[{"content":"As it is now 2023 I decided it was time to again check out this project once more. I knew it had been a while since I last published anything, but I didn\u0026rsquo;t realize just how long it had actually been.\nRather than go through all the effort of trying to write posts for every month that I missed and totally losing motivation to do anything, I thought it would be more fun for me to just find a few of the photos from last year that I really liked, and publish them instead. Much more instant gratification for myself that way.\nJellys \rA floating jellyfish suspended in it’s tank\r1/100 secs. | f/2.5 | 50mm | ISO 6400\r \rOne of many jellys\r1/60 secs. | f/2.5 | 50mm | ISO 5000\r\nEarlier in the year I took a trip to Kelly Tarltons aquarium, and I took along my camera thinking that I would be able to get some neat shots. Sadly these were the only ones that I really liked out of the whole trip.\nAt that time, I only had a Canon 700d, which has very average low light sensitity. I took along my 50mm f/1.8 lens, and even cranking it wide open, I really struggled to get any decent shots. The 700d is (in my opinion) only really usable up to 6400 ISO, and even that is pushing it. In the low light environment, especially for trying to capture fast-moving fish, this proved to be quite a restrictive limit, and so I wasn\u0026rsquo;t left with many usable shots once I got home.\nThe other struggle was the 50mm lens on the 1.6x crop factor body. While that is great for telephoto ranges, for the indoor aquarium it was also quite limiting, as it converts to 80mm full frame equivalent.\nThis eventually motivated me to get a better camera, so I decided to go for a secondhand R6 and wow. The difference is crazy. Next time I go back to the aquarium I hope i\u0026rsquo;ll be able to get some much better shots with that beast.\nI do like these shots though. I could have spent much longer there if there wasn\u0026rsquo;t people behind us waiting for their turn.\nBoat \rAnchored\r1/320 secs. | f/8 | 85mm | ISO 100\r\nThis was taken in the Opononi harbour right in the evening as the sun was going down. There were some cool light rays being produced through the gaps in the clouds that I wanted to try and grab. Because of the difference between the bright parts in the sky, and dark on the boat, this required blending multiple exposures.\nI used this chance to try a HDR panorama. So all the fun of hdr shots, mixing in trying to move in overlapping arcs to allow the final image to merge smoothly.\nLooking back, I think this came out okay, but I wish i\u0026rsquo;d been able to capture more of the detail and contrast in the sky. I could probably edit it a bit more to try and bring that out.\nBirds I could not have a recap of the year without including some bird photos.\n\rOne chonky boi hiding in the branches - Kererū\r1/500 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 1000\r \rA Tui in the middle of his feast\r1/1000 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 800\r\nThese photos were both taken with the R6, and while you can\u0026rsquo;t really see much of a difference, the ease of focusing with the eye-tracking AF really can\u0026rsquo;t be understated. It makes it much, much easier to focus on the birds, even behind the branches such as with the wood pidgeon here.\nIf I could change anything for these, I would try and isolate the wood pidgeon from the branches, instead of having such an overlap, especially over its head and neck. This is pretty challenging to control with wildlife though, so i\u0026rsquo;ll take what I can get. I think it\u0026rsquo;s not terrible overall, and I like the frame apart from that.\nWide-angle astrophotography \rMt Tarawera below the galactic core in the Milky Way\r1954 secs. | f/ | mm | ISO 1600\r\nThis shot was my first real forway into widefield astrophotography using a tracking mount. I took quite a few photos of the milky way, then separately took a few of Mt Tarawera in the foreground. These photos were stacked together to remove the noise and bring out detail, then combined together in photoshop to produce the final image (which is why the EXIF data is messed up in the gallery above)\nI\u0026rsquo;m really happy with this as a first attempt, but looking back I think it needs more work. The stars look slightly out of focus, which is because the 14mm lens I used is manual focus, which is quite tricky to get right through either the viewfinder or using live view on the 700d - the screens are so tiny its difficult to tell. The R6 has a killer manual focus mode that helps tremendously, so this is less of an issue going forward, but still something to be aware of.\nI also should probably have gotten more data for the stars - if i\u0026rsquo;d taken more photos for the stack, it would increase the total integration time, which would give more brightness and detail for the dust in the milky way. The sky also probably needs to be just a bit darker too, but that might have been more of a personal preference thing then vs now.\nDeep sky astrophotography \rHorsehead and Flame nebulas\r secs. | f/ | mm | ISO \r\nThis is my first attempt at the horsehead nebula, though since the flame nebula is closeby, it also makes an appearance. If i\u0026rsquo;m being honest I was quite disappointed with this shot. I spent quite a while aligning my tracker and then spent a few hours taking shot after shot to stack together. I figured with a total integration time of about an hour, it should be plenty to get a lot of detail, like you can with the orion nebula.\nSadly, this does not seem to be the case. The horsehead nebula is smaller and dimmer than orion, and I just don\u0026rsquo;t have enough data here for a good exposure. While you can clearly make out both nebulas, they are very faint and the image is still quite noisey. To make it even worse, there seems to be several lines of hot pixel that you can see when you zoom in. I\u0026rsquo;m not quite sure why those are present here and not in the photo of orion, but because I didn\u0026rsquo;t take any compensation dark frames, there\u0026rsquo;s no way I can correct for it easily which is a big bummer.\nThis frame shows off the one downside of the R6 compared to a crop sensor, which is the lack of crop factor. A 400mm lens such as was used here is equivalent to a 640mm lens on a crop factor, which gives you quite a bit of extra zoom for more detail. There isn\u0026rsquo;t a lot I can do about this without geting a telescope though, sadly.\nI\u0026rsquo;ll chalk this one up as a good learning experience, and next time I go out hopefully i\u0026rsquo;ll be able to make a more successful attempt.\n\rOrion nebula first attempt\r30 secs. | f/5 | 200mm | ISO 1600\r \rOrion nebula second attempt\r secs. | f/ | mm | ISO \r\nThis shot I was much happier with. The first photo is my first attempt at orion. As you can see, the center is blown out, with all the detail inside being lost, as well as a small amount motion blur on the stars, probably because the tracker wasn\u0026rsquo;t aligned properly.\nIn the second shot, I managed to fix these issues. The stars are crisp pinpricks, with no trailing from motion blur and the center of the nebula is clearly visible with all the extra detail in there on display.\nTo do this, I attempted HDR for the stack, where I took some extra photos at shorted shutter speeds to expose correctly for the center. This allowed me to capture the detail inside and combine it with the dimmer outer edge successfully to make the final image where both levels are brightness are visible.\nFor the next attempt, i\u0026rsquo;d like to further increase the total integration time to really get some good data for the much dimmer outer edge, which you can faintly see on the right side in a loop.\nBut overall, i\u0026rsquo;m really happy with this shot. I can\u0026rsquo;t wait for the third attempt.\nAnd well, there you have it. My some of my favourite shots that I took this year. I feel like this year I really grew in experience as I got more used to my gear, and got some needed upgrades. With any luck I can continue to learn on the same trajectory this coming year, and hopefully my recap this time next year will be even better!\n","date":"2023-01-22T02:48:55.575Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/23/22-jan/jelly1_hu0a9d9eb00471990a07f01372d7ac0d19_1097293_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/23/22-jan/","title":"2022 Retrospective"},{"content":"Birds birds birds. Lotta birds this month, plus I finally got a chance to try some more astrophotography.\nGulls These photos were the result of my father and I heading out to the lake. We are both big fans of the work of a friend of ours, Tony. Since the day was overcast, we decided to try and emulate his style - pushing the exposure of the background to make it white, while exposing the bird correctly.\n\rGull 1\r1/2000 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 400\r \rGull 2\r1/2000 secs. | f/5 | 300mm | ISO 400\r \rGull 3\r1/2000 secs. | f/5 | 300mm | ISO 400\r\nAs you can see, the first two missed the mark. White birds on a white background are tricky to expose properly while keeping enough contrast to see the bird. I think the first one could probably be corrected with a little more attention in photoshop - a layer mask for the bird, then brighening the background. Maybe a project for a rainy day.\nThe third one nailed what we were looking for in terms of exposure. The bird is exposed correctly with the background being pushed into white. Because the bird is dark, the contrast is nice also. The pose is a bit stilted however. We really just needed to take more shots and stay out for longer, but the weather was pretty awful.\nThese show a good start to perfecting emulating this style though.\n\rA duck? I think it’s a duck…\r1/1250 secs. | f/5 | 300mm | ISO 400\r\nAnother example of the white background style. This one definitely needs some photoshop to finish it up to remove the distracting background elements. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure why they look skewed as well\nWhite whales \rBoth of the species in the same place\r1/160 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 1000\r\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been hunting for a decent photo for these guys for months. During the \u0026lsquo;21 lockdown I would go out looking for them most evenings, and maybe if I was lucky I would see them in a distant tree, mocking me from the distance. I really tried hard to get a decent shot, but I was limited by my 135mm lens. While there\u0026rsquo;s nothing wrong with the lens itself, it just didn\u0026rsquo;t have the reach to get these tiny little fellas.\nOf course, now I have a nice, big, chunky 100-400mm I can finally get them. On this day, the stars aligned and both the Kingfisher and Rosellas were sitting together in the same place.\n\rRosella\r1/160 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 1000\r \rKingfisher\r1/160 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 1000\r\nFairly happy with these, though I wish I had been able to sneak a little closer and the light had been better. Even at ISO 10000, my camera starts struggling with the noise a little bit. It\u0026rsquo;s workable, but not ideal. I\u0026rsquo;m gonna keep my eyes open for another oppourtunity to bag a great shot of these guys\nOrion \rThe Orion nebula, in the Orion constellation\r secs. | f/ | mm | ISO \r\nI\u0026rsquo;ve been keen to try some more astrophotography for a while, and so while the weather was good I gave it another shot. On this night, I tried to use 3 different lens to get a feel for the characteristics of each. Since these were shot without a tracking mount, the different focal lengths meant that I could only keep the shutter open for different amounts of time before the stars start to blur in the image\n   Focal Length + aperture Shutter speed     14mm f/2.8 ~15s   50mm f/1.8 ~3s   100mm f/4.5 ~2s    As you can see, the longer the focal length, the shorter the exposure time. The above photo was taken at 50mm, as I felt it turned out the best. 14mm didn\u0026rsquo;t give enough detail of the nebula, while 100mm just didn\u0026rsquo;t have enough exposure to see anything.\nOf course, a three second exposure isn\u0026rsquo;t going to give you enough light to see anything clearly, even if you ramped up the ISO. To get around this, I stacked the image. I took 100 three second exposures, and combined them (with some extra calibration frames) to get the final image. This gave me a final exposure time of about 5m in total and honestly, even this isn\u0026rsquo;t really enough. There are more details to the nebula that you can start to see with more exposure time. Next time i\u0026rsquo;d like to try for an hours worth of exposure and see what it looks like. I\u0026rsquo;d also like to try more with the 100+mm range, although with the much smaller aperture it will probably take even longer to get enough light.\nClosing thoughts I finally got a decent photo of the flightly birds, and I made my first acceptable astro frame. Onwards and upwards!\n","date":"2022-04-01T00:04:37.011Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/22-feb-favourites/orion_hu91502c0659c98416bce5671b201e5314_1208295_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/22-feb-favourites/","title":"February Favourites"},{"content":"New year, same old me. Once again I have neglected this page for months and am doing catch up. One of these days i\u0026rsquo;ll remember to keep up. A lot of the photos i took in january ended up being portraits, or photos that no one apart from me will care about, so i\u0026rsquo;m not going to post them here.\nLake birds \rA shag drying it’s wings in the sun\r1/400 secs. | f/5 | 241mm | ISO 100\r \rA heron flying away. At least I think its a heron…\r1/4000 secs. | f/5.6 | 300mm | ISO 800\r\nThese ones came from an expedition to the local lake to try out the new zoom lens. We arrived fairly late in the day, so we couldn\u0026rsquo;t stay for too long before we started losing the light, but we did manage to get these two.\nI think the exposure on the Heron(?) was a little underdone, but I like the composure overall.\nSomething i\u0026rsquo;m really struggling with for the bird photos, particularily when they\u0026rsquo;re in flight is the autofocus. I\u0026rsquo;ve been using point AF since last year when I found autoselect AF was causing me to miss tons of shots from selecting the wrong point. This has been working well for me in combo with back button focus which allows a nice focus-recompose-shoot workflow without the auto selection choosing the wrong point. However, when trying to focus a single point on a moving bird, it really doesn\u0026rsquo;t work very well.\nI think partially it\u0026rsquo;s the camera, as my camera only has like 12 af zones and isn\u0026rsquo;t the fastest focuser. I will give autoselect AF a go and see if that can help.\nChicken \rWho you calling chicken?\r1/320 secs. | f/5.6 | 200mm | ISO 200\r\nNothing spectacular here, but I liked the contrast that the chicken provides with the background. S/he looks very agressive and fierce.\nOne more sunset silhouettes \rA pano sillhouette\r1/125 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 200\r\nThis one was kinda cool. I panned up and merged a few photos into a vertical pano to make a larger photo from the scene while excluding the houses in the foreground. I like how it turned out with the sharp trees.\nIn the forest \rRope bridge in the forest\r1/100 secs. | f/2.2 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nThis one is one that turned out differently from what i had pictured. I was going for something a little more\u0026hellip; \u0026lsquo;ethereal\u0026rsquo;. I think it needs lower, warmer light, and more particles in the air to get those slanting sunbeams. I like the crop and the layout, but the light just wasn\u0026rsquo;t there. Maybe waiting until golden hour would have done it. That and a smoke machine :D\nClosing thoughts Still some issues with focus, but I feel this is gradually improving as I get more used to managing all the parts of taking a photo.\n","date":"2022-04-01T00:04:37.011Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/22-january-favourites/shag_hud3eadf0d66d566d488b0e6161e19110c_1008233_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/22-january-favourites/","title":"January Favourites"},{"content":"Finally made it to the end of the year! The 2021 lockdown in Auckland finally ended on the 15th, which meant that we could finally leave the city and head down to Rotorua to see my parents for Christmas. What a long time coming that was. While the lockdown was an interesting change of pace, and allowed me to do some things that I wouldn\u0026rsquo;t normally have had the chance to, after 3 months it really felt like it was dragging on and nerves were starting to fray.\nThis month I also got a new lens! A Canon 100-400 II 4.5-5.6L. This thing is crazy, the stabilizer is amazing even at full zoom, and the resolution is so good. This is my first L lens, and it makes my other lenses seem cheap and plasticky in comparison. The whole thing feels really solid and well made. Sadly I missed the Tui season, but I\u0026rsquo;m eagerly awaiting it this year. There\u0026rsquo;s a sneaky kingfisher out at my girlfriend\u0026rsquo;s place that I\u0026rsquo;d love to get a good snap of in the meantime.\nSince I spent half of this month in Rotorua, most of these photos come from down there. Most of these are actually just sillhouettes.\nI was really looking forward to trying out some more astrophotography, but I ended up just running out of time due to all the related christmas activities. But there\u0026rsquo;s always another chance\nBlue Lake \rBlurry sticks\r1/3200 secs. | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nI included this one because it frustrated me when I got home and realized that I had missed the focus\u0026hellip; I used to wide an aperture here, which meant the focal plane didn\u0026rsquo;t cover all three sticks. Or possibly the focal point was just a bit too far. I\u0026rsquo;m not really sure if there\u0026rsquo;s a good way around this without checking each shot at full zoom on the camera.\nOne thing I have found that helps a bit is Magic Lantern. This is an enhancement to the default Canon camera firmware, which allows you to do all sorts of things like adding zebra stripes for overexposure. ML has a handy setting that adds little red dots to the focus point of the image in review, so you can see fairly well which points of the photo were actually sharp. It didn\u0026rsquo;t help too much here, but I think it has made an improvement in my focusing since you can very quickly see if the shot you just took nailed it or missed.\n\r80s retro? A not so secret spot\r1/400 secs. | f/5.6 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nThis very heavily edited, since I was going for a retro kind of look. Like something you would find in the attic from 30 years ago. Did it succeed in that? I\u0026rsquo;m not sure, but I like the look of it. Maybe it could be slightly brighter and more bloomy.\nThis photo is actually a 2 row pano. Partially because I wanted to try using 2 row panos, and partially because I only had my 50mm lens with me and that was the only way to get the frame at that distance. I think it actually came out pretty well considering, though you can definitely see some weird stitching artifacts if you look closely. I think this photo would have worked better with a higher aperture as well, since I feel that including the background as part of the focus would make the whole thing more cohesive and tell a better story.\nSomething I need to work on more is visualising how I want the blur to come out. I\u0026rsquo;ve noticed I have a tendency to default to a larger aperture than is always required. Something for me to think about.\nSunset silhouettes I didn\u0026rsquo;t have too much of a chance to use the new lens for much, but I found I could get some interesting shots of the sunset standing in my mum\u0026rsquo;s front door. Using a long telephoto lens gives you a chance to line up some nice stacked layers when going for a sunset, instead of just getting the sky.\n\rTree in a roof\r1/640 secs. | f/5.6 | 400mm | ISO 1250\r \rOne drunk tree\r1/640 secs. | f/8 | 360mm | ISO 250\r\nThese two are examples of that. I like the direction of these, but I think they probably need more editing to be best. The left one I would try and smooth the roof ridges so it looks more like the ground instead of a roof, and reduce the shadows so the bottom bit is fully dark instead of looking underexposed. The right one I would match the colour of the right side vegetation that was in front of the treeline to make it blend in.\nThe same applies for this one.\n\rOne drunk tree - expanded\r1/640 secs. | f/8 | 400mm | ISO 200\r\n\rCandy Strand\r1/200 secs. | f/5 | 135mm | ISO 200\r\nThis one is the same - the bottom edge should be darkened to blend in with the treeline, as well as darkening the trees a little bit to pure black. Other than that, i\u0026rsquo;m not sure what else I would change - I really like the colour and composition.\nClosing thoughts Focus issues and aperture values are something that I still need to watch, though I feel like I am getting better at it. I still have a lot to learn with using longer focal lengths - composition and usage, but also mundane stuff like storage and carrying it, that thing is a beast.\n","date":"2022-01-10T00:04:37.011Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-december-favourites/sil3_huf136861bbd6f788b4630e866ba093328_1280413_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-december-favourites/","title":"December Favourites"},{"content":"Entering Novemember we were coming up on 3 months of lockdown. Being stuck in one place was starting to get a bit frustrating, and I took very few photos this month.\nAnimals \rCat\r1/80 secs. | f/2.2 | 50mm | ISO 2000\r \rHorse\r1/1000 secs. | f/2.2 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nNeither of these two are super amazing, but I like the cat one, it shows her personality. She\u0026rsquo;s a shy one, so her half hiding behind the blanket is very normal. Probably should have had a little bit more space at the bottom of the frame though.\nThe horse one I just liked the light.\nStyle icon \rIgnore the glasses\r1/320 secs. | f/ | mm | ISO 100\r\nThis shot is from a beach walk with my girlfriend. I had a bit of fun with the editing as you can see. I was trying to go for a nostalgic film look with the grain and colours.\nClosing thoughts This was a very sparse month. Once the lockdown ends, I get back more into the swing of things\n","date":"2022-01-09T23:40:00.014Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-nov-favourites/cat_hu95a6fa94857fd325b1459bb1284dae17_1172449_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-nov-favourites/","title":"November Favourites"},{"content":"October was a little thin on the photos front. The weather wasn\u0026rsquo;t cooperative at all, and with the lockdown still in place, I couldn\u0026rsquo;t go to many places outside the farm. On the farm itself, I spent a long time chasing birds trying to get some nice shots of them. Sadly I really struggled to get close enough to get anything in good detail before the bird would fly away. This made me decide to look for a larger zoom lens (which I did end up getting, although it didn\u0026rsquo;t arrive until christmas).\nSo I ended up taking more shots of flowers and other things than birds, though not for lack of trying.\nFlower shots \rBee in the blossoms\r1/250 secs. | f/8 | 135mm | ISO 125\r \rBee on a flower\r1/320 secs. | f/8 | 135mm | ISO 100\r\nI spent quite a while getting used to taking photos at such a close range. I found the bees quite tricky to catch, as they are so small and fast it can be difficult to focus on them properly. On top of that, I also struggled to get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze their wings while keeping a high enough aperture to keep all of the bee\u0026rsquo;s body in focus. I found that even at f/5.6 sections of the bee would be out of focus. Going up to f/8 helped with this, although this then lowered the shutter speed a bit.\nI probably could have pushed the ISO here to get a faster shutter which would have meant I had to rely less on the bees staying still for a good frame. That would have given me more usable frames overall, and might have let me get some shots of them in mid-flight. Not sure if my camera\u0026rsquo;s focus tracking would have allowed for that though :D\nOn the post processing side, I learned a bit about masking through trying to bring out the yellow of the bees, without affecting the green of the plants in the background. I\u0026rsquo;m fairly happy with how it worked, and now I know much more about how to tweak the colour/exposure etc of a subject separately from the background.\nAnimals My most available subject while the weather was average was my girlfriend\u0026rsquo;s cat, Savage. He\u0026rsquo;s a handsome boy.\n\rSavage in the window\r1/125 secs. | f/5.6 | 85mm | ISO 800\r \rSavvy on the bed\r1/60 secs. | f/5 | 50mm | ISO 1250\r\nNeither of these are very impressive, but I love how (to me) they capture the essence of cats - both the sitting there watching everything going on, and the lazy lassitude of a sleepy cat.\n\rYet another bird\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nI think this one needs more post processing. Maybe some more contrast, something to make the bird stand out more from the background. Currently its a little bland and not very distinct. I\u0026rsquo;m not really sure what to do to fix it though.\n\rClose up with Jet\r1/400 secs. | f/2.2 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nThis is a bit of a foray into portraits. I really liked how this shows the attention of the dog, mixed with his closeness to his owner. Technically, I also quite like how the blur works. It\u0026rsquo;s really important to get the eyes in focus for a portrait, which is the case here, although I think I probably should have gone for a slightly higher aperture to get more of his head in focus - though this works too. This session + a few others really showed me the difference in sharpness between the fixed prime 50mm lens and the zoom lens at 50mm. While its not so noticable here, when you zoom right in and compare the two lens, you can really see a difference in sharpness. The edges are just better defined on the prime. Pretty great for how cheap it is.\nClosing thoughts Nothing too groundbreaking happened this month, just a small improvement in post processing techniques.\n","date":"2021-12-31T22:44:10.91Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-october-favourites/main_hu2270a1afc3e8e6a8aa8bd80082f451b4_854991_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-october-favourites/","title":"October Favourites"},{"content":"Remember last month when I said I took a lot of bird photos? I wasn\u0026rsquo;t kidding. I like to think I improved a little bit from the previous month and I generally like these photos more. So here you are, lockdown birdpocalypse - part 2.\nFlower shots I\u0026rsquo;ll get these out of the way first.\n\rNot sure what kind of tree this is\r1/640 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 100\r \rLooking up at the blossoms\r1/2500 secs. | f/5.6 | 59mm | ISO 800\r\nI don\u0026rsquo;t have too much to say about these. I kinda like them, but they aren\u0026rsquo;t super interesting. I\u0026rsquo;m not really sure what I could to improve them as is. Maybe they need a better composition.\nAnd back to birds \rTui and Kowhai\r1/800 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 100\r\nThis is one of my favourites. I really like the framing and the pose of the bird. The lighting and colours also work quite well with the white background, so there\u0026rsquo;s a good amount of contrast with the subject.\nThere are 2 main things I would fix with this photo: exposure and framing. I think this could have been pushed up a stop without overexposing the kowhai flowers, which would have given a bit more detail to the body of the bird. Its quite dark as it is, even with trying to recover some of that in lightroom. For the framing, I wish the tail of the tui wasn\u0026rsquo;t cut off. I think it would look nicer with the whole thing in the frame. But with birds you sometimes have to take what you get.\n\rAnother Tui\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nAnother of my favourites. I love the portrait quality to this one, it feels almost like he was posing for me. I think the composition works fairly well too.\nI would like it if there was a little more light and detail on the body of the bird. Its tricky with the tui because they\u0026rsquo;re so dark. But I think i probably could have pushed it to 1600 ISO.\n\rOverwhelming flowers\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 320\r \rWhelming flowers\r1/400 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nI like this one, specifically because of how busy it is. It looks a little like the bird is just lost in all those blossoms. I think I might have pushed the exposure too much for the blossoms, they look a little overdone. And of course I wish the bird was in a nicer pose.\nThe second one is a variation of the same idea, but I think it pulls it off a little better. The highlights don\u0026rsquo;t look as blown and the bird is in a nicer pose.\n\rSo close…\r1/2000 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nThis is the closest I got to getting a good shot of a tui in flight. This one is very average - out of frame, not enough light, motion blur - but its a start. The next one I take will be better and eventually i\u0026rsquo;ll get a good one. Just gotta keep practicing.\n\rCommanding\r1/800 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r \rSurveying\r1/640 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r\nI like these two. To me they show off the prescence of the Tui when they aren\u0026rsquo;t scrabbling for nectar. The biggest blemish I see on these is the focus/blur on the first one. Luckily it\u0026rsquo;s only really noticeable when you zoom right in.\n\rBusy\r1/320 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r\nI really liked this one when I first saw it, but looking at it again later it really seems a little too busy. Theres a lot going on in the background and foreground that distracts from the subject, and the colours don\u0026rsquo;t really harmonize that well. I think a tighter crop might help from some of the background, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know what to do about the pink mixing with the yellow. Maybe I could recolour them yellow and hope its not noticable? Sidenote, see if you can spot where I photoshopped this picture :)\n\rPeekaboo\r1/500 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r \rHalo\r1/320 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r\nSo the first one definitely needs more emphasis on the bird. Currently its too dark and blends into the background too much, which also makes the flower stand out too much. It might be hard to share the attention given how bright and contrasted the flower is.\nThe second one works well in my opinion - if you don\u0026rsquo;t mind the power line. Personally, I don\u0026rsquo;t mind it, but I can see how it would distract from the main point of the image. Aside from that, I like pretty much everything else about the photo.\n\rMlem\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r \rKowhai\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r\nLove both of these. The first is a little annoying with the focus on the body, but I like the lil tongue sticking out.\nThe second one executes the idea better, though I wish the top of the frame was a litttttle bit higher. But you can really see that gorgeous coloring on the Tui when the light hits it. I think it contrasts really well with the yellow of the kowhai flowers.\n\rWaxeye/Silvereye\r1/1600 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 400\r\nI love the level of detail I managed to get on this one. Getting close enough to get this detail without spooking the animal is something I found challenging with all of these nature shots. So i\u0026rsquo;m pleased with how close I snuck to this guy when I got this. I like the colour and framing - the red of the flower sets off the white and yellow of the bird. I\u0026rsquo;d like to remove that leaf in front of it though - maybe I can photoshop it out.\nClosing thoughts I think this month I really put into practice what I learned the previous month and I think the improved quality of the pics shows. Taking time to find a good frame, getting out and shooting more, getting experience with good exposure level for the conditions.\nThis month I realised that you can bump the ISO quite a bit before noise becomes a big issue - lightroom is actually really good at denoising.\nI also hit a limitation of my camera. I would love to be able to set a minimum ISO/shutter while in AV mode instead of either full manual or full auto. This would help with ensuring a faster shutter in bright scences without having to manually adjust, while also still having the flexibility of auto.\nSo here is the end of the birdmainia. Next month there should be a lot more variety since there were less birds to photograph where I am now.\n","date":"2021-11-13T23:39:43.396Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-september-favourites/main_hu20c339018ed5f3114e1796db1e8b6aed_572511_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-september-favourites/","title":"September Favourites"},{"content":"Wow, nearly at the end of November and only just getting around to posting august. In august, Auckland got hit with a delta outbreak and so I got stuck in my flat for the entire month. Luckily it was spring, so flowers were just starting to bloom and all the tui starting coming out. So this month and next month are totally dominated by birds, espcially Tui. This was my first time trying to take photos of them, so these photos are a little rough. They get better next month, I promise.\nBirds \rTui 1\r1/800 secs. | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nThis was actually taken with my 50mm lens, weirdly. I think initally I was struggling to get the shutter fast enough to freeze the birds without getting too much motion blur. I think I eventually gave up on that and just upped the iso a bit, but here you can see its a fast shutter with a low iso, with the downside being that its much more difficult to get close enough (using this lens).\nI like the composition of this, but I wish there was a bit more light on the tui. I really struggled with showing the luminescence of their feathers, as it\u0026rsquo;s really difficult to show that without completely blowing out the background.\n\rTui 2\r1/500 secs. | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 100\r \rTui 3\r1/500 secs. | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nYou can see the same thing in these two, where i\u0026rsquo;m struggling to get enough light on the tui without overexposing the flowers and background. I think I did ok overall, although I wish the birds were a little more out in the open and not hiding behind the flower blossoms. It also looks like they are just a hair out of focus, which is only really apparent if you zoom right in. That\u0026rsquo;s going to be a running theme as i find it quite difficult to get the focus 100% when the subjects are flapping around so fast.\n\rTui 4\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 125\r \rTui 5\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 100\r\nAnd again, the same issues are present here. The birds are tricky to expose correctly if you want to get the background details as well. I do quite like the colour scheme here though, the white shows the pink of the cherry blossoms up nicely.\n\rTui 6\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 100\r \rTui 7\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 200\r\nThe focus is especially obivously out on the first one here, although i like the overall look of the frame. I think the bird lacks contrast though, as with the blossoms and the white background both competing for attention, it doesn\u0026rsquo;t really make the bird pop as well as it could. The second one isn\u0026rsquo;t as bad for this, and the focus is better when you zoom. I may have overcompensated with the green tint in the shadows on that one though.\nI think with most of these bird photos, technical stuff aside, sometimes the birds just don\u0026rsquo;t cooperate. There\u0026rsquo;s only so much you can do to get a nice pose and frame, and if the birds don\u0026rsquo;t work with you, all you can do is wait, shoot a bunch and cross your fingers. Getting these photos was a great distraction from the lockdown and watching the case numbers slowly ticking up, and it was a great excuse to get outside. I definitely want to get some more of these shots.\nLight painting long exposure \rSpiral out\r10 secs. | f/5 | 24mm | ISO 100\r\nTo give you a break from a billion birds, these last three photos were some light painting I tried while trying (and failing) to get a photo of lightning. While waiting for strikes, my flatmate grabbed his laser pointer and we had a blast trying to draw stuff on the neighbours wall. Its actually much harder to draw a straight line then you\u0026rsquo;d think!\n\rDelta Strikes Back\r10 secs. | f/5 | 24mm | ISO 100\r \rSmile\r10 secs. | f/5 | 24mm | ISO 100\r\nIt took a little fiddling to find good settings for the exposure, but it was a fun lil side distraction. These aren\u0026rsquo;t really processed either. I\u0026rsquo;d like to try them using sparklers and get a person in frame too.\nSo there we are, even though it\u0026rsquo;s lockdown, there are still good oppourtunities to get out and take some photos. Fingers crossed that it ends before Christmas.\n","date":"2021-11-13T22:05:08.969Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-august-favourites/main_tui_hub0e9d063ba9a8c11c1a3cb92a3e0623d_627679_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/21-august-favourites/","title":"August favourites"},{"content":"I didn\u0026rsquo;t take many photos in July, mainly due to the weather making it much more difficult to get outside.\nGrass \rGrass shoots? I can’t remember their name\r1/1250 secs. | f/2.5 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nYou know, I just realized I don\u0026rsquo;t actually know what these things are called. That\u0026rsquo;s pretty embarassing. Anyway, this was just playing round with aperture some more and practicing getting the focus right. You can see that in the nice separation of subject from the grass in front of that at the back, with a light blur.\nIf I had to retake this, I would probably try to find a shot where there was a little less distracting fronds, as I think it makes the shot quite busy having all those in there.\nTree \rCliche tree shot. Click to fit to screen!\r1/60 secs. | f/2.5 | 50mm | ISO 250\r\nYup, its another cliche shot, this time of the tree trunk looking up. I kinda like how this turned out though, its a classic for a reason. I really pushed the colour on this to try and emphasize the greens, but looking at it now, I think it could probably do with some more tweaking. The greens on the front look a little unreal, and the brown of the trunk could be better contrasted.\nI think I would also have tried to use a slightly wider lens, as this was 50mm, which is probably a tiny bit closer than would have been ideal.\nStill life \rA moment in time\r1/60 secs. | f/2.8 | 50mm | ISO 3200\r\nThis one is interesting to me because its such an ordinary scene. Theres nothing special about the framing or composition, and the subject isn\u0026rsquo;t really that interesting. But to me it feels like a frozen moment, like someone just stepped out for a second, but they\u0026rsquo;ll be right back in the photo.\nBeach \rCome on in, the waters great!\r1/3200 secs. | f/3.5 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nI really tried to emphasize the gorgeous whiteness of the sand in the Coromandel with this. I really like how it contrasts with the blueness of the ocean. I think if I was gonna redo this, I would maybe use a higher fstop and get less of the background blurred, just to see what it looks like with the whole thing in focus.\nArchway \rPrivate, no entrance\r1/40 secs. | f/5 | 27mm | ISO 250\r\nThis was taken at Driving Creek Railway, and the framing of the doorway with the light in the background looked super cool to me. It makes you wonder whats through the door up the steps. I wish there was less junk on the left hand side, as I think it looks a little messy and distracting compared to the right side with the bricks. But the like the shot overall. The bright spots where the sun strikes was a little hard to balance out and might have benefited from blending a darker exposure, but i think it turned out pretty well without needing to go too hard on the edits.\nThe \u0026lsquo;Eyefull\u0026rsquo; Tower \rThe Eyefull Tower\r1/1600 secs. | f/8 | 42mm | ISO 100\r\nThis was from the \u0026lsquo;Eyefull\u0026rsquo; Tower (you know, like the French one), a lookout at Driving Creek. The top of the tower has an almost 360 degree view of the surrounding countryside and native bush, and really is amazing in person. I really liked the look of the hills fading into the background out of the window that you can see here, it reminded me of the firewatches in the US.\nI had to do an HDR shot to get the exposure right for the inside and the outside, but sadly there were some pretty bad ghosting artifacts. You can see it most obviously on the window latch. I guess I moved too much between each frame. I don\u0026rsquo;t think it really came out like I imagined in my head either, theres just something lacking. I\u0026rsquo;m not sure if its the framing or what, but something doesn\u0026rsquo;t quite work in this, in my opinion. Maybe I should have taken a step back.\nThe top of the Coromandel \rThe top of the Coromandel. Well, almost\r1/250 secs. | f/8 | 85mm | ISO 100\r\nAnd best for last. This was my favourite from the month. We managed to get to the lookout above Coromandel Town right before the sun started going down, and this was the result. This was taken by stitching together seven or so vertical frames, and the full size image is huge. I really like panoramas for how much detail you can capture and make a gigantic image.\nThe only thing I would change with this is maybe waiting a little longer for the sun to go down further, but its hard when you\u0026rsquo;re with other people who don\u0026rsquo;t want to wait in the cold :D\nClosing thoughts As you can see, I actually remembered you can rotate your camera to get a vertical image. This can help get more of the surroundings in the shot, and change the perspective. Something I need to remember for the future.\n","date":"2021-07-31T07:18:31.758Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/07-30-21-july-favourites/still_hu34d49566592c0d34d167ca08f8451909_1370414_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/07-30-21-july-favourites/","title":"July Favourites"},{"content":"This month I managed to get some sweet night shots. This was my first time trying long exposures, and i\u0026rsquo;m pretty happy with the results. This was of course before the winter weather set in, so it wasn\u0026rsquo;t quite so cold.\nSky Tower \rSky Tower\r1/10 secs. | f/5.6 | 79mm | ISO 3200\r\nThis shot was taken without a tripod, but luckily the Sky Tower is lit up bright enough that using a steady brace with my elbows was enough to prevent motion blur. This shot taught me the basics of using noise reduction in lightroom, as the raw shot had quite a bit of noise, being at ISO 3200. Not the most interesting of compositions, but I\u0026rsquo;m happy with how the colour and structure of the tower itself came out, as well as the noise reduction.\nCranes \rCranes at the dock\r8 secs. | f/8 | 71mm | ISO 200\r\nThis shot was taken with a tripod. It took a couple of tries to get the timing right without boats moving in front of the cranes. I like how this one turned out. Theres something interesting about the cranes looming over the little light on the end of the dock. This was my very first long exposure, so it took a bit of tweaking to get the settings right where the lights from the cranes were not too overpowering, but the background lights still came though. I had to use manual mode to get it right.\nSkyline \rSkyline 1\r6 secs. | f/8 | 78mm | ISO 200\r\n\rSkyline 2\r6 secs. | f/8 | 50mm | ISO 200\r\nThese next two were shot on the same night as the previous one of the cranes. It was super fun tring to make a pano of the skyline using multiple long exposures. I had to set all the settings once, then sweep the camera across the view to get the full width of the city. The first image was taken a few hundred meters to the left of the second one, as you can see from the shifted perspective. I think the first one works better, as its a little more focused and balanced, as the full width of the city doesn\u0026rsquo;t really improve the composition.\nTilt-shift \rTilt shifted eden park - Not a NIMBY in sight\r1/80 secs. | f/10 | 50mm | ISO 100\r \rTilt shifted southern motorway - it’s only a model\r1/200 secs. | f/8 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nThese ones are using a technique called \u0026lsquo;tilt-shifting\u0026rsquo;. Tilt shift lens are used for architecture photography to reduce distortion and allow more control of the focal plane. I am not rich enough to buy a special lens for a one off photo, so I used blurring filters in lightroom to get the same effect.\nThese were taken from the top of Mt Eden, of Eden Park and the Southern Motorway. The blurred linear filters to produce the tilt shift effect make these look like models of the city, which I think is pretty cool.\nTree \rCi-Tree\r1/1250 secs. | f/4 | 50mm | ISO 100\r\nI took this one while playing around with the different apertures and HDR. This was taken by stitching 3 photos together, at different exposures to get the light more even, as exposing for the tree blew out the city, while exposing for the city made the tree too dark. I think it turned out pretty well overall, although there are some ghosting artifacts from the merge (check the sky tower).\nIf I was to take this again, I would try to correct the light levels without using HDR, as it wasn\u0026rsquo;t really needed in this instance.\nTrain tracks \rClassic train tracks\r1/60 secs. | f/4.5 | 42mm | ISO 1600\r\nYep, you\u0026rsquo;ve seen this before. The classic train tracks disappearing into the forest photo. I thought I should probably have one too :D\nFinal thoughts This month I learned about using noise reduction and colours, and long exposure. I still need to practice composition more, as I feel that this is something that I still very lacking in.\n","date":"2021-06-30T07:18:31.758Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/06-30-21-june-favourites/cranes_hua8473ee67ffd2a2d8c3c2227f415bc74_475762_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/06-30-21-june-favourites/","title":"June Favourites"},{"content":"Well winter is here finally, and with the onslaught of bad weather the oppourtunity for taking photos has taken a dive. Thats not to say I haven\u0026rsquo;t gotten anything, but most of them came from the start of the month when it was warmer and I had more of a reason to go outside :D\nNow that winter has arrived I\u0026rsquo;m finding the motivation to get out and do things much harder to come by. We\u0026rsquo;ll see how it goes as the cold winds continue to blow\n#1 - Redwoods \rTepid water in the redwoods\r1/30 secs. | f/5 | 50mm | ISO 200\r\nThis is shot of a tepid pool of water in the middle of the Redwoods in Rotorua. I like how this looks like a little window into a different world, something prehistoric, like there could be dinosaur lurking just out of the frame.\nI am also starting to experiment more with different aspect ratios, as you can see by the square image here. Using something different to the default 4:3 that comes out of the camera has been helpful for getting me to think more in terms of what frames the subject best and how to set the scene. By cropping the edges off the frame, it draws more focus to the tree and pond in the center, and removes the extra noise from the frame that doesn\u0026rsquo;t contribute to the overall look.\n\rAlone in the woods\r1/100 secs. | f/8 | 35mm | ISO 200\r\nThis is another experiment with aspect ratio. This one is modeled after pictures from the XPan, which was a film camera that shot at a ratio of roughly 2.7:1, so very similar to a widescreen movie. I really like the look that you can get with it, as it tends to give photos a \u0026lsquo;cinematic\u0026rsquo; feel when compared to the standard almost square frame. I definitely didn\u0026rsquo;t get the exposure right for this one. There\u0026rsquo;s too much on the extreme end of light and dark, and the composition isn\u0026rsquo;t the best. But you can see what I was going for. I think moving backwards and giving more space in the foreground probably would have made for a more interesting shot.\n\rHaunted\r1/60 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nAs you can see, another xpan xperiment (sorry). I really like the feeling of bleakness from this photo, you can almost feel the cold and dampness radiating out of it. Thinking about it, maybe the colour balance could be improved, make it a little darker. But i\u0026rsquo;m fairly happy with this overall.\n#2 - Ti Point These photos were from the North Shore, at Ti Point.\n\rYacht\r1/125 secs. | f/11 | 62mm | ISO 100\r\nNothing fancy about this one, but I included it because I discovered photoshop\u0026rsquo;s content aware brush on this image and I think its amazing. Even knowing where to look, you can\u0026rsquo;t see where the branch was blocking half the screen. Technology is amazing. To improve this shot, I think taking a step back and framing it with the bushes a little more evenly would have helped balance it a bit better.\n\rRock…Or mushroom…\r1/160 secs. | f/11 | 35mm | ISO 100\r\nI\u0026rsquo;m\u0026hellip; unhappy with this one. Its not terribly interesting, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know how i could improve it. Maybe having a person in the frame? Something better in the foreground? I\u0026rsquo;m not sure.\n\rA little crab bravely facing the void\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 3200\r \rThis is my own private domecile and I will not be harassed…\r1/125 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 3200\r\nI really like these ones. I saw these guys hiding in a crack in the rock so of course I spent the next 30m squatting above them trying to get some good photos of them. I really learned the value of auto ISO on these photos, as the camera is pretty good at figuring out what is the best setting to put it on. The shutter speed is higher because I was jerking around a bit trying to stay still without a decent rest. But they came out really nicely in my opinion. A little brightening and colour adjustment and bam, a few not bad crab photos. You can see the noise from the higher ISO, but it doesn\u0026rsquo;t detract too much from the photo overall. And for f/5.6 its not terrible\n#3 - Bloodmoon \rConnection\r1/125 secs. | f/10 | 67mm | ISO 200\r\nI like this one. I can\u0026rsquo;t really explain what about it I like, but I like it. I took this before the blood moon, and I thought it would be neat to include. This is may favourites after all\nMoving right along\u0026hellip;\n\rFull Super Moon\r1/320 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 100\r \rAlmost Full Super Moon\r1/250 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 100\r \rHalf Full Super Moon\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 160\r \rHalf Empty Super Moon\r1/800 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r \rAlmost Empty Super Moon\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nLast week we had a \u0026lsquo;Super Blood Moon\u0026rsquo;, which is a super moon combined with a lunar eclipse. This meant the moon was both larger than normal, and turned red due to the light from the sun passing through the earths shadow before striking the moon. This was a great oppourtunity to get some photos, so I tried my hand. Above you can see the first part of the transition as the moon moved into the earths shadow. This happened over the course of about an hour.\nThen\u0026hellip;\n\rLong blood\r1/2 secs. | f/8 | 300mm | ISO 200\r \rShort blood\r1/4 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 3200\r\nThese were difficult to get with my gear. With the limited focal length of the 135mm lens and the limited aperture at that zoom, getting a decently exposed image of the dark section the moon was challenging, since the moon actually moves across the sky pretty quick, so you can\u0026rsquo;t expose for too long without it starting to blur. The moon was also very unevenly lit, with the left side being bright and the right side almost completely dark. These photos are both HDR shots combined from 3 exposure bracketed photos to get both the light and dark sides together in the same shot without having the blacks crushed or the whites blown out. I\u0026rsquo;m pretty happy with the result overall, even though the 300mm lens resolution isn\u0026rsquo;t that great.\nAstrophotography \rMilky Way 1\r secs. | f/ | mm | ISO \r \rMilky Way 2\r secs. | f/ | mm | ISO \r\nThese are my very first stacked milky way shots. They are objectively bad, but they\u0026rsquo;re a good start. I learned a lot about how to take these kinds of photos, and next time I head out to take some more, i\u0026rsquo;ll have a much better idea of what i\u0026rsquo;m doing. I think these were both around 15m of total exposure time, stacked from 15s photos. I didn\u0026rsquo;t take any flat frames which I think is what is causing the bad distortion in the second photo. Something to try remember for next time. Next time i\u0026rsquo;ll also try for a longer total exposure, but I think its going to be tricky to do well without getting a tracker and probably a faster lens. But we\u0026rsquo;ll try :D The post processing is also quite lacking, thats something i\u0026rsquo;m going to have to sink a lot of time into to get better at, since so much of astro photos depends on the processing.\nFinal thoughts I think I\u0026rsquo;m starting to get more at home with taking my camera around and using it effectively. I still have a lot to learn with composition though, so I just need to keep shooting!\n","date":"2021-05-31T07:18:31.758Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/05-21-may-favourites/bloodmoon_hud68898bdbf9fc0f5997486b3acc1a2ea_237722_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/05-21-may-favourites/","title":"May favourites"},{"content":"I went camping last weekend with my girlfriend, so I used the excuse to try and take a few photos. It was a really fun weekend, we had a little fire and watched the stars. Sadly I didn\u0026rsquo;t have a tripod so I couldn\u0026rsquo;t try any more astrophotography, so I tried to practice taking some regular photos. I didn\u0026rsquo;t really have much time for it, but I managed to get a few snaps.\nMost of what I got I wasn\u0026rsquo;t really happy with, but there were 3 shots that I think came out ok.\n#1 - Bee \rA happy little bee on the manuka\r1/400 secs. | f/10 | 135mm | ISO 200\r\nGetting this was tricky because it was challenging to get the focus right for the photo, since the bee was constantly moving around.\nLearning from focusing issues I had last time, I tried using a single point AF, and I think that it actually did help a lot, since the camera would focus a lot more predictably if there was only a single point for it to lock on rather than choosing randomly from all the points.\nBack button focus also helped a little, however I think I still need more time to get used to it since I would often push it once to focus and forget to hold it, which meant that the if the bee moved the focus would still be locked on the spot before it moved.\n#2 - Tent \rA surprisingly sturdy warehouse tent\r1/200 secs. | f/5.6 | 78mm | ISO 200\r\nSo this one is quite heavily edited as you can see. I really love the old film style of photography, which i\u0026rsquo;ve tried to emulate here with how I edited it. The composition is nothing special, but I like how the out of focus grass makes you feel like you\u0026rsquo;re sitting there in the grass, frozen in the moment. I tried to match the colour pallete of film, as well as using a bit of grain in lightroom. You can see our highly function bedside box in the tent.\nI think this would be better if there was a little bit more light, the morning was quite cloudy by the time I got to take some photos, so there wasn\u0026rsquo;t as much light available\n#3 - Quad \rSoph’s quad\r1/500 secs. | f/5 | 35mm | ISO 200\r\nThis is one that I think looked better in my head. I imagined it as brighter and more vibrant, with more subject separation. Maybe I could have gotten that if I had walked back a little bit and zoomed more, or had a wider aperture available. I like the posistioning of the quad, but I think the background is a little bit distracting which is why more background blur would have been nicer. Having the sunlight hitting the quad directly would have been great too, as that would have really contrasted it against the grass.\nFinal thoughts I think i\u0026rsquo;m happy with the changes I made to the camera settings, using the back button focus and single point AF helped to avoid the random focus issues that I had last time. My struggles this time seemed to revolve more around getting an interesting composition, as well as the editing. I struggled more with the editing of these photos, as the colours just didn\u0026rsquo;t seem quite right to me. I still think they don\u0026rsquo;t look quite right.\nI also learned that large aperture sucks for landscapes. I didn\u0026rsquo;t post the landscapes (because they\u0026rsquo;re bad), but the shallow depth of field is not good for a landscape. I mean that should have been obvious, but it\u0026rsquo;s something to keep in mind for the future.\n","date":"2021-04-21T07:18:31.758Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/camping/tent_hu905192ebd8a121b5735c8b8f936c390e_1372865_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/camping/","title":"Camping"},{"content":"Easter was the first chance i\u0026rsquo;d had to get out and take some photos since I got the new camera, so I was quite eager to get into it. Click the photos to embiggen them.\nDucks These first two were just plain old ducks - nothing too interesting, but they were a good way to start getting used to the camera and how to use it properly \rDuck 1\r1/1000 secs. | f/5.6 | 85mm | ISO 200\r\rDuck 2\r1/1250 secs. | f/5 | 59mm | ISO 200\r I love the colour of the ducks and the water - especially in the second shot. I think my biggist issue with both of these shots is framing. The ducks aren\u0026rsquo;t terribly interesting like this, with no background. The second image might have been better if the ducks were a little closer together, but I think both of them suffer for not having any interesting background. Maybe getting a closer shot of the duck might have been cool, to really show off those greens on his face.\nRaft I wish this one had come out a little bit better, but it was the best I could manage with the lens I have. \rKaituna rafting\r1/1250 secs. | f/5 | 50mm | ISO 1600\r This was shot at 1/1250s f/5 at 50mm (50 * 1.6 crop factor = 80mm effective)\nI learned a lot from shooting these rafts. Because the whole area was covered by trees and had otherwise relatively dim light, I really struggled to get the shutter speed fast enough to eliminate the motion blur while keeping enough light for the rafters and even the water to be properly lit. I tried a bunch of different combos of ISO and shutter speeds to find something workable, but I couldn\u0026rsquo;t ever manage something that was light and with a fast shutter speed. I eventually resorted to pumping up the ISO to 1600, which has caused a little bit of noise that you can see in the darker water in the background. This wasn\u0026rsquo;t ideal, but with only an f/5 max aperture at that focal length, that was pretty much all I could do with a moving subject.\nI think to improve it, I really needed a lens with a wider aperture, in order to capture more of the available light without having to raise the ISO and introduce the noise artifacts\nThe other thing that tripped me up a lot was the autofocus. Many of these shots ended up focusing on the wrong part of the frame, which I didn\u0026rsquo;t notice at the time because its hard to tell on the small camera screen.\nIn terms of composition, i\u0026rsquo;m fairly happy with it. I really like the raised fist, in my opinion it really captures the spirit of challenge and exhiliration that the rafter must have been feeling at the time.\nSunset These next three photos were the result of madly biking up the trails of the Redwoods to make it in time to get a good sunset photo. We kinda missed the light for the position that I really wanted to get, but I think these ones came out ok as well.\n\rSunset pines\r1/800 secs. | f/7.1 | 35mm | ISO 200\r\rslightly lighter sunset pines\r1/1250 secs. | f/7.1 | 35mm | ISO 200\r \rThe sun setting behind the hills\r1/800 secs. | f/7.1 | 35mm | ISO 200\r\n\rPanorama of Lake Rotorua, with Mokoia Island on the right\r1/80 secs. | f/4.5 | 35mm | ISO 800\r\nThese were basically just me scrambling to try and get something halfway decent while trying to catch my breath and not sweat all over the camera before the sun went down completely. The pine trees in the foreground kinda inspired a stuck in time \u0026lsquo;western\u0026rsquo; feel in my eyes - almost like what you would get from a polaroid snapshot in the 90s as you drove through a pine forest, but I don\u0026rsquo;t know if the final product is really all that compelling. The same goes for the next sunset photo.\nShooting into the sun like that is hard though. I think I probably just needed more time to find a good spot to take the photos where I could take a bunch more without trying to rush to get the next ones.\nThe panorama I thought turned out pretty well, considering I was still pretty puffed, had no tripod and was racing the sun before the light went completely. This was taken by stitching together 7 or 8 photos in Lightroom. I\u0026rsquo;m very impressed with how good a job lightroom did, you can\u0026rsquo;t even see the seams of where the photos join together. I like the colours on display, even though the sky got a little bit blown out where the sun was. It would be nice if you could see a little bit more of the lake on the right to balance out the photo, but overall, I think its acceptable.\nFocusing was an issue once again, as many of the photos I took for this pano ended up being useless because the camera locked onto a bush in the foreground instead of the background like it should have been.\nI think this really needed a tripod in order to improve it. Then I could have gotten more light without hitting the blur issues from the shutter speed being too slow to deal with my exercise hand shakes. This was 1/80 f/4.5 35mm, so a tripod means that I could have slowed down the shutter a bit more to compensate for the slower lens. But there was no way I would have been able to carry it and bike down the hill again in the dark.\nAstrophotography Astrophotography is something that i\u0026rsquo;m really keen to spend more time on, its very satisfying seeing the final image pull stars out of nowhere as you stack together all the separate photos.\nThe only really decent shot I got was the moon.\n\rWaxing moon\r1/400 secs. | f/5.6 | 135mm | ISO 800\r\nWhile not terribly interesting, it was good practice exposing it correctly and pulling a good image out of it. You can juuuust make out the craters on the surface, which is super cool considering this was just from an entry level DSLR without a telescope or any other magnification. This is technically an HDR shot as it came from three stacked together, but I don\u0026rsquo;t think you really need to do that when you aren\u0026rsquo;t using a telescope to get more detail.\nThe other astro shot I got was one of the Southern Cross, which you can see in the lower left side of the photo:\n\rIt’s full of stars\r70 secs. | f/5 | 50mm | ISO 800\r\nThis shot has nothing interesting really, but compared to the source images, its amazing to me how much information the computer can pull back out. This was made by stack 10 images each taken for 10s together using DeepSkyStacker. In my next attempt at astro i\u0026rsquo;ll try take 45 source images instead of 10, and i\u0026rsquo;ll see if I can find a more interesting foreground to place it against. I\u0026rsquo;d like to nail a shot of the milky way, since I won\u0026rsquo;t be able to see any cool Deep space objects without a telescope.\nFocus was actually a big issue here, as you can see if you zoom in. The stars are very slightly out of focus, because again I couldn\u0026rsquo;t see on the tiny little camera screen. Next time i\u0026rsquo;ll try get around this by using some software to control the camera for the images, which includes a focusing helper. But more on that another time if it\u0026rsquo;s successful.\nConclusion Overall, I know I have a lot to improve on, but I think this was a fairly successful first outing. I managed to learn the functions of my camera, and found some basic things to be aware of to try to improve on next time. These include:\n Focus  Using the single point AutoFocus might give better results, since it won\u0026rsquo;t be possible to focus on the foreground accidentally. Using back button focus - This is an experiment to see if focus lock using the back button works better than a half press from the shutter. I\u0026rsquo;ll write more later after I trial it.   Shutter speed  Making sure the shutter speed is fast enough to prevent blur from my hands shaking is crucial. The stabilisation of the lens can only do so much. Speaking of, allowing time for the lens to stabilise is important too   ISO  Don\u0026rsquo;t be afraid of bumping it up to 1600, you can always reduce the noise in post-processing a little bit. Its better to have a little noise, than motion blur because the shutter was too slow.    ","date":"2021-04-16T21:50:00+13:00","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/easter/moon_hu7f5f9c72de929a37fe6a7e93ae59aa92_572659_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/easter/","title":"Easter 21"},{"content":"Hello, and welcome. Hi Dad! Photography has been something that i\u0026rsquo;ve long been interested in taking up, but I don\u0026rsquo;t really know much about it.\nTo that end, i\u0026rsquo;ve decided to document my journey learning how to take better photos through this blog. I\u0026rsquo;ve always found I learn better when I write things down, so this space will be where I write down my findings and learnings over time. I will try and post my favourite photos when I take them, and what I learned about photography from them. Hopefully something of value will come from it.\n","date":"2021-04-16T00:00:00Z","image":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/intro/cactus_hu50c292085e4deaa1fd18ba8f314e4016_7852786_120x120_fill_q75_box_smart1.jpg","permalink":"https://pixels.jallier.xyz/posts/intro/","title":"Introduction"}]