Robert's Ramblings

What a fantastic way to end the the summer season: with a grand final win!

I tried to capture the action. Tried to freeze the continuous motion of players. My performance, however, did not compare to their winning performance.

Come ceremony time I decided to photograph something that did not move, did not blur. My vicarious trophy.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 91 - Winners'. 1/50 sec at 105mm f/4.0, ISO 1600

Driving into the city near sunset I see so many 'golden hour' photo opportunities. More often than not I am too busy to stop or the traffic/opportunity is not conducive.

This time I had a minute or two to spare so I pulled into a loading zone and jumped out with my camera. Too late; the sun had gone ...

Looking up the sky was still very blue and the Westpac building looked imposing as that beautiful blue sky reflected back down to me from every window on the building. It was a building of blue screen windows without the horrible white writing!

I took this shot which I found very strong, jumped back into my car and headed off on my way.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 90 - Windows Blue Screens'. 1/125 sec at 105 f/5.6, ISO 500

What an amazing sunset we enjoyed this evening as this perfect fiery ball descended into the ocean.

My goal today was to experiment with taking photos exposed directly into the sun without overexposing and as I have no good quality neutral density filters that meant late in the day when the sun was at a low angle.
I was surprised at how bright the sun still was nearly on the horizon with a substantially stopped down aperture. Even at my fastest shutter speed I could have only opened up to around f/20.

The technical challenge encountered was focussing. The camera completely refused to auto-focus and I was not prepared to use live view with the camera pointed directly at the sun for fear of sensor damage. Manually focusing simply based on the viewfinder seemed ok but the results were quite soft in the final images.

Next time I will use some ND filters for live view manual focusing and then experiment with removing them or not for final shots.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 89 - Fiery Ball'. 1/1600 sec at 400mm f/36, ISO 100

This morning I was looking for a photo opportunity in our front garden. I was not sure what I was looking for. Usually I leave this part of the challenge up to chance and opportunity.

It was an odd morning, cloudy and overcast from the direction of the sun but bright blue sky behind. Then for a moment a ray of light shot from a gap in the clouds and lit up a spot on the trunk of the shaggy bark tree. The spotlight of sunlight with the beautiful blue sky behind was simply too good not to capture.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 88 - Barking Blue'. 1/500 sec at 200mm f/8.0, ISO 400

I heard a rumour this morning of a rare conjunction of Jupiter, Venus and the Moon so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Well 8pm came and went and all I could see to the west was a cloudy sky. I was dismayed that I'd missed out on all the fun. With the hindsight of similar cloudy evenings where patience won out and a little bit of 'you never know...', I chose to set up my camera anyway.

As if by magic the clouds parted in just the right spot and there they were, all three of them: Jupiter to the lower far left, the moon near the middle and Venus off to the upper far right.

A few locals intrigued by my antics enquired as to what was in the sky. One particularly enthusiastic youth was so interested that he decided to light up me and my camera with his car high-beam headlights just to get a better look!

The clearing in the clouds lasted only a few minutes so I only got a few shots before Jupiter, Venus and the moon danced off behind the clouds again.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 87 - Jupiter Moon Venus'. 5 secs at 140mm f/8.0, ISO 800

The golden hour abounds with photo possibilities with its distinctive glow and soft yellow cast. There's also a brief period where the sun has indeed set but high above it sill casts its golden light.

Looking up this evening with the setting sun behind me I noted the glow of the city and the hills beyond as the sunlight slid underneath the grey clouds. The effect was magical as if the city shone its own light to light the hils behind and the clouds above.

As I stood and watched, a small plane took off, flying through the clouds into the dying rays of the sunset.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 86 - Suspended In Mid Air'. 1/8000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 800

Try as we might to prevent the mess it seems a white tablecloth at a dinner party is like a red flag to a bull.

I think it was all of about 15 minutes before this particular red wine incoming found its target. Our guest was suitably self righteous proclaiming he had no role in the unfolding mess around his plate. We on the other hand chided him to mere moments short of an out and out food fight.

Well perhaps I exaggerate just a little but a little spilled red wine seems only natural for a respectable dinner party.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 85 - Red, Red Wine Incoming'. 6 secs at 100mm f/25, ISO 100

All the time I see photo opportunities; the frustrations of not being able to capture an image as soon as the moment appears are annoying, to say the least. This is a sentiment shared by local Adelaide photographer Benjamin Liew who told me recently that his solution to this dilemma is simply to use his iPhone.

Wielding an iPhone, Android or a Nokia might solve the problem of being able to capture any image that happens along, but I just can't seem to get comfortable with that 'Instamatic' look that seems so popular at the moment. Also I am very reluctant to give up that most powerful and seductive compositional tool, depth of field.

This image really shows what I mean by composition and depth of field. Here is a very simple scene, probably similar to something you might see every day: two birds sitting on an object. What I saw with my eyes was the lovely integration of the myna birds' form with the sprinkler. What I can do with the camera is create the blurred negative space needed to bring this image to life.

Instagrams may be cute, but give me an f/2.8 or better any day!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 84 - Birds On A Sprinkler'. 1/60 sec at 175mm f/2.8, ISO 1000

The world's most important food and there is a good chance you have never seen it like this before.

To capture this image I placed a dessert spoon of rice into a flat-bottom glass and then sat the glass on top of my strobe light so that the light would come up though the rice. It took a bit of experimentation before I got the correct exposure, but once right the effect is quite interesting.

As you can see the rice has virtually been stripped of all its goodness and is literally just little pills of carbohydrate.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 83 - Worlds Most Important Food'. 1/200 sec at 100mm f/22, ISO 400 + Strobe Backlit

I see this spectacular light show on Rundle Street several times a month when I head into the city in the evening for one reason or another. I'd never before tried to take a photo of it but when I tried this evening I realised it was not as easy as I thought it would be.

To start with I had no tripod so it would have to be a hand held shot. That meant a high iso and wide aperture just to get a reasonably short exposure. At 1/20 of a second I can still hold the camera quite still (Canon IS works wonders here!). As it turned out this was perfect.

A tripod and a long exposure would have smeared the colours around the image rather than help depict the individually lit and moving elements. Too short an exposure would have resulted in me struggling with low light levels or dealing with lots of image noise. It seems 1/20 of a second was just about right for the best effect.

The display put on quite a light show transitioning through a great range of combinations. It took quite a few shots before I managed to capture something pleasing.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 82 - Be Dazzled'. 1/20 sec at 60mm f/4.0, ISO 1000

Making ordinary everyday things look great in photos is fun but sometimes I forget just how extraordinary some of my everyday experiences really are.

Today was no exception as we pressed the zinfandel must and got a first glimpse and taste of our future wine. This is my first wine making experience and although I can't take the credit for supervision and process at least I am involved. So far it tastes fantastic although just a little bit spritzy as it's still full of CO2.

Looking around the lawn at buckets, funnels, sieves, drums and the press perched up on paving bricks it does all look at little ordinary, a little backyardish. With that I give my arm a pinch and remind myself there is nothing ordinary about it at all.

There are a few other images from today here on Facebook.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 81 - Let The Wine Flow'. 1/80 sec at 82mm f/4.0, ISO 400

This project started out in a kitchen playing with food. I soon got bored and decided to experiment.

To get the light right I turned off all the lights and used a torch but very quickly discovered that white LED torches do not render the full spectrum of colour very well. Oh well, what I lost in colour I made up for in control. Part of the exposure was made momentarily from light from above and most of the exposure was made from light from the side both using the one torch.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 80 - Contrast'. 10 secs at 100mm f/16, ISO 100

Wine, wine, wine and a Guinness or two thrown in for Saint Patrick's Day. So I'm keeping the theme of a beverage laden weekend.

Today we were planning to press our current batch of zinfandel but decided it needed a few extra days of fermenting to really dry it out. Rather than waste a beautiful day we decided to kick back and enjoy a few bottles other winemakers had prepared earlier!

While playing with one of my favorite table appliances I had an idea. How neat it would be to use it not to open yet another bottle but instead to demonstrate how depth of field can be used to really make the pointy end of and object stand out!

So here it is, just briefly before being put back to practical use again opening another bottle!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 79 - Screwed'. 1/160 sec at 95mm f/5.0, ISO 400

There's been quite a bit of interest lately in 'light painting', a curious form of camera blur where patterns of light are created by moving bright lights around a fixed camera during a long exposure to paint images.

Well, this is not one of them! This image is the opposite: the lights are fixed and I moved the camera around.

In fact this is probably one of the most common forms of camera blur you will see as people attempt to take photos with iPhones late at night down brightly lit city streets in various states of alchohol-induced, uncoordinated staggering.

For the record I was not under the influence of any substance other than 'fun' when I captured this image of the Rosemont Hotel in Hindley Street, Adelaide!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 78 - City Light Mural'. 1 sec at 15mm FE f/16, ISO 500

I love the fun bordering on craziness of a Dead Reds evening and I love that it's also in support of a great cause. But try as I might I just can't seem to not bring my camera!

Invariably I hide my camera in some corner and pretend that this time I have come just for the fun and the social experience. Sooner or later in the evening, however, I just can't help myself and out comes the camera to capture what always turns out to be another fantastic night.

Last night was no exception meeting some fantastic new people in including the amazing local Adelaide photographer Benjamin Liew and South Australian wine maker Dean Leibich with whom we shared a bottle of his 1971 bronze medal winning Cabernet Shiraz.

See more photos from the evening here at Dead Reds Part 1.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 77 - Dead Reds Twelve'. 1/25 sec at 50mm f/5.0, ISO 2500