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The Tessellated Pavement, Tasmania

IMG_8241It’s taken me a while but last night the weather was favorable and I managed to finally get a reasonable Aurora over the ‘Pans’ at Eaglehawk neck. As an added bonus I also scored a little airglow as well, seen here as the green glow to the left of the picture 🙂

For these shots I used an ND Grad filter to darken the sky allowing more exposure in the foreground without overexposing the glow of the Aurora.

“The most well known example of a tessellated pavement is the Tessellated Pavement that is found at Lufra, Eaglehawk Neck on the Tasman Peninsula of Tasmania. This tessellated pavement consists of a marine platform on the shore of Pirates Bay, Tasmania. This example consists of two types of formations: a pan formation and a loaf formation.

IMG_8229The pan formation is a series of concave depressions in the rock that typically forms beyond the edge of the seashore. This part of the pavement dries out more at low tide than the portion abutting the seashore, allowing salt crystals to develop further; the surface of the “pans” therefore erodes more quickly than the joints, resulting in increasing concavity.

The loaf formations occur on the parts of the pavement closer to the seashore, which are immersed in water for longer periods of time. These parts of the pavement do not dry out so much, reducing the level of salt crystallization. Water, carrying abrasive sand, is typically channeled through the joints, causing them to erode faster than the rest of the pavement, leaving loaf-like structures protruding.”

-WikiPedia.

“Someones up late”.

Iron Pot AuroraHad one of those nights last night where I could just not sleep, so I decided to head out and see if I could get a nice shot on a beach where I recalled someone had built a makeshift stick “hut”.

The beach faced north, so I knew if the Aurora Australis was active I’d have to do at least a 200 degree panorama to get it all in. In the end it was only four shots with my 16-35 lens.

I have titled it “Someones up late”.

Shot shows the Iron Pot lighthouse at the mouth of the Derwent River in Storm Bay with Bruny Island to the right (Tasmania). Pictured to the left is a single shot from the same location a little further down the beach.

Oblivious to the lights.

IMG_7875When your out shooting late at night you have a lot of time for thinking during exposures and between shots, especially if your by yourself. I often think of all those people at home, watching TV, or asleep in their beds, oblivious to what is going on around then, and the silent lights that weave across the night sky above them.

I think the mood in this shot sums up how I often think of those people. They are inside, working away or watching some program on TV. Meanwhile outside the lights are dancing in the sky and the stars are shining brightly on a perfectly clear and moonless night.

The picture was taken in Mortimer Bay (Tasmania). The photograph to the right was taken only a stones throw from the boat shed when the Aurora was a little more active.

Fossil Cove (Tinderbox, Tasmania)

Fossil Cove - TasmaniaI have lived in Tasmania all of my life, and surprisingly this is the first time I have visited Fossil Cove. I think it’s one of those places that photographers know about, but keep it a secret. So, it was not me who told you about it….

For this location you really have to check the tides as well as the weather to ensure your going to be able to walk under the arch to be able to shoot all those fantastic rock layers. Of course you can always get your feet wet, which I don’t mind.

Fossil Cove is not far from Hobart, and it’s a very nice location. I’m sure I will visit again soon, maybe take the family.

The Aurora Australis

Aurora Australis from Mortimer Bay
Aurora Australis from Mortimer Bay

It has been while since Hobart has seen a good strong Aurora. Yesterday the numbers were looking good all day, see: ozcreations.biz, and sure enough come dark the green and red was clearly visible to the naked eye.

From about 8:30 to 11:30 I snapped a few shots, and a few panorama stitches. I will upload some more to flickr as well.

If you would like to know more about the Aurora Australis, why not join the Facebook Page?

:Update: I returned to this location the other night, and while the gum still stands it has lost the main branch shown in this shot. It’s a shame as I would have liked to shot this tree again with a stronger aurora.

The Hazards

Just a quick share of the Hazards Mt Range, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania. (Mt Parsons, Mt Baudin, Mt Dove, Mt Amos & Mt Mayson).

This shot was taken from Coles Bay. It was a fairly uneventful sunset, and it had been cloudy and raining all day. It did manage to clear out for just a few hours when I took this picture. I would have really liked to have used a 10 stop filter, but the 14mm lens I was using is hooded, and has no front thread 🙁

Night Focus, Easy As….

Okay so we have all sat in the picture theater and thought “Focus FOCUS”, and maybe recently you started to shoot at night only to find your camera was not up to the task.

“Yer, my camera won’t focus, so how do you focus to infinity at night?”

Most cameras are not designed to focus in extreme low light, and will require manual intervention, switch the lens from Auto to Manual focus mode.

“Ok, so my lens is now in manual mode and I set the focus to infinity but it’s still blurry?”

This is normally the case as the infinity mark is almost never perfect, think of it like the pirate code, that is more a “guide”.

“You mean I can’t focus at all at night?”

There are a number of ways to get perfect focus in the dark, here are the 2 easiest.

1. If your camera supports live view use it. Set you lens to manual focus, and focus to infinity, then using live view and zoom (normally 10x) you should be able to locate a distant light on the horizon or bright star you can adjust the focus on to get it perfect. This will require some practice and stars or faint objects may only work on better / later model cameras and lens with larger apertures like f2.8 and lower.

2. If your camera does not have live view then during the DAY have your camera focus on a distant object in auto focus mode (something on the horizon), then looking at your lens note where the focus mark is, it should be near infinity, but it probably wont be exactly on it. Take note of the location, or place some masking tape next to the mark and mark it with pen so you can manually move the focus back to this spot later. Repeat this a few times to confirm the mark. Now at night set your lens to manual focus and move the focus to your recorded mark. This method is not as good as the one above as lenses have a little bit of “play” or tolerance, but it should be more than good enough for infinity focus.

There you have it two ways to get perfect focus in the dark. – Cheers.

Aurora Australis – Storm.

South Arm Beach by Brendan Davey
South Arm Beach, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

Tasmania, and Southern Victoria witnessed a fantastic Aurora last night and I managed to shot quite a number of great shots.

The Aurora was quite visible with the naked eye, and it was very easy to see the ribbons, and at one stage they were so bright they were showing clearly in live view on my camera. WOW.

Hopefully we will continue to see more over the coming months.

Morning Colours

Morning Colours by BrendanDavey
Morning Colours, a photo by Brendan Davey on Flickr.

A shot from roaches beach. I really liked the colours, and wanted them to be the main focus, without people looking at the finer detail. Sometimes it is nothing more than the combination of colours that make the difference.

I’m considering printing this on canvas at about 800mm x 800mm for submission into a local art competition. The original picture can be seen in recent posts.

Please contact me if you would like to purchase this print. Printed and professionally stretched price is $995.00 (800mm x 800mm), with either white border or complete image wrap. For further details on printing, please check the portfolio age.