Thrillmere

New Toys

Luke — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 13:18:15 +0000

After thinking about buying a macro lens, I decided to try a really cheap option first: extension tubes! I ordered a set of 3 tubes for about $10 on eBay. They actually work really well with my 50mm f/1.8 lens. Here are the tubes…

Which allowed me to take a nice macro shot of my other new toy… a new Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens! I’ve decided to get rid of the 28mm f/2.8 lens and use this instead. It’s only a DX lens so it won’t work on a full frame camera (if I were ever to upgrade), but the wider aperture really makes a difference in low-light situations.

Another shiny gold box to add to the collection.

It just so happened that I had my camera and the new 35mm lens at work today, when I was asked by Wil from Neat Espresso to take a few food photos for their menu. Here’s an example shot with the new lens. Not too bad for a $300 piece of kit, though I have noticed a bit of colour fringing at f/1.8 which is common for wide lenses.

Here are a couple more shots taken with the new lens. Hopefully Wil from Neat Espresso doesn’t mind me putting them up

Riverfire 2010

Luke — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:54:39 +0000

Every year as part of the Brisbane Festival, the city puts on a fireworks show called “Riverfire”. Traditionally, the RAAF F-111s have done the “dump and burn” as part of the show, but with the jets being retired at the end of this year it was the last chance to see this happen. So Camille and I decided to brave the throng to get some photos. In fact, we arrived seven hours before the fireworks show only to find that plenty of other photographers had the same idea. Nevertheless we found a decent vantage point and here are the results. Not bad photos, but I don’t know if it was worth the wait (and the sunburn).

I should really update this thing…

Luke — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:42:23 +0000

Wellington Point – Take 2

Luke — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 13:20:04 +0000

Today I had planned to head up to Montville/Maleny to have lunch and go for a little bushwalk, but by the time we woke up and got ready it was already lunch time. Not wanting to waste the day, and with a little time up our sleeves, we decided to head over to Wellington Point to take some sunset photos. The clouds were quite interesting, and the sunset turned out to be quite a sight! It’s a shame I got carried away taking shots of the pelican, and missed half of the great colours in the sky.

Sydney Weekend

Luke — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:18:04 +0000

On the weekend, Camille and I headed down to Sydney for some R&R. Instead of writing a blog post, here are just a few of the photos I took (because I’m lazy).

Wellington Point

Luke — Sun, 30 May 2010 11:12:44 +0000

Camille and I have been wanting to head out to Wellington Point for a while now to take some photos. I haven’t been out that way for years, so I decided to do a bit of recon this afternoon in case we decide to head out before the sun comes up some day. Don’t want to be trying to find a spot when you can’t see anything! I had assumed that being on the coast, I would need to get up for sunrise shots, but it turns out that the sunset shots are quite nice anyway. It was a good chance to try the new grad filters I bought at work

Friendly visitors

Luke — Sun, 23 May 2010 12:56:43 +0000

As Camille and I were heading out to dinner with her relatives, I noticed a rustling coming from the tree next to our stairs. It turned out to be two possums (a big one and a little one) feasting on the berries in the tree. We were already running a bit late, and I only had my 50mm lens on the camera, but I just had to take some photos of the cute little critters. Surprisingly they didn’t even run away – they just kept eating! I decided I would only take my prime lenses to dinner, as they needed a good workout (I haven’t used them for quite a while!). The following photos were either taken with my 50mm f/1.8 or my 28mm f/2.8 lenses at ISO 800/1000. A little bit of noise in the photos at such high ISO, but nothing Lightroom 3 couldn’t fix up

The last photo was actually taken with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens.

Green Heart Fair

Luke — Sun, 16 May 2010 04:33:54 +0000

Brisbane City Council hosted the Green Heart Fair up the road today, so I decided to head down and check it out. I was surprised to find the place absolutely packed! Plenty of good photo opportunities, including Lord Mayor Campbell Newman riding a Segway Click through for more photos, and check the rest out on Flickr.

Buddha’s Birthday

Luke — Sun, 02 May 2010 13:21:15 +0000

According to Google, Buddha’s birthday is December 6, 1970. According to the organisers of the Buddha Birth Day Festival 2010, it was today. Camille and I went to take some photos of the fireworks. It was my first attempt at fireworks photos, and I think they turned out quite well. The fireworks themselves weren’t anywhere near as big as the New Year displays (they only used one barge instead of three), but still stunning nonetheless.

The festival provided plenty of great Asian food and drink, along with the fireworks and some great bands playing for the crowd. I wouldn’t mind going next year to check out some of the other activities. Click on the photo above to see the rest.

Stadium Drift

Luke — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 07:03:27 +0000

Well… it’s been a long time since last update. I’ve been getting very slack, including not taking many photos. In fact, I haven’t really taken photos since I got back from New Zealand in February! I finally set a date to take some photos with Dan, so we headed down to the Gold Coast for our first attempt at motorsport photography at Stadium Drift. It was a fairly quiet event which meant we were able to get nice and close to the action and get a few shots before it turned dark. So, without further ado, here are some of my photos (click through for more).