Sunday 14 April 2013

A wander through Belair National Park

This afternoon I found myself without anything to do, so with the nice weather I went for a walk into the Belair National Park, with the view to try and take some half decent wildlife shots that I could submit to a photography competition.  

The national park is only 100m from my house, and it's great to have somewhere to walk through where you can see kangaroos, cockatoos, koalas, parrots, lorikeets, ducks, water hens and emus to name a few just going about their daily business.

Here's a few of the animals and birds I found today.










Wednesday 3 April 2013

Visit to Cleland Wildlife Park

So after spending our hard earned money on the photography course, Mel and I decided we needed to practice what we've been taught.  We decided to head upto Cleland Wildlife Park in the Adelaide Hills to take some photo's of the animals up there on Easter Monday.

We left reasonably early in the morning so that we could make the most of the best light.  Not that it really mattered since it was overcast all day.  Luckily at 10am, there weren't that many people around, so we were able to get in lots of photo's before the crowds rolled in.

The first exhibit we came across was the the Tasmanian Devil.  This poor guy seemed to be the only one in his enclosure, and he spent the entire time running around in a great big circle only stopping once in a while to check out his "cave" before starting on his loop again.  We felt really sorry for him.


Following this we started to come across the many kangaroos that live in the park.  Most let us get up real close to them before wandering away.  Obviously looking for a feed from us.


This old guy what sitting by a tree.  Not moving.  Just sitting there.  Who knew kangaroos go grey when they get old!!



Here's my attempt to catch a wren that was definitely not intending on sitting still for me!


The dingoes were next.  As with the kangaroos, they weren't doing much for the day.



The koala's make an easy target for shooting when they are fast asleep!




Once there was a sign of food arriving, a couple of them came to life.  One young one, according to the handler tends to get a bit over eager during meal time, jumping from heights a koala really shouldn't jump and as a result now has arthritis - and he's only three!






The pond was next - full of ducks, geese, swans and waterhens.






As a diversion from all the animals, I also took a couple photo's of the plants.



Some roos in the next kanagroo enclosure were hoping to get into the Euro enclosure.



An emu drinking from a leaking water tap.




 These little guys wouldn't sit still for us.




But these guys were happy to oblige.




And seeing as it was Easter, I had to get a photo of a bilby.


Some not so friendly snakes.




And finally, a kookaburra that only minutes before had stolen bread off a table at the cafe.


1 Day Photography Workshop

I have had an interest in photography for a number of years, and whilst I've taken the odd good photo on my travels I've never really known what I was doing. Since my last holiday I've been looking at doing a photography course, and finally decided to do a 1 day workshop through +Chris Bray Photography with one of my best friends on March 23 at the Adelaide Zoo.

The day was a full on 9 hours, but a good mix of theory and practice that allowed us to test ourselves on what we had learnt.  Our first practical out in the Zoo was to capture something with a shallow depth of field and then with a deep depth of field.  Then we tested out the effects of shutter speed.   We were also shown how using a shallow depth of field and focusing on an animal in the cage, could blur out the wires, enabling the animal to appear out in the open.

Nikon D3100 62mm  f/4.2  1/640s  ISO 800 

Nikon D3100  62mm  f/22  1/25s  ISO 800


Nikon D3100  55mm  f/4  1/250s  ISO 100

Nikon D3100  55mm  f/22,  1/6s,  ISO 100   +0.7 step

After that, it was back to the classroom to learn about composition, framing and lighting before going out "on assignment" to take a portrait photo for use on the cover of the Australian Geographic.  The prize for the best photo of the group being a Lowepro Camera Bag.  There was not a bad photo in the competition, and sadly I went home without the bag.  Below are a few of the photo's I took on the day.

The first photo is the one I chose for the competition.


In hindsight, this is the photo I wish I had used.


Other photo's taken on the day:











Finally, to end the day with a bit of fun, we were shown how to paint with light.  Using a darkened room and a laserlight on the wall with the shutter speed set to 10 sec, this was the result.