Rubénerd!

My first 2013 post, my first K-On! post of 2013, the first post from my adorable new 11" MacBook Air, and the first 2013 K-On! post from my adorable new 11" MacBook Air!

The image on the left is by おまる@3日目西“け”23b on Pixiv, the image on the left is the video I took of the Sydney fireworks from my iTelephone 4 in the company of some wonderful friends, and especially Clara ^_^.

Peace, health, sillyness and happiness for the new year to you all.

Trying out SmugMug after hearing so many people on The Twitters and other sources rave about it. I've uploaded a few photos from my sister's and my recent trip to Cocolat on Rundle Street in Adelaide. Tastyness!

While I do love the design and think their uploading tools and generated URLs are far superior, I think I'll stick with Flickr for now. I've already got a ton of stuff hosted with them from many years of use, they make it easier to display images externally, not to mention the fact I just topped up my pro account so might as well use them for the next year!

The link to my testing account will still be active for 30 days before it expires. Unless someone else can give me a reason why I should keep it up of course :)

For those of you wondering what happened to those photos I promised I'd be uploading a few days ago, alas I've let my so-called Flickr Pro account expire and while I've got the money to plonk (plonk?) down for another year, I need to transfer it into my super special separate Visa Debit bank account I use for the intertubes which will take a few days.

In the meantime, I have attached an entirely pointless image from a previous Grilled Cheese Sandwich Observation Lesson. I need to do another one of those.

A very good friend of mine and a nice guy Jerry Novak just uploaded a photo to Flickr he took using his new Lensbaby Composer. I thought it was beautiful until I reread his tweet, this was his first photo with it, now I'm also in absolute awe with waves of jealousy flowing through me like... waves.

I get the feeling I'll be describing myself as an amateur-amateur photographer for quite some time!

Jerry told on Twitter he was only able to get this one shot before security told him to stop; to their credit, the did let him keep this one picture. I think that's part of my problem as an amateur photographer (and podcaster, and blogger...), I'm far too self concious. Perhaps I just need to start taking my little D60 with my everywhere and just getting used to whipping it out in public.

For some reason I like the softer focus in this shot. The depth of field had to be narrower so I could shoot the picture faster to compensate for my overly jittery hands. At least with a 50mm 1.8 it can collect much more light in a shorter time.

This is another type of shot you just can't plan for. Like a really bad cold. Wait, that didn't sound terribly good. Need some work on holding cameras more steadily when standing though.

This was a spontaneous extreme test of my new budget AF-S NIKKOR 55-200mm VR. Without warning, a helicopter flew above us in the distance, and I had just enough time to pull the camera out of the camera bag (yes, a camera in a camera bag!) and take this picture before it flew into the distance. It was a blend of low light with a very fast moving object a long distance away with a uniform background. You can't plan for such moments!

Considering it was very low light, the body of the helicopter came out sharper and more well definied that I would have expected, thanks in part because it's VR. Even with my glasses I couldn't see any writing from the ground, but here we can clearly make out "FTA" and the "VH-FIX" registration (doesn't sound like a reassuring one!). If I were the type to snoop, this would be an affordable lens to use, no question. Wait, what?

What you can see though with the uniform background is the falloff (dark corners); while I'd like to pretend I intentionally made the centre of the image brighter and the corners darker, this is the result of using the lens at the extreme 200mm end. One thing I've learned with using DX lenses is the same with choosing an ISO level in the camera: generally it's better to be more conservative with your choice of settings and to avoid using it's most extreme setting.

Intersection just outside Mawson Lakes in suburban Adelaide, with bike lane :)

The great thing about this lens is it's perfect for my D60, being a DX and AF-S lens it autofocuses (albeit not as quickly as my kit 18-55mm). I've been really spoilt by the stunningly surpreme sharpness of my AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8D (which is actually designed for full frame cameras), but it is nice to have the camera autofocus sometimes, especially in a situation like this photo when the reflexes of the photographer are especially important!

I'll continue to leave my 50mm mounted on my cute Nikon D60 because it's sharpness, speed and brilliant performance in low light is absolutely unmatched between my three lenses, but this 55-200mm is lightweight and very capable if used properly, and am looking forward to doing some more testing when I don't have so much work to do. Ken Rockwell really likes this lens.

I clearly still have much to learn about this interesting hobby!

I found myself waiting a few days ago with my Crumpler computer bag at the Mawson Lakes Interchange train/bus station (Google Maps, Wikipedia) a block away from our house. I tell you what (and I reckon Todd Tyrtle would agree!), my quality of life is so much higher living so close to a public transport hub like this, I can get to the city and the surrounding suburbs so easily and without needing a car.

Anyway to pass the time I whipped out my little D60 with my AF 50mm f/1.8 and manually focused a couple of scenery shots. Why? I hate rhetorical questions. Why? Because I do! Wait, I asked another rhetorial question didn't I? Argh that was one too! I'll stop now.

After several months of painfully dry weather (speaking on behalf of the struggling farmers) Adelaide and other parts of SA have been getting some much needed rain over the last few weeks. Coming from Singapore where it seems to rain almost every day I was struck by how sudden the scenery everywhere changes so quickly here. Not only does sunburned ground become green again, but the darker clouds here seem to even paint human structures a different colour somehow. I can't really describe it, but buildings, paved surfaces and even cars just look different. Can you go senile when you're 23?

I reckon it would be worth taking these exact same shots sitting in the same chair in six months time.

I'm not quite sure why I find images like this so heartening. Perhaps it's because he looks like... a real human being. And there are many more where that came from.

The eerie thing is, no sooner had I viewed this picture on Flickr than The Scorpions "Wind of Change" started playing in iTunes. Synchronicity?

We got our first good dose of rain here in Adelaide yesterday and today for the first time in months. The river here in Mawson has that stuff in it again... what's it called? Water!

I usually correct the white balance when I take RAW images on my D60, but I left it as is on this one, it really shows the sudden cool change and whatnot. Just straight shooting with my 50mm f/1.8D. I might not be a good photographer, but it doesn't make it any less fun!