As I drove home tonight across the river I noticed a photo op with the moon reflecting off the river. It would have been better if I’d had a tripod and a coat. but this is what I could do hand-held.
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The obligatory panorama.
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Today we went to Ocean Park. Some of us may have enjoyed rides on rollercoasters. Some of us were content to keep our feet on the ground and take pics of the Panda.
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After postponing our trip yesterday because of rain (that cleared by lunch time) we headed off today, not to be deterred by weather, even if there was thunder and lightning in abundance. Suffice to say it was a very wet day that eventually cleared around 5 pm. Perfect timing for the light the night parade and the fireworks.
A couple of shots to share. The dream to visit Disney full-filled – one I never thought would be possible.
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Today was meant to be a visit to Disney Land, alas the weather changed our plans. While others in our party headed to Festival Walk Shopping Mall, I stayed at the Hotel and wandered around the block.
As it was raining it was the ideal opportunity to test the water resistance of my new camera and lens. It certainly didn’t feel right and I sure did get a few looks, especially from others with camera bags slung across their shoulders. So far though, all seems well. Camera and lens both appear to have operated correctly and so far no signs of ‘issues’ – apart from lens fogging initially after leaving the air-conditioned hotel room.
These flowers are growing in a hedge on the corner of a busy road intersection.
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Today started with an amazing sunrise
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I had some free time to myself this afternoon so I headed to a local beach and park area hoping to find something of interest to photograph.
I found some Rosellas hopping around on the grass eating bugs.
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It’s all about learning. It’s all about trial and error. It’s all about doing the best you can.
The first step for me was to learn more about my camera. Yes it works in what I call PHD mode (push here dummy). Olympus are much nicer and call it iAuto. I found an informative video on youtube Ralphs Foto-Bude that opened up so many doors, it demystified some of the menu items and explained where to find some of the settings I knew where there but couldn’t find. This meant that when I attended the Olympus workshop recently I had already played with some of the settings.
Next i’ve been learning to use Lightroom as I might have mentioned once or twice before. My learning is based on included tutorials and a couple of very generous people with youtube channels. One is Terry White and the other is Serge Ramelli. I’m still at the baby step stage. I’m sure a more experienced eye could look at my efforts and make all sorts of suggestions and recommendations. For now, I’m proud of my efforts and I will continue with trying to marry the photo shot with what my eye and brain saw, who knows, one day I might be lucky enough to have the camera, my eye and my brain all see the same thing :). Until then, here is my latest effort with the new dehaze effect in Lightroom.
Before
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After
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While after is not yet perfect, looking at it now I would like to lighten the shadow on the foreground car, that falls into the next lesson I suppose.
The best camera is always the one you have with you, or that’s the saying. So with that thought in mind as I left work yesterday rather than lament a missed shot, I caught what I could on my iPhone, thinking to myself I really should at least have my camera in the car in future.
I thought I would give the iPhone pano a go. Not sure I like it, but the captured shot is better than the missed.
According to the nearby weather station this mornings temperature was -2 and the apparent temp was -6, no wonder my fingers and toes were chilly, but it did make for a heavy frost and ‘cool’ photos.
This was the view from the front door looking towards the sun rise. The joy of being above the fog line is something that I appreciate even more these days when I have my camera in hand.
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This is from the back deck beside our barbecue. We usually lean on this rail and enjoy a cold beverage or two. This morning the beverage of choice would have been hot.
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I particularly liked the way the frost has started to melt on one of our cars.
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Such a pretty little flower in my local embroidery shops courtyard.
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It was a wee bit chilly this morning. Chilly enough that I had on a jumper and coat and was wishing for some gloves. But winter mornings do see some great sunrises.
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Hilltop Dreamer 