Your Mileage May Vary » photos

I got filters.

Dan — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:19:57 +0000

It’s been forever since I posted. Here’s an image I took after a fairly disastrous trip to Coolum with Luke.

It’s not a great image (and colour tuning was done on my laptop screen), but it holds the dubious distinction of being the first image shot using my new H250 Cokin filter kit.

Stadium Drift: Round 2.

Dan — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:48:17 +0000

Luke and I headed down to the Gold Coast to check out Round 2 of the Stadium Drift Australia championship. Most drifting in Queensland is done at night (empty industrial areas notwithstanding), so this daytime event was a good opportunity to try my hand at motorsport photography. The aim was not to create images of just cars, but ones that really showed what drift racing is like from the sidelines.

The best photos from the day are viewable on Fluidr and Flickr.

Lrn2HDR.

Dan — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 08:32:13 +0000

It’s not often I get to drive through my hometown of Buderim. I took my brother back there today to visit a little nature reserve called Buderim Forest Park with our cameras. Mosquitoes notwithstanding, it was (and still is) a really nice area.

Since I was playing around with different exposure settings in my camera, I came home with a bunch of over- and under-exposed pics and decided to dabble in the black arts of High Dynamic Resolution images. Check out the two after the break and let me know what you think.

Casino by night.

Dan — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:59:05 +0000

I gave my brother a tripod for his birthday, then took him out to teach him how to use it. This is one of my photos – the Treasury Casino in “green mode”.

When a man dances…

Dan — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:44:23 +0000

I love this little snippet from a 1938 Dating Guide for Single Women.

Dark Sky Observing outside Brisbane.

Dan — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 05:59:41 +0000

A week ago I bought a small telescope to indulge my childhood dreams of backyard astronomy. Within three nights, just sitting in my backyard, I’d seen Mars, Saturn, the Orion Nebula and managed to identify a handful of constellations and bright stars. Last night, I took advantage of the new moon and went out to Mt Pleasant with a friend to hunt down some more Deep Sky Objects.

We found a little cul-de-sac off Mt Brisbane Road (about an hour’s drive out of town) with almost no light pollution (certainly none that mattered) and unobstructed views of the sky from about 10° above the horizon. This, coupled with ZERO clouds meant for absolutely breathtaking views of the Milky Way. The Orion Nebula was easily found with the naked eye, as were the The Pleiades – viewing them through even my little ’scope showed them as a beautiful, bright cluster.

Over the next 4 hours or so we also viewed Mars and Saturn (the easiest planets to find), the Jewel Box (NGC 4755 is its official designation) and the Beehive Cluster (M44/NGC 2632, depending on which catalog you’re following. Some photos were taken by my Nikon D60 and 200mm zoom lens, but most of the night for me was spent hunting DSOs with my telescope, teaching Pat the basics of photography, or just looking up.

The photo at the top of this post is a long-ish exposure photograph of our setup under the sky. The red lines are the two of us poring over a book of star charts with red torches. The two bright, white star trails in the centre of the image are actually Alpha and Beta Centauri – the two brightest stars in Centaurus and better known as the two stars that point to the Southern Cross.

A Drive in the Countryside.

Dan — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 07:25:48 +0000

Today I got bored and went for lunch up in the Glasshouse Mountains. Nice drive (though a bit warm) and a nice lunch at The Glasshouse Mountains Lookout Cafe. Of course, I took my camera, though I’m not overly pleased with this set of pictures. Check ‘em out in my photostream, if you like.

Australia Zoo Redux – A Family Affair.

Dan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:55:15 +0000

Last Sunday was spent with my family and Anja at Australia Zoo. I’d promised them all a trip to the Zoo as a christmas present and it was timed to coincide with my youngest niece’s 1st birthday. Last time I was at the Zoo (with Luke), I didn’t have a 200mm zoom lens. This time, I did.

A pretty fun day overall! Click on the elephant to go to my photo stream, where the rest of the photos are.

Road Trip.

Dan — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:41:55 +0000

Went for a drive to Woodford (along the Mt Mee tourist drive) with Anja today. It was nice to go out through the mountains when they’re green. Here’s a pic of Anja looking out towards Mt Tibrogargan (slighty off to the right of the shot) from the Mt Mee Lookout.

Token update!

Dan — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 03:56:39 +0000

I haven’t really done anything worth posting lately, but I feel bad for basically ignoring this blog. So I’m going to post one of Anja’s pictures. A while ago my sister requested our help in putting together a DVD of her two little girls to send over to the girls’ grandparents in Spain. That meant taking a lot of photos and video footage of them.

Anja took this one of Bella and I playing. It’s one of my favourite pictures ever, I think.