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Lake Waktipu – New Zealand

Brendan 1 Comment
Queenstown_New_Zealand_Lake_Waktipu
Lake Wakipu - Queenstown, New Zealand.

The weather over the past few days has been wet and cloudy. So rather that go out to shoot I’ve been playing with Lightroom. I’ve spent some time going back over the past few years to find those shots that are not “keepers”, but very close to see if Lightroom can do some magic to get it over the line.

While in New Zealand last year I took some shots of Lake Waktipu ( Queenstown ). The amount of stars visible is amazing, The above shot would have been perfect with less cloud and maybe an ND Grad over the stars with a slightly longer exposure to bring out the lake and mountains. However Lightroom has done a fairly good job to recover some details.

Just 20 mins

Brendan 1 Comment
Ralphs Bay Lauderdale
Ralphs Bay - Towards Mt Wellington - Lauderdale

Allocating time for photography need not be costly. Today I allocated just 20 minutes to go and take some pictures. This shot was taken in Ralphs Bay, just a stones throw from the main road. The sunset was not all that great, but I enjoyed making the most of it.

It was taken with the canon 24-105 IS, because I had no other suitable lens. 2 x hi-tech filters stacked, with an f22 aperture and long 25sec+ exposure, and me, acting as a wind break.

Early Starts

Brendan 2 Comments
Lauderdale Beach Tasmania
Lauderdale Beach Tasmania

Ever had one of those mornings when you could not sleep? Decided to grab the camera and go somewhere local for a few shots?

Well that’s what I did this morning, not much of a sunrise, so I decided to change over to the 50mm f1.4 and shoot some portrait shots of some local pillars on Lauderdale Beach. I really need to get a 58mm to 77mm step up ring so I can use my filters on my 50mm, better exposure in the sky would have been nice. However the washed out sky does work well with the glamor filter in post. I’m hoping to capture the same shot soon with a good sunrise in the background.

Macbook and Dual Displays.

Brendan

Apple Macbook

Mac’s, don’t you just love them, except when Apple sticks their head in the sand and won’t listen to their consumers. What am I going on about I hear you say?

Since 1988 Apple have been supporting dual monitors with their products, it took Microsoft until XP to do the same.  Having the ability to use dual monitors with applications like Photoshop is fantastic, so whats the problem? Apple supports dual monitors right?

Well, Apple have only allowed you to add additional monitors to your primary monitor, or replace your primary monitor with the add on monitor, take the MacBook, a PC designed for portability, I can easily add a monitor supporting HD+ resolution  no problem, I can then use that monitor as my primary monitor, and I don’t even have to use the 13″ built in screen in my Macbook. But what if I want to use 2 monitors? Well that’s easy you may think, you have the 13″ monitor on the Macbook and you can run the external as well. Does it work? Yes, Practical? Hardly.

There is nothing worse than running dual displays on a macbook (period). It’s the worst user experience of any hardware / OS supporting dual screens. Running the 13″ screen next to a 27″ screen is ergonomic hell. Is this really that big a problem? Well a quick Google of “Dual External Monitors on Macbook” gives some insight into just how widespread the problem is.

Solutions? Well the easy solution would be for Apple to support dual external monitor to allow users to use 2 identical monitors externally on a MacBook, after all most other hardware allready supports this, in may require a docking station, but it works. Currently the only solutions I have seen working involves video splitters, the OS still thinks its one large monitor and snapping windows to one screen etc would be a nightmare (IMO).

Apple, listen to what people want, we want dual external monitor support on MacBooks. We don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a top end Macbook Pro’s and be limited to “practically” one screen.

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For those of you interested in geeking around, you have have a look at these “solutions”:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/
http://www.gefen.com/kvm/dproduct.jsp?prod_id=3571

Freycinet Peninsula

Brendan 1 Comment
Mayfield Bay Sunrise - Tasmanian East Coast
Mayfield Bay Sunrise - Tasmanian East Coast

The Mayfield beach coastal reserve is a popular spot for campers on Tasmania’s east coast, run by parks and wildlife you can stay for only a gold coin donation, but be warned there’s no water and only a drop toilet. With an easterly view towards the Freycinet Peninsula the beach captures fantastic sunrises. I’m still deciding if I should add this shot to the shop for purchase or not.

The Boat Shed, East Coast, Tasmania

Brendan

The Abandoned Boat Shed.
The Abandoned Boat Shed.

Over the next few days I wil upload some pictures taken from a short holiday on the east coast of Tasmania. This first shot was taken about 10km south of swansea, this lone boat shed has weathered a few storms I would say….

Every time I drove past this shed in the past I kept on thinking to myself  “I must shoot that, one day…..”. Well don’t put off what you can do today until tomorrow.

If anyone knows of the history of this shed, I’ll love to hear about it.

Taking time to shoot.

Brendan

Recently while away for work I had the pleasure of visiting a few new country’s, and I’d just like to encourage any readers of this Blog to always take the time to incorporate some photography into their trip, not just the tourist shots, but taking time to return to a nice spot or setting aside some time to shoot a particular event or location in detail.

Schedules are always tight when traveling, but I have found some of the better shots I’ve taken while away, like most good shots are the planned ones. Shots where preparation and time has been taken with a clear goal in mind, not just a shot from a moving tour bus.

Take the time, even if your exhausted, looking back you won’t regret it.

Canon 5D mark 2 and 24fps Video.

Brendan 1 Comment

Will Canon leave 24fps in a full frame body to the 1Dm4? well heres my opinion.

If Canon releases a 1dm4 with 24fps and the 7D has it, but the 5D does not…. there are going to be a “lot” of very unhappy people in the cine world……

I can see the sense in making the 1dm4 have extra cool stuff like HD live video out while recording, but denying 24fps to existing users is just plain mean. If Canon want to maintain customer loyalty people need to know when they purchase a Canon product they are going to be looked after. If I knew Canon would add, if possible, any features requested by customers within reason, particularly if it’s going to help sell that product, I’d buy Canon every time.

The way I see it people have already invested in the 5Dm2, with other companies like Nikon pushing into the same market, why give people a reason to switch?. The new D700 will almost certainly shoot video, and I bet it wont be 30fps limited. It’s only common sense to keep their current customers happy, knowing eventually they will buy a new camera, and hopefully Canon. It may be a 1dm5 or a 5dm3, but they will eventually have to purchase a new camera for one reason or another…. Good lenses and equipment hold their value, so don’t think for one minute people wont ditch Canon for the next big thing, and a full frame camera that can shoot 24fps is what people want.

Update:

Rumor has it that Canan will be releasing a new firmware upgrade for the 5dm2 by the end of this year, with support for 24, 25 and 30 fps. Can’t wait to see how the 24fps performs.