What a successful event! I would personally like to thank all of the 25 or more photographers who made it to the One Year Anniversary Google+ Photo Walk which I hosted with Paul Pichugin in Fremantle, Western Australia.
I managed to meet more than 24 new faces and a few old mates as we casually strolled Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour and the streets of Fremantle. Amazing we even met a few photographers along the way who had no idea about the event but still decided to join us for the entire walk and breakfast!
Hats off to Google for the amazing platform which enables photographers to connect and share photos anywhere.
Over the weekend I am looking forward to seeing some of the amazing photographs from the many talented photographers who came to the event. You will be able to see what happened at the event as Google recently released a new Events feature on Google+. Users were able to connect to the event live from their mobile devices by selecting a Party Mode which allowed uploads of photographs and video. To see the some photos and video go here.
If you missed out on the walk don’t worry. There will be another photo walk planned later in the year. At this stage the location will most likely be around the Perth Hills although this will be advised later on.
Here is a quick shot from a mobile (excuse the quality) of some of the photographers who stayed on for breakfast after the event.
Now I’m off to Albany to photograph some whales so I hope to see some photos later on tonight.
I was challenged after seeing a Facebook post from ABC 1 TV program “Photo Finish”. The brief was simple – “Submit the most creative and imaginative photograph you can – it can capture or depict anything you like! There is a trick to it though, every photo must include a camera lens somewhere in the shot. The lens can appear anywhere in the photo, but it must be there!”
I quickly got to work and compiled three images that were going to tell a story. The photos were taken using the Fujifilm X Pro 1 and Canon 1D MK IV.
Image 1 – The old fire place to ignite the photo
Image 2 – Some ghostly clouds to add some atmosphere
and lastly a photo of my old Canon 400mm f/5.6L USM lens
The next step was to combine the photos in Photoshop to meet the competition brief
I’ve been lucky enough to be given a Fuji X-Pro1 by Leigh Diprose for the last few days to give it a road test and see what I can do with it. I was heading away for the weekend already, so I took the X-Pro1 on a bit of a road trip around the south of Western Australia. My very initial impressions of the Fuji X-Pro1 is that it has an exceptional build quality, the camera is quite nice to hold even with my large hands, many of the smaller cameras seem to get lost in my hands. The controls are all fairly intuitive and very accessible, with in minutes of picking it up I was able to use most of the functions I would normally use on my dSLR.
First stop was about 3 hours drive out of Perth, I’m a sucker for clear night skies, we are lucky enough to have very little light pollution here in the west. I decided to give the Fuji a go at some star photography, normally I’d photograph this with my dSLR as it has quite good high-ISO performance.
Milky Way – Fuji X-Pro1
This image was photographed at ISO1600, f2.8 and a 30 second exposure. The camera was in single shot mode and this is a RAW image with minimal processing. Within the first 3 images I was incredibly impressed by the high ISO performance, there isn’t a huge amount of noise in this image and the clarity in the RAW image is exceptional. The straight jpeg was very similar to this RAW file that I’ve just added some sharpening to.
Dawn – Fuji X-Pro1
ISO1600, f2.0, 1/4000. This is a straight jpeg out of the camera with no adjustments, I’ve just resized it and added my signature. The noise levels are very acceptable, I’d have no issues printing this image fairly large. I’m very impressed with the dynamic range of the sensor too.
One of the more interesting modes I found for shooting was the automatic panoramic mode, you set the camera at your start point, press the shutter and sweep the camera from left to right, it then takes a series of images and stitches them together.
Fuji X-Pro1 – Panoramic mode
This is a slightly adjusted panoramic image, photographed with the Fuji X-Pro1 in panoramic mode. f4.0, ISO400, 1/220 the final full sized image is 5120 x 1440 px, so definitely a printable size.
Salt Lake – Fuji X-Pro1
This was photographed at: f8, 1/1500 and ISO800. I’ve done some processing in Adobe Camera RAW, the files are very flexible and retain a lot of detail.
Secluded Beach – Fuji X-Pro1
A RAW image with some minor tweaks in Camera RAW.
Overall I’m very impressed with the camera, I think it would make the perfect travel camera for someone who is accustomed to having professional level gear with them, but doesn’t want to have to carry it all over the world! This camera is definitely aimed at the enthusiast / semi-pro photographer, it has more than enough manual functions to keep any photographer happy, while retaining enough automatic modes to make it easy enough for the beginner to use. The files it’s 16mp sensor produces are very clean and very ready to print!
I have the camera for a few more days so I’m going to be trying out a few more seascape type images and a few other subjects. I’m definitely going to look into getting one, I’d really like to take one with me to Cambodia in September, I think it would be the ideal camera for the photo-journalist / documentary and street photographer.
I found myself standing in front of billions of grains of sand forming a monumental mountain. The dirt danced in the air as short breaths of wind thrust the sand about. The wind howled, choreographing its own sandy air show. Sand clouds appeared before me – rising and falling in unison as they laid to rest upon the great dune. The sand was forever forming and changing.
I had a small window of opportunity to capture the magnificent wonder. My time was short and my lips were becoming parched from the windy conditions. I felt the threat of rain steadily approaching as the blackening gang of clouds rolled over toward me.
The camera strap felt secure around me neck as the cold wind tried to flatten me. My heels buried into the forgiving sand as I lined up for the shot. With a short steadying breath and cold metal pressed to cheek, I clicked the shutter button forging my first photo.  The light and dark tones seemed to jump from the rear screen as I deciphered the small details of the dune. Upon noticing the detail it struck me the entire dune simply did not fit onto the small screen on the back of the camera – the dune was simply too big. Thinking about my options I decided to return the camera to a vertical shooting position and attempt a multi row panoramic.
My excitement to capture the perfect formation was child like. From left to right, overlapping RAW photos fired off one after another to replicate the scene in front of me. Full of energy and a spring in my step I proceeded to the car after the files saved quickly to the memory card. My thoughts of marrying the photos together and applying an artistic touch were unfathomable. I simply couldn’t wait to get home and put the photographs together.
I have included the original RAW photos below and additionally captured my screen as I turned the merged photos into a fine art photograph.
The above photos were stitched together using PTGui Pro
Leigh Diprose and Paul Pichugin will be hosting the Google+ One Year Anniversary Photowalk here in Fremantle, Western Australia
A photowalk is basically a bunch of photographers meeting together to photograph an area. Photowalks are a great way to meet other like minded people who share the same passion of photography. It doesn’t matter if you are a beginner or a professional photographer – you are all welcome to come along. For me this is the perfect way to meet other local photographers!
If you are interested in coming along then feel free to join Paul and myself at this free event. Â The details are listed below.
The Event:Â Sunrise is at 7.17am. The main photography shoot will be around Fremantle Boat Harbour at sunrise followed by a walk into the City of Fremantle capturing some of the old buildings. We will then finish at 9am for breakfast at The Attic in Fremantle (Bannister Road, Fremantle) were we can sort through photos, mingle and enjoy great food and coffee.
Paid and Free Parking can be found around the city. Â Also not listed on the map is a multi-story car park on Collie Street.
What to Bring – Camera and any photography equipment like memory cards, tripod, batteries etc…., money for breakfast (at The Attic) and a good pair of walking shoes.
For additional information on Fremantle’s Fishing Boat Harbour you can visit the following website – http://www.fremantlefishingboatharbour.com/
If you have any questions please contact myself or Paul by posting a comment below this post.
Fujifilm has announced today there will be some exciting new lenses coming later this year and next year. The XF 14mm f2.8, 18-55mm f2.8-4, 56mm f1.4, 27mm f2.8, 55-200mm f3.5-f4.8 and the new 10-24 f4 will all be added to expand the Fujifilm’s XF family.
I think the lens I am looking forward to the most will be the XF 10-24mm f4. Using this lens will mean less time consuming photo stitching for my landscape photography. I’m sure many other X series photographers will agree with me this will be the most popular lens.
Tonight I will be posting a panoramic stitching speed video using Photoshop on my latest landscape photo taken with the Fujifilm X Pro 1. Stay tuned.
Below is the road map of future XF lens release dates.
I have been working on this background for an interesting project – my self portrait.  Over my many years of portrait photography I have never taken my own photograph so I’m considering it a challenge. Next month there will be a Photoshop video showing how I will get to the final image.
My self portrait is a work in progress….the background is sorted so now all I have to do is add in the rest….hopefully it works out.
Everything has a beginning right?….it can only grow and get better from here!
Join me for the first official cameraED YouTube video as I travel out to Port Gregory located in Western Australia to photograph a landscape scene.
cameraED will be growing every day into a site that will be available for every budding photographer out there, professional or beginner.  So sit back and enjoy the weekly videos all about photography!
Below is the final image I managed to capture before the battery died again!
Canon EOS 1D MK IV – ISO 50 – 40mm – f5.6 – 0.5 sec
“Super Cool” Â is my explanation of this ground breaking product.
Microsoft have certainly created some amazing hardware products over the years. The amazing team at the Microsoft Redmond campus has been busy.  Designers, development engineers, manufacturing engineers, industrial designers, hardware testers have been busier than Santa at Christmas creating a revolutionary product that showcases the best of design and powerful performance. An idea for a revolutionary product has progressed through numerous prototypes and countless man hours to evolve into something beautiful. The product I am talking about is Microsoft Surface for Windows 8 Pro. The technology is complex and the high-end product is perfect, high quality and beautiful. Period.
Build as a stage for Windows 8, Surface is a device that fits perfectly into your hands due to a perfect design of a 22 degree beveled angle to the outer edge of the tablet.
Creative and productivity has a new home. The Microsoft surface is available will be available in two different models – Surface for windows RT (available as a 32GB or 64GB tablet) and the Surface for Windows 8 Professional (available as a 64GB or 128GB tablet).
Microsoft Surface for Windows 8 Pro is the perfectly designed product for now and the future generations.
The tablet has been moulded from VapourMg a product made from mostly magnesium to allow durability and seamless design.  Each individual layer of the VapourMg housing has been individually moulded to .65mm with precision allowing for a rigid and seamless design. The case takes approximately 152 steps to get to the final stages of development.
Some of the stand out features on the device would have to be the built-in kickstand and the touch cover.
The built-in kickstand is constructed from the same VapourMg and is only .7mm thick. This has allowed the kickstand  for seamless integration within the tablet housing. The Microsoft team wanted to create an emotional attachment to the end user so the feel and sound of the kickstand was very important, when the kickstand closes it sounds like a high-end car door closing. Amazing!
The Surface Windows 8 Pro features a magnetic accessory spine which connects the touch cover by simply ‘clicking’ in. The touch cover and in fact all the Surface products are all perfectly designed to work together due to all products being designed together.
Once connected the Touch cover will automatically change the colour of the screen to the colour of the touch cover. An outstanding feature of the touch cover is the built-in keyboard located on the inner cover. Â The keyboard touch cover is an amazing 3mm thin and has been designed just like a book cover. Once connected the spine of the tablet feels like a book. You can also fold the cover back as it has a accelerometer built into it to notify the tablet when it isn’t in use.
The keyboard measures touch 10 times faster than any keyboard that is currently on the market allowing the user to touch freely and quickly. However if you are like me an prefer touching keys Microsoft have developed an additional Type Cover. Type Cover keys have a 1.5mm travel allowing the user to touch type with ease. Both the Touch Cover and Type Cover feature a trackpad.
I am told Surface Windows 8 Pro will be available to purchase three months after the release of Surface for Windows RT.
Connectivity needn’t be an issue as both Surface devices feature dual high performance antennas for WiFi (currently the only model on the market to do so). The performance of the tablet delivers the same power of a high-end PC so it won’t hinder the creativity of the user. The Intel 3 generation Core i5 processor allows the user to perform heavy tasks like editing image in Photoshop something I am looking forward to.
Sharing your creative designers or ideas is simple. You can connect the 1080P Gorilla Glass 2.0Â tablet to a HDMI connection to enhance your broadcast. USB is also an option so if you are on the road like me charging your phone has never been easier!
The actual transfer speed of the device is five time faster than USB 2.0 – For example 1GB of high quality photos only takes 5 seconds to download so dealing with large format photographs has never been so easy. I can’t wait to see what the Fujifilm X Pro 1 photos will be like on the device. I’m sure they will be beautiful.
I simply can’t wait for this device to hit retail shelves. I know for once I will be in the line to get my hands on one of these amazing products. I hope you can come on the technology journey with me. If not sit back and relax as you will find my future roaming posts will be created on one of these marvellous devices.
The people in their cars behind me must have thought I had a rubber neck as I consistently moved my head in every direction panning the skies for Osprey followed by more horizontal pans looking across the lifeless earth for the perfect landscape composition.  I had been on the lookout for the momentous shot for some time and now the light was beginning to turn a golden hue. Time was running out.
I had frequented this road before. The long open road that produced a distant hopeful shimmer. We’ve all been there only to find the road continues on into an endless journey, and my journey had taken me to the beautiful Coral Coast in Western Australia. Bustling along my eyes rested upon a majestic pink lake nestled alongside the road. The wheels were spinning in full rotational motion as some of the scene passed, a quick stomp applied by my feet applied a relieved halting pressure to the brakes –  I simply had to capture the developing scene before me.
The sound of the car door was behind me as I flurried into position. Jostling tripod and camera into some sort of balancing act I clicked the X Pro 1 into a starting position, the camera proceeded to perform with some sort of magic. The focus arrived as the composition fell perfectly into place  – this was going to be one for the pool room.
I had been waiting for this sort of scene since the sun experience deja vu from the day before. The atmosphere was filled with silence as I quietly navigated the quick mode on the back of the cold metal camera body. Fingers easily falling upon the self timer mode I rested knowing the picture would be perfect. One click of the shutter button had confirmed my belief. My journey was complete.
Fujifilm X Pro 1 – ISO 400 – 35mm – f8 – 1/1900 sec
The perfect opportunity arose when I was fortunate to find myself with a rarity of four days off. I had been wanting to exercise my camera’s shutter at a unique West Australian landscape setting – a pink lake located in the small town of Port Gregory. My fascination to photograph this bizarre landscape arose when I peered out from my window in a very small plane heading to Karratha from Perth. Even though I am extremely colour blind I was clearly able to see the pink hues from the air. Amazingly the pinkness comes from a bacteria – Dunaliella salina which finds itself trapped within the salt crystal of the lake. The psychedelic colour is most vibrant around sunrise and sunset. That was my goal – to photograph two sunrises and one sunset.
Pen went to paper as my visual ideas for a great shot consumed me. I felt a bit like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, I was simply pursing one of my dreams to capture the ‘precious’ shot.  The days drew nearer toward the 6 hour Skoda drive that would see me at my destination. My thought train was rumbling and steaming as I debated what photographic gear I would take. The usual suspects were there the tent, clothes, sleeping bag and the like but the burning question on my mind was which camera and lens combination should I use?
Pondering the question over a beer some sense came to mind – I thought “I’m travelling all that way I should just take it all.” So I did:
Fujifilm X Pro 1, Fujinon 18mm f2; Fujinon 35mm f1.4, Canon 1D MK IV, Canon 17-40mm, Canon 85mm f1.2, Sigma 120-300mm f2.8, Canon MP-E65 f2.8, Canon MT-24EX Flash, 3x Lee Filters and a stack of memory cards all stuffed into my Lowepro Nature Trekker Case…oh and don’t forget the Manfrotto 190XBPRO tripod!
The night had arrived when I found myself standing in front of the seemly quite and eerie destination. The scene before me was pitch black with an encompassing blanket of stars reflecting on the gigantic lakes’ every ripple. Delirious from the trip I managed to take one photo on the X Pro 1 before I set an alarm to wake my fading Red Bull and coffee filled mind up from its unnatural state.
The developed photograph intrigued me as it revealed a dull glow from a salt refinery on the distant horizon. The aura produced by the man-made structure seemed to interact with the greater constellations. There was something else to the photograph – it was a bit of a surprise – at first I thought I had captured some sort of military plane or an object you would see in documentaries over the famous Area 51 – I took a second photograph to confirm my belief…but alas the UFO was classic lens flare. Just quietly before I took the second photograph  I couldn’t contain my excitement – I thought I had made contact!
Morning arrived with rain filled clouds and disappointment written all over my face. I wasn’t going to get the sunrise I had been dreaming of – the clouds were simply way to cumulus for any light to penetrate. Picking myself up I reached for the Fujifilm X Pro 1 to test its high ISO abilities. During my oscar winning sad-sack performance the heavens had a break and decided to have a sneak peek of a light show as the sun played hide and seek with the clouds. During the intensely short game I managed to pick off a few which made me bounce right back into being Leigh Diprose – the happy traveller.
The rest of the trip I experienced downpours, sand blasting winds and extreme chills (youtube videos to come). I opted to leave the X Pro 1 in the car due to the intensely bad weather. The only advance I saw in using the Canon in the horrible weather was it’s weather proofing – other than that the X Pro 1’s image quality was on par with the Canons. All of these images were photographed in RAW on the Fujifilm X Pro 1 with adjustments made in Lightroom 4.
Fremantle, Western Australia known as ‘Freo’ to the locals is full enthusiasm for late nights, premium local beer, unique fashion and great coffee. The heritage city hosts a mixture of eclectic stereotypical hippies, hipsters, skaters and artists who all bring their own flavour to the streets and stores. I wanted to capture a glimpse into the culture that is Freo so I headed off on foot with the Fujifilm X Pro 1. Instantly I thought of the local Wool Stores where an assortment of posters and urban art coincide to bring life into the old heritage building. I thought a grunge theme would best showcase the building at night.
I was quite impressed with the sharpness of the cameras sensor within both photos. The light trail left by the bus in the square photograph created depth and interest within the long exposure. I found that it really broke up the plain brick wall into something interesting.
Cameras and technology have changed so much in the past 12 months not to mention the last decade. I have been involved within the imaging industry now for over 13 years and have seen many advances from the first 1.3MP Kodak Easyshare camera to the ground breaking 36MP Nikon D800E. Throughout my time in the photography world one thing has always remained  – the chase for the best camera design whilst still delivering perfect image quality – enter the Nikon 1 series.
You see at first I was sceptical when I first saw this camera. I thought to myself can such a small sensor produce sharp images; and the look of the camera…was this even a camera?…was Nikon serious? A day out with the camera was going to change my mind.
I jumped in the car with the small white camera in my hand and the spare lens nestled in my pocket. The sun was out and the streets were busy. I decided to head to the local markets – the famous Fremantle Markets.
I noticed a crowd had gathered near the entrance to the markets and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to photograph some candid portraits. In the past I hadn’t had much success with street photograph due to my big Canon DSLR – most of the time I was discouraged by local authorities – this didn’t even present as a problem with the Nikon V1.  I was encouraged to join in the fun as the crowd encouraged the local entertainer to perform insane stunts. I found myself in awe of the talented busker. He had the myself and the crowd engrossed in the performance. I anticipated a perfect moment was about to present itself so I switched the camera to video mode and set the quality to Full HD. The busker didn’t disappoint, he proceeded to perform for the crowd thrusting whips in the air filling the busy street with deaf defining cracks as the two whips danced about above his head. The Queensland Crossover was in full swing and I wasn’t missing a beat thanks to the amazing video feature on the V1. This experience had summed up my day. The camera was amazing especially the video. Later on that day I played back the video on the high res screen and chucked to myself as I relived the moment.
I put together a small video showcasing some of the standout features I experience when using the camera. All the sample images are shown below most of which were photographed at ISO 1600 due to the low light in the undercover markets.
If I could pass on one piece of advice when thinking about buying a new camera it would be – you wouldn’t judge a book by its cover…so in turn you should never judge a camera by its cover until you delve into the features and experience the image quality for yourself.
LEIGH DIPROSE 