The Walter Taylor Bridge at sunset.

Remember my previous post on effects one can obtain if zooming in / out while taking a picture? The same effect can easily be obtained just by applying a filter to a perfectly normal image. E.g. this one:

Resulting in the following image (note that any desired degree of blur can be obtained; this one is 10px. The focal point can be anywhere, and affect any size area.):

For comparison, a similar image with the blur obtained by moving the zoom while taking the picture:

A trip to Daisy Hill Conservation Park, with new tripod and Eye-Fi card.

Today is very quiet – no wallabies (probably due to lack of picnic leftovers caused by few people around), and the muddy orange streams along the Paperbark Trail are totally dry for the first time ever despite it being the middle of the wet season. Still, one does what one can with the photographic subjects at hand.

Sleeping Koala

Happy Black Currawong with chip

Butterfly

Paperbark Trail

Some awesome shots of today’s sunset at the end of a very hot day.

Crying Tiger beef (from Bill Granger’s Everyday Asian).

Skiffs, giant jellyfish and crabs.

A trip to Jollys Lookout.

The view.

A caterpillar.

Various flora.

Having only just discovered the zoom-while-shooting technique, I wondered how to apply it to inanimate objects. Here are some unconventional shots of the Walter Taylor Bridge. I especially like the black-and-white version with its geometric angles.

Here’s Foxton St, looking surreal:

One can rarely go outside here without encountering a spider, so, have a spider. Two, in fact.

And I couldn’t resist a macro shot of this water drop, reflecting the whole chilli plant:

Last week I read an article with suggestions on how to produce abstract photographs. One technique mentioned was to set a long shutter speed (around 1/30s) and deliberately introduce movement, either by moving the camera while the shutter is open, or zooming in or out during this time. This I had to try out. The Botanical Gardens seemed a good bet, with lots of colours and textures available.

It sounded really quite simple, just move the camera. It turns out that the resulting pictures look pretty much indistinguishable from camera shake. So, out came the tripod, and, after experimentation, the best results were obtained using a smooth zooming motion while gently pressing the shutter button. (Possibly even better results could be obtained using a cable release.)

Regarding composition, the images benefitted from having a fixed point at their exact centre. I experimented with a duck that snoozed conveniently just in front of a clutch of bamboo.

But the winner of the day, in my opinion, these beautiful giant bamboo stalks in streaming sunlight.

More abstract shots can be seen in this gallery.