First Shoot with the D200

Fort Room in BW, originally uploaded by brentbat.

Today was my first shoot with the new camera. The camera itself performed flawlessly. I love so much about the camera compared to my Nikon D70 that it is hard to know where to begin. Fundamentally though it is just the pure quality of the images that impress me.

I did make one mistake though on bracketing for HDR work. I didn't realise that the camera was maxing out the exposures at 30sec, so when I shot a 7 frame bracket, it was not over-exposing enough which creates more noise in the lowlights when you produce your HDR image.

Found some new angles and places to shoot, but it was still hard to really concentrate with Michael there.

I discovered the "Blue Room" this time. I am definitely going to go back and shoot this room some more with my new lens. Here's what I am planning...
1) Smoke to highlight the beams of light weaving through the room
2) I want to make a feature of the incredible dust and stones sitting at the base of the shuttered windows.

I might need to bring something to elevate my tripod by another 12".

All-in-all though I was very happy with the shots that I got out of my D200. A promising start to a new photographic chapter.

My New Camera Arrived!

Yesterday my new camera arrived!

I am the proud owner of a bouncing Nikon D200. Taken a few experimental images to see how the camera feels, but hope to go out tonight down to the Rocks for some night photography.

I also just ordered the Tokina 12-24mm zoom lens which I am also excited about. Should get that on Sunday. Absolutely no excuses now for great images!

Day 4 The Old Fort in Middle Harbour

Old Fort Tunnel, originally uploaded by brentbat.

Went up with the family today to Middle Harbour Fort for a walk. The fort was a lovely place to shoot some photos... could have stayed there for hours but the family started getting impatient.

Shot a few photos that I was happy with. The tunnel was a challenging one to shoot, could not have captured this image without HDR approach.

HDR Project Day 3 - Dawn over Long Reef

Dawn over Long Reef
Originally uploaded by brentbat.

Day 3 of my HDR project and I went out with Dad to shoot sunrise over Long Reef. While the sunrise itself was less than spectacular, it gave me a chance to work on my bracketing technique. This shot was comprised of about 7 images and I was very happy the reduced level of noise.

Opera hose sunrise day 2

Opera hose sunrise day 2
Originally uploaded by brentbat.

While the sky wasn't as good as yesterday, I think I did a better job with the processing. Also my bracketing was better which resulted in much less noise in the low-lights. I discovered that the trick is to make sure you really over expose the picture enough (so that you correctly expose the shadows). If you don't do that, you seem to get tons of noise in your HDR image.

My First HDR photo

opera house at dawn hdr, originally uploaded by brentbat.

I was lucky with the sky, but I have realised that Photomatix is a bit heavier on the saturation that I realised.

My Photographic Journey

I have started this blog to chronicle my journey as a photographer. While I have been involved in photographer for almost 30 years (that is scary in it's own right), it is becoming clear to me that my learning and development as a photographer is accelerating. I think this is primarily due to the digital evolution and tools like Flickr that are making it so much easier to learn, share, publish etc.

Not sure how active I will be with this blog, but we'll see in time.