New Job

I've given notice to my current job, and will be starting work at the Canberra Institute of Technology in the Photography section in the beginning of October. I'll be responsible for various IT systems, looking after the photography equipment and helping out teachers and students with technical photograhy stuff. Looking forward to it :)

Just another one of those amazing Canberra sunsets

Had I got the camera out just 5 mins before, the lines in the sky would have been a bit nicer (3 distinct lines instead of one fat one and one thin one). Spose I'll have to wait until tomorrow night :)

Congratulations to Gwen & Jason

Bit late with this post, but a big congrats to Gwen & Jason who tied the knot in Jindabyne on 10th August 2008. It was supposed to be a wedding in the snow, but due to blizzard conditions the ceremony location was changed to the trout hatchery just outside Jindabyne. And the amazing thing was that it actually snowed during the ceremony! I feel sorry for the bridesmaid who had a beautiful dress but not a warm one - she would have been freezing... everyone else was in thick ski jackets. Small selection of photos follow.

New webhost

I've been using GoDaddy for my webhosting for quite some time. The main reason I choose GoDaddy was because it was easy, no contract, cheap, and the WebSite Tonight template based hosting made it very quick and easy to put together quite a good looking site (oh, and my domain was registered with them). The bad stuff about GoDaddy though is that:

• WebSite Tonight is limited to 5 pages
• The ongoing fees are a bit steep for 5 pages
• The user interface is dreadful - mainly because it's so painfully slow

So, it was time for a change. After a bit of research, and quite a lot of R&D, I've successfully implemented the website using Google Sites. It took me much longer than I'd anticipated, mainly because Google Sites strongly encourages usage of the built in templates and prevents things like embedded objects, CSS editing and extra CSS files. To get the same look and feel as the old site I had to turn off most of the Google Sites features and choose a template that had styles that didn't interfere with how I wanted things. Then I did a lot of hand coding of HTML...

One of the major features that attracted me to Google Sites was the availability of a very large range of widgets that you can embed in the site - iGoogle Apps. These demo really well, but (so far in my limited experience) if they're not Google produced ones then they leave quite a lot to be desired. For example, I spent most of Sunday afternoon trying to get a slideshow of my portfolio images which are stored on flickr. There are heaps of iGoogle flickr apps, but none are very good and most are extremely limited and have almost no options. But, use the Picassa widget (made by Google) and it looks good, works straight out of the box, and is quite customisable (would like more, but hey, it's not too bad).

Another interesting thing is the ability to use Google Spreadsheet forms as feedback forms. When a user submits their information it goes straight into the Google Spreadsheet and you can set up email notifications. The moral to the story is if you're deep in the Google pot then things work well, otherwise forget Google Sites and look elsewhere.

Jury Duty

Not related to photography in any way... but, I've been called for jury duty in a couple of weeks :(

Some amusing comics below:

Lightroom 2 is out

I've been waiting for Lightroom 2 for quite a while. I played with the beta a few months back and some of the new features were really good. This is really going to enhance the workflow and further reduce shelling out to Photoshop (= a good thing).

July Update

It's been a very busy week-and-a-bit.

• I watched the judging of the NSW/ACT APPA competion (part of VIVID photography festival). Very interesting watching the judges score the photos, and even more interesting when they have mini-debates to convince the other judges one way or the other.

• Attended "Magicians and Travellers" conference (put on by AIPP also as part of VIVID). The standout talk for me was Phil Kuruvita. Peter Eastway had a good presetation, as did Phillip Andrews.

• Use DNG. I never really saw the point of DNG, but the main reason to use it is for better workflow going from Lightroom to/from Photoshop. I've gotta test this out soon. The other benefit is that you get around 20% storage saving over NEF files... which actually is a good enough reason in itself to use DNG. Now I've just got to convert all my photos...

• I've finally registered "t8 photography" as a business name.

• All my insurance has been finalised. I got a couple of quotes and in the end went with photoinsurance.com.au Quite good value and email communication was pretty smooth.

• I put an ad in the "A day to remember" wedding liftout in The Canberra Times. I was the only photographer who did so - I'm not yet sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing... it could mean it's a waste of money! I have had two enquiries from the ad so far though. I'm also advertising via Google Adwords, which seems to be more effective so far. I've had most enquires from people who have clicked on the Google ad.

• 5 weddings booked. Yay! Next wedding is in two weeks.

• I've moved my email from GoDaddy (which is attrocious) to Google Apps (ie. GMail). So far so good. I'm going to see if I can do the website hosting with Google Sites, then I can get rid of GoDaddy for everything except domain registar. As part of Google Apps you get Google Calendar - which imports iCal calendars and iCal can subscribe to Google Calendar (and still syncs the calendar to my phone). I would have prefered that Google Calendar do proper two-way syncs with iCal, but I suppose you can't have everything.

• Still doing photography work for ALVA media on the weekends. I'm now doing the team shots by myself (sometimes with a little help from George). Next weekend I'll be showing someone else the ropes.

• Sent in the form to join NPS Lite. Nikon Professional Services. You get stuff like priority equipment servicing, free CCD cleaning and a few other minor things. I'm not sure if they'll accept my grey import Nikon gear though. Does anyone buy from authorised Nikon resellers these days??

• Talking about grey imports - just got my first macro lens: Nikkor 105mm with AFS and VR. Looking forward to using it when I've got some time!

• Took some photos in the rain halfway up Black Mountain (the hill, not the tower) with a couple of the guys from the Canberra Photography Society. One I liked below:

Victorian High Country

Just got back from a week away in the Victorian High Country. We stayed at Bright which turned out to be a fantastic base. One of my objectives with the trip was to photograph Wallace's Hut, but the access road is closed in winter and it's a 17km return walk from Fall's Creek in the snow. I'll do the walk another time when I've got the gear (snowshoes) and someone that can hike the distance through snow with me :)

Instead we found Dinner Plain Hut. Not quite as much history as Wallace's, and not as picturesque, but it was only 30m from the road and was nestled in amongst the gum trees.

Here's one of my favorite shots of it:

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 22mm, f/10, 1/400sec

We all had a cuppa in the hut and then headed up the road and found JB Hut. It's a couple of hundred metres walk from the roadside through snow but is just visible from the road. I rushed the shots of this hut and the first few that I took were over exposed and had to be chucked. This one with the show gum in the foreground is one of the more interesting shots, but the tree is out of focus on the left hand side as it exits the frame. It's not really too much of an issue, especially considering that this is at 11mm and less that a metre from the tree (main thing is that the hut is in focus).

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/5.6, 1/125sec

This is the Cathederal on Mount Buffalo. Very amazing views. It was hard work dragging the kids up the mountain as the snow was knee deep in most places, and slightly deeper in others... but the reward was worth it.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/9, 1/320sec

We visited a Emu and Alpaca farm. They had animals roaming around the carpark and some ostritches which seemed a bit unusual (they were behind a fence fortunately). The interesing photos I took here though was of this rusty old cart.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 14mm, f/10, 1/40sec

This is the waterfall on the way up to Mount Buffalo (can't find the brochure with the name of it atm). I spent a long time taking shots from many different angles and unfortunately couldn't get the shutter speed below 1/10th of a second without overexposing the water. The minimum apeture on the Tokina is 22 but most of the shots I did at 22 had weird flare which I only saw when I got back to the apartment - luckily I took lots of shots with a wide variety of settings!

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/20, 1/10sec

And another waterfall - not quite as interesting but all good practice.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/16, 0.6sec

And some of the native fungi growing in a tree.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 80mm, f/5, 1.3sec

I was also looking for some really mature snow gums, but didn't find any. Apparently there are lots in Fall's Creek, but we didn't get there this time.

Last CPS comp

A bit late with this post - I can't remember the scores I got exactly, but here goes:


This one got a 5. The judge liked the movement in the birds wings and thought it captured a great moment. This was shot with the 80-400mm lens at 400mm (600mm equivalent) and was cropped heavily.


This one got a 4 I think. The main criticism was that it was printed too dark. I think all of my prints were a bit dark (especially the butterfly - need to investigate and do some tests I think).


I think this one got a 4. Pretty good score for a very simple photo that lacks a bit of punch and not perfect focus. The judge was pretty easy on the B graders :) I love doing these kind of macro shots, but the 18-200mm lens is just not great for this - still waiting for the 150mm Sigma macro.


This one got a 4.5. The main criticism was that the eyes weren't in focus, although to me they look like they are. The print was quite dark and the background especially, but on the screen it looks quite vibrant and bright. I'll reprint it with a brighter exposure and see how that looks.

Depth of Field Calculator

This is pretty cool - and posting it here so I can find it when I need it :)

The Depth of Field Calculator