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Photography has changed the way I see the world around me.

Through it I discover new things and rediscover old ones. Like my island, New Caledonia.

This blog is just me sharing my world through my photography.

Hope you enjoy.

Posts tagged canoes
STARRY ATCHU

Kuto, Isle of Pines

Though cyclone Uesi was north of New Caledonia, it’s effect on Isle of Pines was minimal with some grey clouds and occasional drizzle in the night. An image I was hoping to capture was the Milky Way over Adventure Island. I got one clear night out of the four we were there. This shot was taken on our last night in Isle of Pines.

If you haven’t read my last post, my friend, her two kids and I spent four nights, five days in Isle of Pines at Atchu Camping. The campsite has kind of a private beach and that is where I took this photo from. I was pretty lucky to capture this image as it was our last night on the island. The first night I got up it was clear but clouds came rolling in at such speed, it was amazing to watch. It covered up very quickly and I couldn’t see the Milky Way to begin with. The second night was overcast and the third night it rained. I didn’t give up thought, as there was one more night.

I used the PhotoPills app to see where the Milky Way was going to appear. The app showed it above the horizon at 2:30 am, just over Adventure Island (the island to the left of the image). Unfortunately, with dawn only a couple of hours away and the sun rising from the same direction, it was too bright, not only me to see it but, for the camera to capture it, as well. This eight second exposure was taken at 2:40 am and as you can see, it looks almost day time. I did miscalculate one thing though, the angle at which the Milky Way would appear. I thought it was vertically above the island but in fact, it was at a 35º angle to the right. I should have studied the app thoroughly. Great app though and highly recommend it, PhotoPills.

My first exposures of the Milky Way were framed more to the right with Adventure Island in the middle of the image. Once I realised I wouldn’t capture the Milky Way, I reframed my shot to still include the kayak in the foreground but to add the branches as a natural frame to the stars. I tried different exposure times to see how long I could go before the stars started streaking. Eight seconds seemed to be perfect for this scene. Now I was only two meters from the kayaks which is why they’re out of focus. I should’ve taken another exposure with the focus on them and blended the two images to get sharpness throughout the image. I can’t tell you why I didn’t do it, I can’t only tell you I should have. Editing was fairly quick. Once I got the White Balance right, I pulled up the Shadows to see more of the kayaks and the land mass to the left. Then I added an Graduated Filter to the foreground with a bit of Whites to accentuate the highlight a little. Another Graduated Filter was added to the sky with Clarity and a little Dehaze, just to make those stars pop more. A couple of Radial Filters were added to lighten the water and the other as a vignette. Last bit of edit was with the Adjustment Brush to add Highlight and Whites to a few stars, just to make them shine a little more. Overall, I like the image even though it’s not the most eye catching.

There’s another photo though that I find much more interesting but that’s for a different post.

 

SONY a7 III

full-frame mirrorless camera (body only)

TAMRON E 28-75mm ƒ/2.8 Di III RXD

standard zoom, E-mount lens

VANGUARD TRIPOD

VEO 235AB Tripod with TBH-50 Ball Head

L-BRACKET

Quick Release Arca-Swiss L-plate for Sony Alpha Series Cameras

SANDISK EXTREME PRO CARD

128GB SDXC memory card

HEADLAMP

Letmy Headlamp with White and Red Light

 
A DAY IN THE SNOW

My friend decided to kill two birds with one stone by visiting Sydney for the first time and keeping her promise to her daughters that they would see and play in the snow. So we headed down to Jindabyne, just south of Canberra (Australia). We stayed two nights there so as to have a whole day in the snow at Thredbo.

These are the only photos I took and I’m the first to admit they’re not very good. I was busy taking souvenir snapshots of the kids. The first couple of photos were taken on the beach at Jindabyne Holiday Park. The rest are from Thredbo.

BEACH TRAIL

Following on from my last post, I walked over to Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) and tried to capture stars above the seascape. In this scene I really wanted to avoid trailing stars and try to capture pin sharp ones and lots of them. To do that I needed a faster shutter speed than my last photo Poe Trail, that is an eight minutes exposure and bring that down to eight seconds or round about. Doing that meant I needed to bump up my ISO and I thought about opening up the aperture but I wasn’t sure I could get the foreground and the stars in focus if I did. So I left it at ƒ/11 but even now I’m not sure if that I a good idea or not. Unfortunately the higher ISO introduce too much noise, the faster shutter speed gave me a dark exposure and a slower one, star trails.

So this photo is the best (of the worst) that I was able to capture. Again, a super long exposure of eight minutes and yes, star trails too. I light painted the foreground though in this photo. The image was a little flat and I wanted to give it a little more depth and hope it would balance the foreground with the billions of stars in the sky… yeah, that didn’t quite happen. I think the slow passing clouds prevented the capture of all those beautiful stars I could see. I like the light painting though. Not too much, not too little. It seems natural, no?!

Well, though I had a lot of fun trying to capture the night sky, there was tomorrow’s sunrise to photograph so back to the tent I went.

480 sec (8 mins) @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

POE TRAIL

So from where the photo was taken on my last post, this view would be about thirty-five/forty metres behind me. From this photo, the Camping de Némo is on the left, Poé Beach on the right and I’m standing in the middle of the road that runs through the Camping de Poé along the beach.

I wanted to use this road as a leading line to a night sky with billions of stars and use the full moon to illuminate the foreground but this was the best I could do. I experimented with different settings but all the images were either too noisy or too dark and all had a lot of speckles. As with this one and another similar photo that I will share on my next post. My entry level camera isn’t very good in low light and I haven’t got any experience in this genre either. But I had lots of fun and will definitely give it another go.

480 sec (8 mins) @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100