Tag: Photography

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Misc Photography

Newsflash: The house across the road is on fire

If you don’t believe me, start by looking at these photos:

I took them a few minutes ago. The first suspicion I had was the smell of burning rubber in my room, but I couldn’t see the source, even looking out my window. It wasn’t until I opened the door to call one of my cats in that I saw embers in the air.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a house fire up close and personal before, but I am proud to say that I kept my head and called 000 before grabbing the camera. Which leads me to my dilemma: is it okay to be posting these photos? I mean, I can see how people might think me heartless and perhaps even indulging in schadenfreude with this act. I’m no journalist, I’m not getting paid for this, so is this benefiting from other people’s tragedy?

Edit: The fire got a brief mention in the news this morning

Categories
Photography

My first timelapse

I’ve been watching The Art of Photography podcast, which recently featured a great piece of software called Sofortbild to tether my Nikon D60 to the Mac. I was able to use it to put together this short sunset timelapse video, which is pretty cool:

Categories
Photography

Star shots

It’s been raining the last couple weeks, so I haven’t had much of a chance to do night time photography. I’ve been hankering to do some astronomical shots, but only just got around to doing them tonight.

All of those were taken on my Nikon D60 at f/8, ISO 100 with a 30 second exposure. I’ve touched them up a little bit, but was very happy with the low level of noise and clarity of the picture.

Unfortunately, 30 seconds is the longest exposure the D60 will do without a remote, which is a shame because I really wanted to try my hand at star trails. Other than driving sales of peripherals, I’m not sure why Nikon decided not to let users set an exposure time in the menu system.

I think I may have to investigate the price of that remote, as well as an AC adaptor.

Categories
Photography

Storm photos

A casual glance through my photo collection will indicate I have this thing for taking photos of the sky. The weather fascinates me like few things because it is so beyond our control, and yet impacts so much of what we do.

Now that I have a good camera, I want to start taking more dynamic shots – especially of storms. While there are plenty of storm chasing photos out there, I’ve only been able to find one tutorial on the photos. I figured you might also find it interesting.

Lightning Photography – Photo Tips.

Guess I’ll have to find a good tripod.

Categories
Photography

Playing with the new D60

I’ve been threatening to buy myself a better camera for ages, and finally did so last week. Since my brother wasn’t using it very much, he offered to sell me his Nikon D60 with two lenses and a bunch of other paraphernalia. I knew it was in good nick, and the price was much better than retail, so I gratefully accepted.

Being back at work, I haven’t had a lot of chance to play around, but I have uploaded a few choice shots.

I’m definitely enjoying the control that having a DSLR gives. I already had a basic understanding of the technical aspects of photography, but it was good to refresh that knowledge. My brother also links regularly to Ken Rockwell‘s site, which is a really good read. He reviews a lot of technology with an eye for cutting through marketing bullshit, but also talks about good composition, technique, and artistry as being the most crucial to making photographs instead of snapshots.

Anyway, look through what I’ve made so far and let me know what you think. I’ll try to take some photos every day so that I understand the camera better.