Wenderholm for a change

A somewhat gloomy Wenderholm beach

Arriving at Wenderholm we had high hopes of a lovely warm sunny day at the beach.  As you can see from the first shot, it was somewhat moody and cloudy.  Lots of lovely textures both in the rocks, the windswept pools of water and, of course, the clouds.  Whilst composing the first image you see in this post I could only think of a monochrome shot.  Perhaps let me know what you think?

As the day progressed it became brighter.

As the day progressed the sun came out a little more and things started to brighten up.  there remained lots of drama in the clouds and, to be honest, the sea was quite a way out, so I thought I'd stick with monochrome for the second image.  I was really taken with the textures and patterns in the sand in the foreground and felt a monochrome treatment would work well with this.  You can just make out my son and daughter paddling in the sea centre right of the image.

Truth be told, as the day progressed it just got better.  Wenderholm is quite a lovely place to visit should you ever get the chance and I managed lunch at one of my favourite lookouts.  We were fortunate to visit during the week when most other folks are busy at work - great time to visit the parks and beaches!!  The last shot in this post was taken from close-by my lunchtime picnic table, and, as you see by the use of colour now, the day didn't turn out too badly at all!

Quite a nice spot for a bit of lunch.

In the compost heap!

Not really what I was expecting to see in the compost heap!

I've been working in the garden of late, trying to get some semblance of order into a somewhat chaotic weed ridden patch we've been calling a garden for quite some time now.  Part of this work has been to uncover a compost heap started a few years ago that is full of very reach loamy soil that I'm using in other parts of the garden.  Imagine my surprise when last night I noticed a cat with three kittens sitting atop my compost heap!  Time for some shots this morning and I suspect more shots will follow as the gardening goes on hold for a while.

I'm not sure who owns the mother, but suspect she may have been abandoned and is now hiding around the back of my compost.  She looks thin, but the kittens look very healthy.  We'll keep an eye on the family and see what happens.  For now I'll leave with you with a couple more snaps of the kittens.

Well and truly delighted.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 24-70mm @70mm, ISO1600, 1/80sec, f2.8

At last I've had a chance to try a D800 in the field under the types of conditions that have frustrated me with my D300.  I had a couple of lenses to use, a Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 on the D300 and a Nikkor 70-200mm f2.8 on the D800.  The event was the Gospel Summit at Takapuna, Auckland at the Harbourside Conference Centre. A really lovely venue, but as is usually the case, the lights are more set for a stage show and aren't that intense.  This means high ISO and slow shutter speeds.

Using the D300 I try to keep ISO 2500 as an upper limit wherever possible as things soon start to look a little noisy and gritty.  Problem then, however, is that performer movements or camera shake cause blur.  It's been a challenge and I've often wished I could use higher ISOs and get the colours I wanted.  Last night was a chance to see what the D800 would do!

I put the 24-70mm on the D300 as I thought I'd use this for wider shots that I wouldn't be cropping.  The 70-200mm would be used to capture closer images of the performers that may be cropped to get just that little bit tighter.

The first noticeable thing to me was the weight.  The D800 with the 70-200mm isn't the lightest of combinations and after a few hours working with this setup you begin to think weightlifting at the gym may not be such a bad idea after all.

So, what did I think of the D800?  Is it a keeper?  The short answer is yes.  Focus was snappy and precise.  Face detection works a treat and performance at higher ISOs was very good indeed.

Nikon D800, Nikkor 70-200mm @200mm, ISO2500, 1/125sec, f2.8

I took two shots at practice time of one of the performers with each camera as I tested out the light levels.  The difference is clarity between the two images is quite stark.  Granted there's some motion blur in the D300 shot and this will be due to the slower shutter speed.  The D800, however, with the 70-200mm with VR switched on was a gorgeous combination.

Colour rendition was good, noise levels were quite low and I was well and truly delighted by the way the camera behaved.  It's a dream.

I've attached a few more shots for you to consider taken with the D800 and 70-200mm lens. These images have been cropped yet still provide some lovely detail even though they were shot at a higher ISO (3200) to get a faster shutter speed (1/250sec).

Leaves - new ones!!

Liquid amber and looking skywards.

I mentioned earlier that today has been a wonderful day.  Clear blue skies, lovely and warm and a gentle breeze.  Gorgeous.  I just couldn't resist taking a few photos, but it's been hard to get away for other tasks and jobs.  One thing I did want to show you however, were leaves.  Very often I get carried away with the various colours of the flowers and forget about the fresh green of the new leaves.  I often take photos of the leaves when they die and go yellow, red or brown, but nowhere near as many of the fresh green blooms.  What's more, they really look quite lovely against a clear blue sky.

New Robinia leaves.

Even on the same tree you'll see a variety of shades of green as the leaves age.  The second shot illustrates this with some Robinia leaves where you can see the fresh yellowy green of the new leaves in contrast to the deeper greens of the older ones.

There's textures, different shapes and a huge variety of contrasts in leaves - perhaps more that you realise.  Perhaps next time you're out and about take a few moments to look a little more carefully at the leaves as well as the flowers.

The third shot in this post is of some Agapanthus leaves.  I can't say I'm a big fan of these plants, but some members of our household are!  Even so, the leaves are quite lovely.  I was struck by all the lines in the leaves and the range of contrasts between all the leaves.

Agapanthus leaves.

Stoked!

Gorgeous colours at Auckland's Botanic Gardens

Or perhaps delighted is a better description.  I took a gentle stroll around Auckland's Botanic Gardens a little earlier and they really are quite lovely presently.  We're heading into summer here in New Zealand and there's some quite wonderful colours on display.  I'm still coming to terms with a new lens and wanted to see how it performed at different apertures.  I'm curious about it's background blur and also how sharp it is when wide open.  I really like to open up the lens to reduce depth of field to emphasise the subject in the image where ever possible, and thankfully this lens seems to behave rather well.  As is happens, the first shot in this post of some mesembryanthemums was taken at f5.6 in an attempt to get more than the odd bloom in focus!

Kniphofia at f2.8

The second shot was taken with the lens wide open at f2.8.  the colours were so rich and vibrant; makes me think of Kodachrome!  At the end of this post there's a couple more images taken from a less pleasing vantage point using f2.8 and f22, just to see how much I can get in focus at the extremes of the lens's aperture range.

Still on the theme of Kniphofia led to shot three.  Here the lens was wide open again and the rather curiously shaped tree used as a backdrop to the blooms.  You can see from this shot a little vignetting and also just how blue the sky was today for us here in Auckland!

Oh well, time to get out in the sunshine again methinks, don't forget to click on the images to look at a larger version of the shot ;-)

Kniphofia again ... still at f2.8

Lens closed down ... f22, just to see how much I could keep in focus.

Lens wide open ... f2.8, just to see how little I could keep in focus :-)

Depth of field

Some folks have been curious regarding the effect changing the aperture has on an image.  Here's four shots of some chives in my back yard.  The focus point is the same on each image, but the aperture has changed from  f2.8 through to f16.  You'll notice that not only is there an increase in the number of chive flowers that are in focus, but also the background becomes a little busier and more distracting.

Looking at the last image highlights just how many daisies there are in my grass!!  As such I much prefer the first image as you can't tell they're there at all :-)

Chives, 200mm, f2.8

Chives, 200mm, f4

Chives, 200mm, f8

Chives, 200mm, f16

Here's a couple more shots for comparison for you.  This time the apertures are f1.4 and f2.8.  It doesn't seem like there'd be a big difference between shots taken at these two apertures, but perhaps there's more than you expect?  With the white flowers there's more patches of blur that I find a little off putting when compared to the second shot at f2.8.  Also, if you look at the flower in sharp focus it's rather better defined in the f2.8 image.

Looking at the last two shots f1.4 really helps the flower stand out from the background and I was quite amazed by the difference in depth of field between these two shots.

85mm, f1.4

85mm f2.8

85mm f1.4

85mm f2.8

Weeds in the garden

Forget-me-not ... I can never remember ;-)

Well, not all shots in this post are of weeds, but there are a LOT of weeds in my garden so I suspect it's fair to say the majority of flowers are weeds!  Problem is, if left to their own devices there'll be even more next year and the year after!

After my previous post regarding large apertures I thought I'd have another play with images shot with the lens quite open.  The first shot was actually taken at f4 and at 200mm.  When you're quite close to the subject the depth of field is significantly less than when you shoot something far away.  The problem I wanted to avoid was not getting all of the flowers in focus, hence an increase in aperture to f4.

The second shot was also taken with the 70-200mm zoom, but this time at f2.8.  These particular weeds are under a cherry tree with a wall and apple tree behind.  Using a wide aperture disguises all these other garden features and focusses your eye on the flowers ... well, I suspect just one in particular!

Cineraria come in a variety of colours and I suspect we have each colour in our garden!  The third shot was again taken at f2.8, but this time at 70mm.

Lovely blue cineraria.

Purple cineraria.

More detail on the purple cineraria.

The fourth image in this post was taken at f4, but with a 200mm focal length.  Of shots three and four I think I prefer number three.  Perhaps let me know which you prefer.

Besides all these weeds there are some other flowers in the garden.  Apple blossom and clematis appear on the remaining shots in this post.  The apple blossom was shot at f2.8 at close to 70mm but the clematis was shot at both f8 and f2.8.  Maybe see if you can determine which shots was shot at which aperture?

That's all for now.  I'd better get into the garden as I've heaps of weeding to do!!

Apple blossom, 70mm (ish) at f2.8

Clematis up against the wall.

Clematis ... again!