A Couple Of Long Exposures
I have been away camping with the family for the last couple of days (hence no new photos). Did a bit of playing with long exposure shots and the D90 to see how it would handle… The first one is a 20 minute exposure which has been a bit over tweaked in Photoshop (sorry not quite back in the real world yet) and the second one is a 30 second exposure.
The files look good but I have to say that the camera processing time was crazy! On the first shot the exposure was 20 minutes and it nearly took that long to process the image after the initial exposure so 40 minutes all up. I am hoping I just left a setting on which would increase the processing time so will have to look and see what other people have said…
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8 Lens, ISO 200
Pomare Revisited
Went out looking for abandoned buildings yesterday afternoon and ended up driving back past Pomare… It has changed quite a lot since I was there a couple of weeks ago. Houses that still had people in them are now nothing but empty shells and new buildings have fences around them as they are due for demolition. The fences around some of the buildings had been pushed down and there were people removing bathroom fixtures (not sure if they were supposed to be there or not since it was a public holiday).
The whole place has an aerie feel especially once you look closer at the things that have been left behind.
Nikon D90, 50mm f1.8, ISO 400
Death Of A Friend… D70s You Will Be Missed
Last week my trusty Nikon D70s decided that after 8 years of being thrashed that enough was enough.
This post is a dedication of sorts to all the fun we have had together over the last 8 years…
This is the last shoot it ever took… Finishing up the shoot for Spook The Horses on a rooftop in Wellington… You will be missed 😦
All Images Nikon D70s (deceased), Various Lenses and ISOs
Fatherhood Friday: Ballerina
Emily had her ballet show last weekend and she want me to take some pictures of her in her costume before it had to be taken back. Sam got in on the act also 🙂
(Sorry to Facebook people who have already seen these).
Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8 Lens, ISO 200, 2x 500W Electra Stobes with shoot through Umbrella Softbox and Barn Doors for Backdrop.
Fort Buckley At Night
Last night Fergus (Cunningvision) and I revisited Fort Buckley for a bit of night shooting. Aside from camera malfunctions (D70 is definitely on its last legs losing about 10 shots and having to have the battery removed a couple of times to make it work again) it was a pretty good shoot. Although none of the images are spectacular, they definitely have promise and with a bit more planning could be pretty cool.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 200
Fatherhood Friday: Adventures In Cooking
Ok so this isn’t a normal type of post but it was a fun experience so I thought I would share.
About a week ago Emily suggested that we make gingerbread houses (I’m pretty sure she meant real life sized ones, or at least dolls house sized ones) since every couple of weeks we make gingerbread men while Samantha has a lunch time sleep and then decorate them the next day at the same time. Sam usually wakes up once we have done most of it but there are always things left for her to do as well (usually eating the decorating things and left over dough as well as cutting the last few shapes out).
So I thought what the heck lets give it a go…
I drew out a quick sketch (thank you 5th form technical drawing) to make sure it was kind of what Em was thinking and then made up a small model to check it would work and also to be used as a cutting template.
We made the gingerbread like normal and just after we had finished making it Sam woke up so she got to help ( I secretly think that she knew we were doing something fun and woke up so she wouldn’t miss out).
We made enough parts to make 4 gingerbread houses (since this was a trial run) and the rest got turned into a conglomeration of Christmas trees, teddy bears, people etc…
Into the oven they went and 15 minutes later we had some slightly distorted but still entirely usable house pieces …
At this point the story was put on hold due to the fact that the next day when we were due to ice and decorate them Samantha had a blinding 30 minute tantrum and didn’t go to sleep and was grumpy for pretty much the whole afternoon.
Friday comes round and things go to plan, Sam goes to sleep and we mix up some icing ready to decorate (I was going to make the usual pink icing but Emily insisted that I make chocolate icing). I put together the first house but made the mistake of putting the walls on the inside of the ends which meant the roof didn’t fit so it had to be pulled apart and re-done which made it look a bit messy before we decorated them.
After they were all put together we put them in the fridge for 30 minutes so they would set and started decorating the rest of the gingerbread.
We each decorated 2 houses and I think for a first try at making them they turned out pretty well.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens.
Storm
So there is a bit of a winter storm happening over New Zealand at the moment so when the first snow flurries started to hit I decided it would be a good time to head to the south coast and get some images as the storm rolled up from the south island.
Its school holidays which meant that Amanda was home to look after the kids as I put on as many clothes as I could find and headed out.
The great thing about owning an aging digital SLR is that you don’t mind so much if it gets a bit wet so even though the spray off the waves was pretty bad I still got some shots. I also took my F5 which was pre loaded with some expired Ilford Pan F+ 50 ISO film so it will be interesting to see how they come out since I was getting up to about a 10 second exposure, hopefully I will develop that roll in the next day or two.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 200. 1st two shots with a Cokin ND8 and Cokin ND4 Gad
Fort Buckley WW2 Remains
Some shots of Fort Buckley. I stress these were just test/location shots as the day I went the light was super bright 🙂
Fort Buckley at the entrance to the Kaiwharawhara gorge housed a couple of guns for defense of the inner harbor and was originally built around 1885.
When I was there at the end of 2009 it looked like the area was getting an upgrade with a new walking track down to the gun pits.
Nikon D70s, 50mm f1.8, ISO 200
WW2 Fort Dorset Remains
More location shots of bunkers again today. This time above Seatoun, these were to protect Port Dorset which lay on the other side of the ridge and the harbor entrance.
There are some old images of it HERE although the two gun pits are pretty much just rubble.
These were by far the most overgrown battlements and it looked like someone had been living in one of them. I especially liked how the metal shutters on one of them had rusted to look like lace.
In some places houses have been built only meters away from some of these structures so it makes you wonder how much longer they will last…
Nikon D70s, Various Lenses, ISO 200.
Fort Balance Retrospective
On the front of Fridays Dominion Post there was an article about the military wanting to sell off the land that a number of the historic fortresses are on. A few years ago I decided to go and investigate all of the old forts and battlements around Wellington and found this one while looking for something else… I think these were taken around 2008… I have kept meaning to try and get actual permission to go back since this one and a couple of others are on Military land but have never got round to it… Possibly because I have no idea where to ask 🙂
Here are some shots of Fort Balance which was built in the 1880s. There is a good article HERE which details most of the history of the fort.
Nikon D70s, 18-70mm Lens, ISO 200.
Test Shots From The Demi
After receiving my new Canon Demi S from Trademe (NZ equivalent of Ebay) on Wednesday with the shutter locked I was pretty disappointed. However a quick Google search pointed out that it was a common problem with this camera if it hadn’t been used in a while and the fix was pretty easy.
So with a bit of trepidation I started taking the front lens assembly off in order to get to the shutter…
After removing the front lens cover and lens as well as the shutter speed ring I was at the shutter. Some lighter fluid on the end of a cottonbud and Viola! I now had a working Demi.
It does have a bit of fungus in the lens and the light seals will need to be replaced but for $30NZ its a pretty sweet half frame camera with a 30mm f1.7 lens which can be used fully manually unlike the Demi or the Demi colour, the selenium meter works and seems very accurate…Sweet!
So in went the first roll of film to see if it actually worked… After dropping Emily off at school me and Samantha were planning to go for a street shoot in town but got stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway after a crash for about an hour and Sam fell asleep so that pretty much ended the plan for street shooting… I did take some in the car and the last shot of the series you can see the wreck.
So when we finally got home and Sam woke up we went to the cemetery for a walk and to take some images. Again these were snapped off pretty quickly due to the short attention span of an almost 2-year-old 🙂
All in all I have to say I’m pretty stoked with the results as everything seems to be working very well 🙂 Look out for a whole heap more from this camera
Canon Demi S, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner
Darkhalide Photography 
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