Robert's Ramblings

I have a chilli seedling just a few cm tall now that looked to be an interesting subject to photograph. After various shots using my favourite natural light techniques, I decided to try something different.

I placed the camera strobe behind and to one side of one of the leaves, directed the camera face on and took this image. The strong back lighting has lit up each and every cell of the leaf creating this beautiful sandy texture that is not apparent with normal incident lighting.

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 31 - Chlorophyll Dreaming'. 1/125 sec at 100mm f/22, ISO 100, Strobe Backlit

Sunsets can make for wonderful images and this evening I was on the lookout having missed the incredible one the night before. As sunsets go this one was pretty but nothing spectacular so I started looking around for a subject to make it more interesting.

I liked the idea of a silhouettes so started looking around for something bold. All I need to do was look up and there it was, our local scrap metal pelican. As there was no change of him flying off I took my time and captured this image.

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 30 - Never to Fly'. 1/4000 sec at 140mm f/5.6, ISO 800

I followed this little seagull back forth and front to back. When I got too close he was lost in the detail of the sand, too far and the breaking water had too much detail. Too small an aperture and the background became too busy and too slow a shutter speed and I could not take a sharp hand held shot. By the time I final captured an image I liked my camera settings were so far out of sorts I did not really know where I was anymore.

Lucky for my he was as very patient as Jennifer herded him back and forth under the jetty while I got my act together!

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 29 - Patient Seagull'. 1/64000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 640

Today we enjoyed a leisurely coffee at one of our favorite beach side cafes. The beach was buzzing with surf lifesaving competitions, with swimmers and sun-bathers and all manner of people enjoying the sand, the sunshine and the fresh ocean breeze. As we watched the world go by we became enthralled by an amazing show of shifting, roiling, exploding cumulonimbus storm clouds all around us.

I started taking shots of the dramatic and unfolding shapes above and soon realised the although the best detail could be seen in the clouds almost looking into the sun the camera lens was badly fraught with sun flare. Then the sun ducked behind some clouds for a moment and I captured this image as it was just about to re-emerge.

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Day 28 - Cloudburst'. 1/8000 sec at 70mm f/4.0, ISO 100

What to take a photo of on our Australia day holiday?

I thought of some sort of protest image, perhaps the Aboriginal flag flying juxtaposed by some western invasion icon. Perhaps one of our native critters taken from an angle no one has ever seen before. Perhaps instead I'll just kick back and take a break today.

With that I took another sip from my beer, pointed the camera at Steve's handiwork on the barbecue took a few shots and settle back to a lazy afternoon with friends.

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Food Forge'. 1/250 sec at 200mm f/4.0, ISO 1000

I think a lot of us would relate given a moment's reflection.

Photography is a great medium to play in because you can never tell where a person will be taken when they look at an image. The longer you can get a person to look at an image, through surprise, curiosity or any other emotion the more opportunity they have to be taken away somewhere.

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Forgotten Friend'. 1/2000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 400

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Hide and Seek'. 1/200 sec at 200mm f/4.0, ISO 400

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Mower Fodder'. 1/3200 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 400

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Last Train Long Gone', Murrayville VIC. 1/2500 sec at 105mm f/3.5, ISO 200

There seemed to be a correlation between the many ravens along the Mount Kosciuszko trails and the movement of walkers. As scavengers it would seem reasonable to assume they do pick up the odd morsel here and there.

In Australia we have five species of the family Corvus, two crows and three ravens. I am reasonably sure this is the 'Little Raven', Corvus mellori.

This beautiful image of the strong downward thrust during flight highlights the airfoil structure in the wings while the upturned tips hint at the intensity of the beat as the raven flies close to the ground.

Photo: Robert Rath, 'In Flight', Kosciuszko National Park. 1/2500 sec at 200mm f/8.0, ISO 500

Photo: Robert Rath, 'On Top of Australia, Mount Kosciuszko. 1/2500 sec at 15mm(FE) f/8.0, ISO 500

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Pristine Pebbles', Pappinbarra River, Hollisdale NSW. 1/160 sec at 15mm(FE) f/11, ISO 400

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Easy Being Green', Near River Farm, Hollisdale. 1/4 sec at 170mm f/2.8, ISO 800 + Flash

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Garlic', Near River Farm, Hollisdale. 1/30 sec at 80mm f/2.8, ISO 1600

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Flow Motion', Pappinbarra River, Hollisdale. 1/4 sec at 15mm(FE) f/22, ISO 50

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Vibration'. 1/50 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 1000

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Unsacred Geometry', Gold Coast QLD. 1/500 sec at 100mm f/10, ISO 400

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Just Resting', Broken Hill public cemetery, Broken Hill NSW. 1/4000 sec at 70mm f/2.8, ISO 100

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Lilyput'. 1/6400 sec at 175mm f/2.8, ISO 400

Tonight I headed down to the beach berating myself for not being ready sooner. The sun was setting through patchy cloud and I thought I was missing that golden last 30 minutes of the day. When I arrived the sun had dropped behind cloud but would appear again just on sunset.

As I readied my camera I noticed a man in a dark hoody standing in the breaking surf intently watching the unfolding sunset. As I watched I was struck by a deep sense of a silent, watchful guardian. A broad shouldered sentinel; sharply defined, motionless and watchful. I imagined it's patient vigilance, forever on guard and ready to act.

... Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Sentinel'. 1/160 sec at 190mm f/7.1, ISO 125

I noticed a large coil of irrigation hose propped against a wall which which might make an interesting subject. I tried and tried but could not frame a shot I found pleasing in its entirety. However when I got really close, no longer was it a coil of poly pipe but presented a beautiful combination of curve and tone. In the end it was as simple as framing the shot so it felt elegant and using a tight depth of field to push much of the pipe itself into negative space.

... Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Poly'. 1/1250 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 400

So how to you make a trailer load full of garden rubbish interesting? Zoom in? Zoom out? Zoom while shooting!?! Well actually it's not so simple because the effect really only works when you get a good combination of zoom movement and shutter speed. If you have a tripod, the more solid the better, then life is so much easier but in my case it was a hand held shot.

I can't claim talent here, I was just plain lucky on my first attempt. Subsequent attempts where just horrible. This shot was taken at 1/6 of a second at F10 somewhere in the vicinity of 100mm.

... Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Trailer Trash'. 1/6 sec at 100mm f/10, ISO 100

There is a beautiful vase of white lilies gracing the dining table. We try and keep fresh flowers in the house when ever we can so there is almost always a flower photo opportunity to be had.

There are two things I found awkward about taking this image. The first was the stark contrast between foliage and flower. Being stark white it is difficult to capture any detail in the white without underexposing the foliage. The second was getting rid of household clutter in the background.

The solution to contrast problem was to simply apply some gamma distortion to the raw file to effectively narrow the image latitude. The solution to the second was rather novel. I placed the the flowers in a brightly lit foyer in front of a long corridor with all rooms shut and lights off. The resulting natural light shot has all the details with the dark background as desired.

... Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, 'White Lilies'. 5 sec at 100mm f/16, ISO 100

Tonight was a blustery night with patchy cloud. My original plan was to take some comparative images of the full moon between a cheap 500mm fixed F8 mirror lens and a good quality 200mm lens with cropping. Well that was the plan but the wind played havoc and the only way I could get a stable setup was using the tiny 500mm lens and a tripod virtually at ground level. I decided to stay with the mirror lens and try and capture the moody sky above.

Begin the technical problems...

The latitude of the image made it impossible to recover detail in the full unblocked moon and also cloud and HDR techniques were not possible as the high winds caused the clouds to move very quickly across the sky making multiple exposures impossible.

By waiting for cloud to partially obscure the moon I was able to find images which had narrow enough latitude to capture both the moon and cloud's detail but this created a new problem of not enough light to freeze the moment of the racing clouds using an F8 lens.

The compromise was to use a combination of high ISO (3200) and 1/30s shutter at the fixed F8 of the Lens. Perhaps I should have tried the faster 200mm and cropped but despite a noisy image I quite like the final shot.

... Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Moody Full Moon'. 1/30 sec at 500mm(Mirror) f8.0, ISO 3200

I thought I had lost this beautiful chess set I made when I was eleven years old in primary school. It had gone missing around the time I moved to Melbourne to live about 17 years ago. What a wonderful surprise to find it in a box at the back of the bottom of the garden shed!

I quickly drew a grid on sheet of paper, my daughter coloured it in with a highlighting pen and the games began.

... Robert

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Staring Pawn'. 1/20 sec at 170mm f/2.8, ISO 1000

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Vibration'. 1/320 sec at 200mm f/3.5, ISO 1000

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Gorgeous Jennifer'. 1/30 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 1600

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Birthday Orchids'. 1/30 sec at 105mm f/4.0, ISO 1600

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Qantas'. 1/200 sec at 105mm f/6.3, ISO 1600

Photo: Robert Rath, 'Tin Tin'. 1/100 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 1000