Photography in Plain English

I have written two ebooks to help people get started with better photography. The first and most popular is “Photography in Plain English” which is a true beginners guide.

Some ebooks start out assuming you already know the basics, so real beginners are left in the dark from the start. Other books out there seem to be more focused on demostrating the genius of the author, and put things into such jargon and complicated detail; they are more about serving the ego of the author than about helping you learn photography.

Photography In Plain English starts at the very beginning…it explains aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, how to handle moving subjects, when to use a tripod, ISO etc. All in very simple terms you can understand, and illustrated by photos from my gallery. It also explains some of the basics of composition and using natural light for you landscape and wildlife photography.

You can CLICK HERE to find out more about Photography in Plain English, or just visit me at www.naturesimage.com.au

My Pentax K-20D, the story updated.

Months ago I posted a story outlining the troubles I had after purchasing my Pentax K-20D in January, and the ridiculously simple solution that took care of it all. That post has been the most-read thing I have ever written, so since there is so much interest I thought I should write a follow up.

The short version is this: the camera was having an electrical fault where it would not turn on properly, then it would not turn off either, so I was stuck in photographer’s no-mans-land. The only way to get past it was to take the battery out, put it back in and start again. Then the camera would work fine…until the next time it happened.

After replacing two camera bodies and eliminating the lens as the problem, we finally realised that the fault was in the memory card. We replaced the card and eureka! The camera works.

So, what has been the story since then? Well, the news is all good. I am loving the camera and have taken a year’s worth of amazing photos. I occasionally get a tiny glitch when I switch the camera on and it says “Memory Card Error” so I have to turn it off and back on. From what I have heard from many other photographers, that is something that happens from time to time with most DSLR cameras, so I am not considering that a big problem.

Duck on Montville Pond

Most of the posts I have written this year have featured photos taken on the Pentax K-20D. Here are a couple more to show how happy I am with the camera. I hope if you are reading this you are enjoying yours as well.

Surfer, Point Cartwright

 

Maleny Sunset

Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Bee and Bottlebrush Image – The magic of ISO

People still love to bore me with questions about whether digital is better than film. Honestly, I will be glad when the ‘novelty’ of digital has worn off and people just accept that it the standard in photography as we know it today.

Unfortunately, running a gallery, people feel compelled to have the same dull question with me, 20 times a day. My answer lately is that digital is a new way of saving and storing an image, but the process of taking a photo really hasn’t changed at all. It still comes down to aperture, shutter speed, and knowing when to use a tripod.

If there is one great benefit which I have begun to appreciate lately, it is the ability to change the ISO from one photo to the next. Take this shot as my example:

In bright sunlight with the aperture wide open, the best shutter speed I could get for this subject was 1000th/sec. Even at such a fast speed, the wings on all my bee photos were blurred beyond recogntion. My ISO is usually on 200, so I reset it to 400, and took some shots at 2000th/sec. Still too slow.

Finally I set the ISO to 800, and was able to take this shot at 3000th/sec.

Bottlebrush and Bee

Imagine trying the same experiment ten years ago. It would take three rolls of film, with all the cost of developing included, to achieve the same result. You would not realise your mistake until the first roll was developed, and by then the opportunity to shoot the subject again could be lost.

So there it is; the one big change from film to digital which I have found (so far) that actually makes a real difference to my photography.

Hope you like the shot. Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Wildlife Photography / Alma Park Zoo, Brisbane

Regular visitors to my blog know that in addition to my gallery and ebooks, I also teach photography workhops for beginners. At almost every workshop someone asks me what comes next after the beginner level, so I have spent much of the year working on ideas for some next-level workshops.

Freshwater Croc

Recently I struck a deal with the manager of Alma Park Zoo in Brisbane, to be able to hold some workshops practicing the skills of wildlife photography. I know the purists will tell me that photography in a zoo is not real wildlife photography, but remember I am teaching. At the zoo we can practice our skills all day, but in a national park we could spend all day stumbling around looking for a subject.

Red Panda

The first trial run of the workshop was a big success. Everyone went home with some great photos, and the photos shown here are a few samples from my first visits to the zoo.

Lemur

Alma Park is a great zoo for a family visit. It is not too big, so you can enjoy it all at a leisurely pace. It is quiet, and built under some amazing old rainforest trees which add something special to the experience.

Koala

To find out more about Alma Park, click here: www.almaparkzoo.com.au/

Kangaroos

Hope you like the photos. To visit my website and find out more about my workshops, check in anytime at www.naturesimage.com.au . The zoo workshops will be advertised publicly on the website starting early next year.

Point Cartwright; Sunshine Coast beach photos

Lately I have been taking a lot of photos around my home area, the Blackall range around Maleny and Montville. Now I feel like a change, and I have been making more of an effort to add to my collection of Sunshine Coast images. One of my favourite spots is Point Cartwright, between Kawana and Mooloolaba. It is one of those places that seems to produce great photos, and even when I come home with no photos, I come home feeling refreshed from the experience. Since I haven’t posted much lately, I thought I would share a couple of my latest photos from Point Cartwright.

Surfer Pre-sunset

By the way, I have not enhanced the colour on this photo…it was shot into bright sunlight on a hazy afternoon, and the smoke/smog filtered the sunlight to create the really gold lighting.

Point Cartwright Lighthouse

Hope you like the new shots. Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Rainforest Photography ebook…by me

Hi, it has been a while since I have posted. I go through brief patches when I have time on my hands but lately I have been so busy with teaching and running the gallery, and I have also been working on something special.

My local region has been hosting an even called “Festival of the Walks” to celebrate the great bushwalking activities around the Blackall Range. They asked some of the local businesses and artists to put on something special for the festival. My contributions is a new ebook, A Bushwalkers Guide to Rainforest Photography, which I have been working on for a couple of months and released just last week.

I am selling the book on disk in my gallery, but also I have made it available to download from my website. If it sounds like something you would be interested in, I am selling it at a discounted launch price for the duration of the festival. Once the festival is over (September 12) the price goes up.

CLICK HERE if you want to go to the webpage.

CLICK HERE to find out more about the Festival of the Walks. I hope you like the photos on the festival website…half of them are mine!

And, as always, you are invited to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au anytime.

2010 Calendars Part 2

Here is the second half of my announcement on the release of my 2010 calendars. Last time I told you about my Visions of Australia Calendar.

My other calendar (actually the one we usually sell the most) is the CREATIVE CALENDAR 2010. This is an entirely different product. We sell the calendar printed, bound, and ready to hang…but with the top half totally blank. That leaves you the opportunity to create your own truly unique and personal calendar. Use your own photos, draw, paint, get the kids to draw pictures (for gradma). Check out the sample images below and you will get the idea.

In the age of digital photography, we all take thousand of photos every year. Some of us put a lot of energy into doing the best job we can…then the photos are never seen again beyond a computer screen! The creative calendar is a great excuse to share some of your best photos from the past year with friends and family. We have done the boring part (putting the calendar together). Now you get to do the fun part.

Anyway, check out the sample images, and visit our website for more: http://www.naturesimage.com.au/page/21/default.asp

(By the way, I don’t often use this blog for blatant advertising, so please forgive this little indulgence!)

  

2010 Australian Calendars…here we go again

I haven’t posted for a while, very busy with several things, including  (I am happy to say) my best month in the gallery for a very long time. On top of it all, I have been preparing for my major announcement for the second half of the year.

My 2010 calendars are now in stock!

Think July is a little early? Well they have only been out for about a week and I have already sold about 60 calendars. So I thought it was time to put the word out on my blog.

Each year I release two calendars. The first one, Visions of Australia Calendar 2010, includes some of my favourite images from around australia. It has become a tradition to have a picture of the Glasshouse Mountains on the cover (the local icon of my region) and a shot of a kangaroo on the beach on the inside (these are the shots that keep the tourists coming back for more. Then I fill the calendar as much colour and vairiety of Australian landscapes and wildlife as I can fit into twelve pages.

Check out a couple of sample images below, and I invite everyone to have a look at the calendar page on my website: http://www.naturesimage.com.au/page/21/default.asp

Misty Morning – Lake Baroon, Maleny

This is something that doesn’t happen too often these days – I got out of bed early! The day before was a major fog event, they even closed Brisbane airport for a few hours…and I slept through it. So the next morning I was up early because the forecast said to expect similar conditions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, there was not so much fog around the general landscape, but a heavy patch of fog had settled over Lake Baroon, so I headed down there for a look.

One of the things I try to teach my students is, never settle for the first shot you take. If there is a great photo opportunity, chances are there are MANY great photos to be taken if you perservere and use some imagination.

This morning was a perfect example. I had a ball taking the photos, and captured the lake in a very different mood to how most people see it.

Hope you like the shots. Don’t forget to check out my website www.naturesimage.com.au

Digital Photography – The big plus for an old-timer.

It has been six months now, and I have had plenty of time to make the adjustment to new technology. Almost every day someone asks me about my preference; i.e. “Which do you prefer – film or digital.”

First up, let me say I really hate that question. Not just that I get it 20 times a day, but because people expect a simple answer when there really isn’t one. I am not going to try to answer it here, and I certainly don’t want to get into a big online debate. What I would like to do is tell you the one great benefit; the big plus that makes me happy I made the switch.

Here it is. My digital camera has reconnected me with photography. In recent years, I found myself making up excuses not to take photos. Excuses like – Maybe it won’t sell – Maybe it won’t work – I already have a photo of those mountains, do I really need another one? What it really came down to was cost. With the recession starting to unfold, I was always conscious of the cost of another roll of film and developing. I have such a large collection of photos, I just couldn’t justify spending money on photos I really didn’t need.

That wasn’t such a bad thing. It led me to work through my archives and discover hundreds of photos I had never printed before. But I missed the thrill of the chase; the never-ending pursuit of the perfect composition and a new challenge.

So here I am in the digital world, and I am taking photos again with my Pentax K20D. Taking photos with unlimited freedom. If I have even a half-baked idea, I give it a shot, sometimes surprising myself with an unexpected gem. I am watching the skies for the potential in an approaching sunset, and looking forward to every full moon. I am not afraid of paying for a photo that doesn’t sell, and as a result I am now selling photos that (in the past) I might never have taken.

Here are a couple of new shots from my recent outings. I hope you like them. Don’t forget to check out my website sometime: www.naturesimage.com.au

More Maleny Show Images

I got such a good response to my post showing fireworks from the Maleny Show, I thought some people might like to see a couple of other shots from the same night. Hope you like them…By the way, I won first prize at the local camera club with one of my fireworks shots. A small claim to fame it may be, but still fun to get some positive feedback.

Don’t forget to check out my website, www.naturesimage.com.au