Yeah I know it’s an MGMT track, but it’s a pretty cruisey, happy tune and that’s how I feel about getting this shot. I haven’t had the chance to post much lately partly due to family illness among other things leaving little time or inspiration for this pursuit. With finally some warmer weather about over the w/e and plenty of beautiful moisture in the air we have had a couple of nights with some spectacular lightning about. Fingers crossed for some more again this evening before we return to boring useless weather again for a little while.

A very impressive line of storms had edged it’s way across the south of the state through the very late afternoon and evening, I had my doubts whether it would make it at strength to my place so I decided to come to the party and meet it at the western end of Phillip Island with the hope that if it did persist I could ‘follow’ (but be in front – a bit of confusing term for those that don’t ‘chase’ perhaps) back towards home for more shots. This line of storms was extremely lightning active, but being a line of about 100km’s in length it made it damn hard to point the camera in the right spot at the right time !  I missed so many bolts it is ridiculous and I am definitely getting one of those new 90mb/s sandisk cards shortly as the image writing time is always something that annoys me with DSLR work. It seriously cost me dozens of potential killer shots this particular night ! The bolts were plentiful and one actually started a bushfire on the eastern side of the mornington peninsula ! This created a glow in that part of the sky adding to the atmosphere.

Anyway here is a sweet CG blasting into Westernport bay !

‘ Electric feel  –  Westernport Bay, Vic. ’

Here is a recent shot from a morning hike up 963 stairs and assorted ladders to get to this spot before dawn. Out of the shots I took I think I actually like this one of the nice yellow toned light coming across the scene more than the pre-dawn images. I also shot a vertical around this time from this spot that I also quite like.

‘ Boolimba bluff  –  Qld central highlands ’

Time for a new post on the blog ! This is a shot from up the Murray river – it’s such a beautiful river and with all the wildlife that abounds in the redgum forests that still line it’s banks in many places. So it’s very frustrating and sad to see and read about how it is in such poor health and declining !

I loved camping here and play of the dappled light rising through the forest on to the lush green floor was something I was really captivated by.

‘ river redgum forest  –  Murray river, Vic. ’

With the build up season in the far north of the country almost upon us I thought I’d put up an image of one of the most studied thunderstorms on the planet. The Tiwi islands 80km offshore of Darwin is home to a unique set of atmospheric conditions that the relatively small area produces thunderstorms with such regularatory that scientists and meteorologists interested in tropical convection can base their studies from Darwin. This storm will develop daily in almost the same spot over the coming months. With almost clockwork development it has even earnt itself a name – Hector. Hector the convector in fact ! These convective updraughts race up to and through the tropopause sometimes reaching astonishing heights of 70,000+ft !  With the highest ever recorded being a staggering 92,000ft !  When you consider most commercial airliners will fly at 33,000-40,000 ft depending on atmospheric conditions… It’s quite mindblowing really.

This image was shot from the Cox Peninsula west of Darwin looking out over the tepid waters of the Beagle Gulf-Timor sea, Hector is boiling away at approximately 50,000ft.

‘ Hector the convector  –  Canon 5D2 ’

There has been some really great waves around of recent. Here’s a couple of shots from a few weeks ago when we had a really nice early spring day in the mid-high 20’s. The swell was up, winds offshore ( a bit too strong ideally) and the weather warmer at last !

These were shot on the 5D2 with pretty crappy old 75-300mm USM lens which annoys me for sharpness ( or lack of ) in particular, so hence I rarely use it and I would really like a nice sharp lens in the 200-400mm range. The shots are basically resized straight from the camera as I didn’t have much motivation for editing them.  I also shot some HD video this day too that I edited up which I may post another day. I really dig it as at one point at one of the breaks there was a Southern Right whale cruising by about 50m from the triple head high barrels – SWEET !

‘ About to cop it on the head  –  Canon 5D2 ’

‘ Picking off a small lefthander  –  Canon 5D2 ’

‘ Slotted or slammed ?  –  Canon 5D2 ’

Ok I’ll admit it, I haven’t had much motivation for editing images to post on here of late.. So the answer is…  dig one up that you never posted ! Given that it’s a wet cold’ish day, I feel this shot fits the bill today !

This shot is from Mt Stirling a few months ago, and like thousands of others got lost in either my hard drives or film files. It’s great to revisit your work at a later date. Sometimes when the work is fresh you have more emotional attachment with the trip, experiences or perhaps a couple of shots that you think are crackers. Consequently you may disregard or downplay the quality of some of your other images from that shoot or trip. Recently I was looking for a particular image for printing and I stumbled upon a whole heap of shots that I like, but they have never seen the light of day.

‘ Moody mountain road  –  Mt Stirling ’

Also new on the market is the Canon EOS 7D… basically it appears to be the big brother replacement of the 50D with a lot of new features and being 18MP.

Check out this really cool short film that has being shot with it;  Perya (Town fair) by Jason Magbanua.

enjoy  

Hey everyone,

It now seems that a lot of us now have the 5D2 which is a great camera no doubt. If any of you have played around much with the movie mode then you would know it’s got some limitations to control. Canon recently released a firmware upgrade to resolve a few of these ( firmware update version 1.1.0),  which is great, I recently installed it but have yet the opportunity to experiment much with it. It now seems there is another impressive update for all of you guys that love the movie making feature of this spectacular camera. By a firm called Magic Lantern – check it out for your own curiousity and if anyone updates to it I would love to know your thoughts.

MagicLantern 5D2 firmware update

cheers,

t   (-:

Well having not traveled north this year I’m having some serous withdrawls.. I really want to be back in some of those outback-desert or far northern tropical regions again… those landscapes and colours are just so appealing in all their rugged and harsh glory!  So with this hankering having to wait a bit longer still,  I thought that I would go through some shots from last year in particular looking at those elements that I yearn. I still have plenty that are unscanned or scanned and unprocessed still. So I’m not sure if anyone’s seen this before or not, but regardless here it is basically no adjustments, just a sharpen and a little clean up.

‘ Western Macdonnell Ranges  –  Fuji G617, Velvia 50 ’

The Otway ranges to the west of Melbourne is packed with majestic cool temperate rainforests that have some truly picturesque waterfalls. With rainfall deficiencies over recent years it’s required a bit more planning (or luck) than previously to see these spots with decent flows like this.

‘ Hopetoun Falls  –  Otway Ranges ’