Category Archives: Photography

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

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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).

Mini oranges at Heide Museum of Modern Art Virginia Creeper on the old farmhouse (Heide 1) at Heide Museum of Modern Art Nasturtium flower

Virginia Creeper at Heide 2 gallery, Heide Museum of Modern Art Donna in the cottage garden at Heide Museum of Modern Art Flowers and bokeh

“SuperMoon” Over Cardinia Reservoir

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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:

Early morning sun over Cardinia Reservoir

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.

Sunset from Cardinia Reservoir Sunset from Cardinia Reservoir

The "SuperMoon" through trees at Cardinia Reservoir "SuperMoon" over Cardinia Reservoir

Cardinia Kangaroos at Sunset

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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)..

2011-02-25T20:21:15.JPG 2011-02-25T20:21:30.JPG

Kangaroos scratching and feeding at sunset 2011-02-25T20:22:07.JPG

Aussie Silhouette Kangaroos hopping away into the sunset

Testing the N900 “Lowlight” Photo Application

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Nokia have released some “research prototypes” of applications that use the FCam libraries to do fun things with taking photos on their Nokia N900. One of these is called “Lowlight” and is designed to make it easier to get reasonable photos in, well, low light conditions. I tested this out on Tuesday night after the Linux Users of Victoria meeting, taking a photo of the Old Commerce Building on the University of Melbourne campus.

Old Commerce building, University of Melbourne, at night

Now given that’s taken hand-held without a flash, I’m pretty impressed, you can even make out the design of the courtyard floor in front of it! If you go and look at the original full size version on Flickr (CC-BY licensed) you can see there is noise around the outside of the building, and there is an almost oil-paint effect on the details of the carvings on the building due to their algorithm, but given the alternative was nothing at all it’s a great little program!