Bokeh play: Wild Flowers

Bokeh: Wild Flowers
f/8, 1/320s, Tamron 1:1 90mm macro lens, Nikon D80

This must have been one of the longest hiatus I've taken. Not that I've been keeping away from taking photographs, but I'm just been not having time to update this photo blog. It's important to me, but it's not on the top of my list of a gazillion of things to do.

This photo is taken from a large collection of photos from the Sydney Royal Botanical Gardens. I'll try and put some of the nicer photos from that collection on this blog soon :)

This is currently my desktop background - I love the bokeh on this photo - the blurred flowers in the background. The colors were deliberately vivid - I wanted some bright spots of colors to contrast the usually drabby skies this time of the year.

You get best bokeh when you use a wider aperture - basically, you get very shallow Depth of Field. I used f/8, hardly the smallest aperture (this lens is capable of f/2.8), but that's because I wanted to get a balance of vivid colors and bokeh. The shallower your DOF, the less vivid your colors usually turn out to be.

Hope you all enjoy it ! Happy New Year !! Here's to a year of good photography !

Places: Bronte Beach, Australia

Solitude at the Beach
f/5.6, 1/800s, Nikon D80, Post Processed Velvia effect

When in Australia, one thing that you should do is to take advantage of the great outdoors.

I was out at the Eastern Beaches Coastal walk, doing the famous hike between Bondi and Coogee during the weekend, even though the usual Sydney sunshine wasn't always there to warm the chilly winds.

The walk takes one from Bondi through to Coogee through some nice beaches and great ocean views. This photo was taken at Bronte beach, when the sun peeked through the looming rains and gave me one of the few opportunities to take a decent photo.

I did some post processing to the photo - I used the channel mixer to try to create the Velvia effect. Velvia is a type of film from Fujifilm, famous for deeply saturated colors suitable for outdoor photos.

I think it would have been a lot nicer if the lady walked straight, instead of turning away from the surf at the last moment. And even better if she was walking along the surf, but on a cold day like yesterday, I don't blame her for turning back to the beach for a cold blanket !

Place: Iconic Landmark

Icon
f/8, 1/300s, 24mm, Nikon Coolpix 7900

It doesn't take a lot of guesswork, if any, to know what building this is, and where I took this picture. The Sydney Opera House is truly an icon, with its simple lines conjuring images of a ship with its sail in full glory.

Taken from a ferry cruise around Middle Harbour, as the ferry was pulling out of Circular Quay, I had to find myself a position on the right side of the ferry, as my fellow tourists jostle for a shot of this iconic building.