Sydney

At the time I took this photo, I wasn’t sure I was permitted to photograph the interior. Some religious establishments don’t allow this. I thought the colloquially St Mary’s Cathedral would be no exception. Officially, it is the Cathedral Church and Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Mother of God, Help of Christians and is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney and the seat of the Archbishop of Sydney, currently Anthony Fisher OP. More interesting reading over on Wikipedia.

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St. Mary’s Cathedral is absolutely gorgeous inside and out. I remember having a hard time finding a good composition outside to photograph. I was just getting into photography back then. The inside was a different story. Firstly, though I wanted to photograph the interior, I had no idea if I was allowed. Then, as soon as I walked in, the grandeur of the place pushed me to take this obvious composition. The cathedral was empty, not a soul in sight, I quickly checked outside to be sure nobody was coming. I was alone. I quickly setup my tripod, framed, took three bracketed exposures and quickly packed up my gear. Now the mistake I made was to have zoomed in too much and compose horizontally instead of vertically. I can’t remember why I did that but if I hadn’t I would’ve had a lot more scene within the frame. I was inexperienced and didn’t want to get caught though I found later that photographs were allowed inside the cathedral. Oh well, next time I’m in Sydney I give it another shot.

The photo was taken with the Fujifilm FinePix S9500, a bridge camera I had bought just before coming to New Caledonia. When used within it’s limits, the camera can produce good quality images, though a little on the soft side. I can’t recommend it as it has been superseded and there are much better cameras now for the same price.

OK, take care and hope to see you for the next post.

SONY a7 III

24MP full-frame mirrorless camera from Sony’s Alpha series. Also does 4K video. A great all-round camera.

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TAMRON STANDARD ZOOM LENS

Tamron E 28-75 mm ƒ/2.8 Di III RXD is a standard zoom lens for E-mount camera. A perfect match for the Sony a7 III.

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VANGUARD TRIPOD

The Vanguard VEO 235AB with TBH-50 ball head is a 5 section tripod. It’s sturdy, reliable and stores compact for travel. This tripod has served me well for the last few years.

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SONY BATTERIES

Sony’s NP-FZ100 lithium-ion from it’s Z series are reliable and long lasting. I always have a second battery with me at all times.

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SANDISK MEMORY CARDS

SanDisk Extreme Pro SDXC memory cards are fast and reliable. With 128 GB you never run out of storage for photos or videos, 4K included. It’s what I choose to use.

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WANDRD PRVKE

PRVKE 31 lt. travel/camera backpack from WANDRD. Has a laptop sleeve, a tablet sleeve, a hidden pocket, room for a camera insert and storage to spare. Also extends to provide 6 lt. of extra storage. It’s my everyday carry.

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Noumea, South Province

Day 7 of auto-confinement and we’re doing just fine. I came across this photo in my Lightroom catalogue yesterday. I was torn between two photo of the Société Le Nickel (SLN), this one and another zoomed in toward the chimneys. I chose the former because it showed the majority of the refinery and my friend said it reminded her of movie scenes where someone’s spying on or looking for a way in to a compound. And I agree.

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This refinery was founded in 1912 by Société Des Hauts Fourneaux De Nouméa, owned by L. Ballande et Fils. It merged in 1931 with Société Le Nickel which was founded in 1880. Until 2009, it was the only metallurgical producer in New Caledonia. It is now one of three including Vale Inco (opened in 2009) in Yate in the South Province and Koniambo Nickel (opened in 2013) in Voh in the North Province. Wikipedia has interesting reading on SLN, Vale Inco and Koniambo Nickel. I ‘m sorry but I couldn’t find Wikipedia articles in English for the first two.

This photo dates back to 2013 before they fenced the outer periphery of the refinery. I drove up to their water reserve then followed a small track alongside it to this location. It was a very cloudy day but it hadn’t and didn’t rain. I had caught the photography bug about a year ago and the SLN was a fascinating construction for me. Still using my first hybrid camera, the Fujifilm FinePix S9500, and a very cheap tripod, I managed to capture this image.

Though the resolution isn’t the best, the image is technically sound. I decided to edit in black & white because of the old fashion look of the construction. To enhance this look, I put one of my split-tone presets over it then added grain. The grain, not only, added to the vintage look but helped to hide the lacklustre resolution. I like this photo, I really do.

Now, please everyone, protect yourself and others by staying home. Wash your hands, keep your distance, sneeze and cough in your elbow… you know what to do. If we all do our part, we’ll beat this Covid-19 a lot faster. Stay safe everyone.

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Kyoto, Japan

After the Yamazaki Distillery visit, we headed back to Kyoto for two nights, one full day. We arrived late afternoon and once settled in our room, we made our way straight here, to the Fushimi Inari Shinto Shrine.

We arrived just as the sun was setting and there were still hundreds of visitors around. This shot was taken as we were leaving. To the eye, blue hour had gone but not to the camera sensor. I bracketed four different exposures and merged them in Lightroom. Very happy with the result. This is not a unique photo but it’s my photo.

This shinto shrine is spectacular. This is the main entrance to many shrines, small to large, and to the senbontorii or thousand torii. Everything is beautiful here, from the architecture to the decorations and everything in-between. It’s one of the places you have to visit while in Kyoto. Give yourself some time though, there’s quite a large area to cover. Oh and talking about senbontorii, check out my blog post where I photographed my friend, Géraldine, inside the tunnel.

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28 mm, 5 seconds @ ƒ/11, ISO 100

I dropped my mum off at a lunch rendez-vous she had with friends at the Yarra Bay Sailing Club (Yarra Bay Beach, Sydney, Australia) and was pleasantly surprised by the area. I remember passing through here once before, a long time ago. So I decided come back the next day for sunset.

Sunset was around seven-forty-five, I arrive around seven o’clock. Straight away I found this composition. There were people swimming but luckily they were a fair way to the right. No where near my shot. It doesn’t show mush on the photo but it was very windy. Once I setup, I was trying to take photos whenever the wind died down a little. It was very difficult as the wind never stopped blowing. The shot I wanted was just after the sun disappears below the horizon. I had a bit of time on my hands so I chilled out a bit and snapped away whenever the colours in the sky changed.

About fifteen minutes before sunset, a family of five or six come strolling down the beach. They noticed me and you can’t miss the tripod and camera but I couldn’t help thinking ‘they’re not going to walk into my frame are they? I mean they can surely see that I’m photographing the sunset’. And funny enough (not!) they walk into my composition all the while looking at me. Unbelievable! I calmed down and thought maybe they’re just here for a quick swim and they’ll be gone before sunset. Nope. Lucky for me the beach drops a bit behind those rock before reaching the water so I couldn’t see them when they were in the water. They had put their towels on the rocks but thank goodness, out of sight. They were going in and out of the water constantly and it hard to get a shot without them it. I got this one though. The sun was disappearing below the horizon and it didn’t look like they were going to leave so I did. Not far, just thirty metres to my right for a possible blue hour photo.

I was trying to avoid the wind but not having the choice gave me a good photo. Not the photo I was after but a nice one nonetheless. I love how the wind’s blowing the sand between these rocks giving the image a dreamy effect. The lack of drama in the sky and it’s pastel colours, I think, add to that effect. I like it.

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1/500 sec @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

Even though my tent was only fifty metres away from Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) I set my alarm to wake an hour before sunrise. Hoping to capture an image during blue hour. Unfortunately the alarm woke me to rain. Now I’m not an early morning kind of person and going to bed late the night before didn’t help but rain?! Nooo!!! I was determined to capture images of Poé though so I stayed awake, hoping the rain would stop. And forty-five minutes later, it did. About ten minutes after that the clouds opened up. Time to shoot! Blue hour was gone and golden hour was in full swing so I had to hurry to find a composition.

I had to walk up the beach a little before finding this dead coral, I think it’s coral, rock? Anyway, it would make for an interesting foreground. All I had to do now was to wait for the water to wash over the coral/rock and snap a shot. The line of the water would lead the eye towards the surveillance cabin and then the sky. And it worked quite well. I’m very happy with the photo.

I wanted to take a few more shots but the rain came back and my gear isn’t weather sealed so I packed up and took cover under a tree. And guess what I saw?… Check out my next post.

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1/60th sec @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

Continuing on from my last post where I missed two potentially nice photos, I made my way to Magenta Bay in hopes of capturing a beautiful sunrise. Unfortunately, I arrived a little too late. The sun was already well above the horizon and there was no colour in the sky. You know that moment of the morning, after the golden hour, where everything seems bland and silverish. So I decided to give the welder’s glass filter experiment another go. 

After experimenting with a few shots and the sun hitting straight into the lens, I thought my best chance of capturing a descent photo would be to take multiple exposures to blend later. I kept the welding glass on and took three exposures with a two stop difference. I realised later though that I should have exposed darker for the sun.

I used Lightroom’s HDR option to blend the exposures and post-processed after. Converted to black and white and started working mainly on contrast. I mentioned in a previous post that the colour cast of the welder's glass is so strong that it’s very difficult, but not impossible, to get rid off. It’s just easier to convert to B&W. I tryied to darken the sky more but I was getting funky effects around the sun. It was ugly.

In the end, I’m quite satisfied with this image. The welder’s glass is quite a challenge to use but I do enjoy experimenting with it. I can’t wait for the opportunity to use proper filters. Hmmm more things added to my wish list.

2 sec. @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

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