my 17-85 lens. I was aiming for a long shutter speed (misty water), but I don't think it really works as the water is too far away. I think it is probably a bit over processed looking - hummm. I was hoping for a nice sunset, but this is the only colour we got.

iso 100, f 2.8, ss 1/3200

This one was taken yesterday with my new Canon 100mm f2.8 macro. It is interesting using it for portraits - so far i really like it but so different from my 50mm - you have to be so far away. This is my DD - I have know idea where she got those beautiful full lips from - certainly wasn't my side of the family.

iso 100, f 16, ss 1/60

Another one with the macro - I was out stalking bees yesterday. Not sure if I have the patience for this kinda stuff though.

Sticking with what I know best

It seems like so long since I have taken any landscape photos and I have to admit it is nice to get back to it. I have been wanting to take this shot all winter, since the trees turned yellow, but I could never get the timing right. The weather has been lousy here (typical Warrnambool weather, wet and windy), but Saturday was just glorious - warm and sunny. This is the Merri River (I take so many photos of this river) just on the outskirts of town. The yellow trees are Poplars (I think) and the green ones on the river bank are Willows. In the second photo there is a shadow from a light pole on the bridge down the bottom of the photo, kinda in the middle. Do you think it is distracting? I cloned it out of the top one, should I clone it out of the second one also?

Thanks for the comments on my last post. I'm loving the new lens, it certainly is a learning curve though. I'll post some more photos when I get some good ones. Shane is really into bug photos so I think he will use the macro more than I do.

New lens

iso 400, f 18, ss 1.3 sec

Today i got a new lens (it's actually for my DH, but I'm going to steal it sometimes) - Canon 100mm 2.8 macro. Unfortunately I didn't get home from work until late so i only had a chance to play with it inside tonight. This was probably my best photo. Its very noisy and not really sharp, but it certainly is close up. I can't wait til tomorrow afternoon and I can have a play outside. The shallow DOF takes some getting used to. I used my tripod and flash with this. The flower is the centre of a mini Gerbera.

Some flower shots from the weekend

These are some more shots from the garden we went to last weekend. They aren't
great, but it gives you an idea of what the garden was like. It was a macro
photgraphers dream. Now I just need a macro lens. The Canon 100mm 2.8 macro is
the next on my wish list.

And these last two are taken in my garden - these are about the only flowers I have out at the moment

A perfect Day

Today was a really great day.


It is Father's Day here today, so Happy Father's Day to my DH. Yes, that is me reflected in his sunglasses.










This morning we went to watch DD play soccer - she is the one in red.









In the park next to the soccer is the dog obedience school, so we watched the cute dogs (this one was my favourite)











Then we went to an open garden at this place. It is a really eclectic garden, lots of succulents and artwork. It really inspired me to do something with my poor sad overgrown garden and the owner gave the kids a plant each so they were happy.







And I took lots of photos.







Perfect Day (and the weather was nice, but a bit cold still).




I would like to say huge thank you to the people that look at my blog yesterday ( and other days) and took the time to leave my some comments and CC. I agree they are a bit dark and too contrasty. Sometimes it's hard to know when to stop :)

A few B&W's. HHCC Please

These certainly aren't technical perfect (or even that good), but i'm kinda going more for atmosphere and feeling rather than technical excellence. They are pretty grainy and the burning is less than subtle. But please let me know what you think. ALL HHCC WELCOME AND APPRECIATED. Thanks. The first one is my kids and second one is my DD's soccer team and the coach.

I love this time of night

I love this time of night when the sky is really dark blue, just before it goes black. I went down to the beach tonight to take some photos of the town lights reflecting on the bay, but I was too early and the sky was just pale bluey grey. This is the last photo I took, facing the other way (out to sea). I should have been more patient and stayed and took some more facing town - oh well next time.

iso 400, f 11, 13 sec

Lunar eclipse

The lunar eclipse was at about 7-9 pm here so I thought I'd have a go at photographing it. They turned out okay, but not great. I really need a more stable tripod. I used my 70-200 f4L lens.

iso 400, f 5.6, ss 1/800

iso 400, f 5.6, ss 1/800

iso 400, f 4, ss 1.3 sec

iso 800, f 4, ss 2 sec

White faced Heron

Sometimes it just works. I wish my focus was always this sharp.

Soccer practice

So this isn't a very good photo - the focus is all over the place, but i love it anyway. It says so much about my little girl. She really likes playing soccer, even though she isn't very good. She has a ball and gives it 100%. Wherever she is on the field you can hear her laughing and talking.