Adrift at Lysterfield Lake Park

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Chris Samuel

On Sunday went walking with some friends at Lysterfield Lake Park and found parts of the lake were pretty full for once.. 😉

Belgrave Lantern Parade

Posted on June 30, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Saturday 18th June was the Belgrave Lantern Parade, here’s the best of my shots from that night. Taken with Nikon D90 and Nikkor f/1.8 50mm lens.

All CC BY licensed, click on them to go to see them on Flickr for license details and full size versions.

Chris on a bad day

Posted on June 11, 2011 by Chris Samuel

An unflattering photo of me at one of the low points of my stay in hospital courtesy of my good friend Iain Ralph.. 😉

Playing with Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens at Heide Museum of Modern Art

Posted on May 12, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Last weekend I picked up a Nikon Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 lens and, of course, had to try it out. Late Saturday afternoon Donna and I went over to the Heide Museum of Modern Art in Bulleen to view the galleries and I took the camera with me to take shots out of doors with it. I do like the lens and for under $200 I don’t think I could really go wrong with it. It’s early days in getting used to what happens with a fast lens and what to watch out for but I think these shots below do show some promise for it (especially the nice bokeh at the largest apertures).

Autumnal Colours

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Changing colours at Cardinia Reservoir.

Eastern Grey Kangaroo at Cardinia Reservoir (Black & White)

Posted on April 13, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Quite happy with this one given the original wasn’t too great in colour – I think I’m starting to understand why people take B&W images..

Converted to B&W using Digikam under Linux.

“SuperMoon” Over Cardinia Reservoir

Posted on March 20, 2011 by Chris Samuel

So according to NASA:

Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon’s orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee): diagram. Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon’s orbit.

Saturday 19th March was meant to be one such and whilst a difference of about 14% isn’t that much to the naked eye I thought it’d be interesting to try and get some photos of the moon anyway. I looked at Google Earth and saw that the moon would be rising over Cardinia Reservoir as seen from the wall of the dam, so that seemed a perfect spot to go. I’d already been there that morning for a walk and got this shot of the early morning sun over the water with my Nokia N900 cameraphone:

So that evening Donna and I headed over to the reservoir with cameras and a tripod and got some nice shots of both the sunset (using the Nikon D90’s “LiveView” mode to avoid looking through the viewfinder) and the “supermoon” itself.

Why Creative Commons Rocks

Posted on March 1, 2011 by Chris Samuel

Creative commons rocks because someone can take your photo of a security camera:

Combine it with someone else’s photo of a very odd eyeball:

and with some imagination turn it into this.. 🙂

Cardinia Kangaroos at Sunset

Posted on February 28, 2011 by Chris Samuel

One of the great things about living on the edge of the city is that we’re only 15 minutes away from Cardinia Reservoir where kangaroos gather in the evening on the grass areas. Recently I’d gone for a walk there and spotted a kangaroo silhouetted against the sunset, but had no camera! So I returned a few nights later armed with my Nikon D90 and got these (click for a larger view on Flickr)..