Robert's Ramblings

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

There's a car in my backyard that's been parked for a very long time.

Every day I watch the cobwebs grow a little thicker. I watch the leaves pile up on the windscreen. I cringe with dismay as the paint flakes ways and the rust takes its place. If ever TLC was needed, it was need here.

The car in this image lives in someone else's back yard. Someone else gets to watch the cobwebs grow, the leaves pile up and the paint fade away. I bet if we traded places the Morris would get the TLC it needed and the Ford would find its way to the recyclers.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 76 - Parked'. 1/320 sec at 40mm f/5.6, ISO 1000

Almost without exception I find people like silhouettes. So what makes them so appealing?

I'm sure it would be fun to explore the psychology of visual perception. Relate the role starkness and high contrast has to perceptions of pleasure as a new born begins translating images into a visual world.

Perhaps I will one day but for now I'll just say I love silhouettes for their crispness, their starkness and how they make me feel and not why or how they do it


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 75 - Silhouette Swan'. 1/4000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 500

At true 1:1 macro and beyond with ordinary lenses it becomes a battle to achieve any depth of field in an image

I took a number of images over a range of apertures and with the subject at such a severe angle I found myself up at f/40.0 just to get those extra millimeters.

The combination of natural indoor lighting, a low ISO for good noise performance and an f/40.0 resulted in a long 30-second exposure - not something that would allow you to capture anything moving but just fine for my trusty old vernier that always makes millimeters matter!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 74 - Every Millimeter Matters'. 30 sec at 200mm f/40, ISO 200

Point your camera directly at the sun and take a photo. Include some interesting subject matter if you like. Perhaps try for a nice silhouette.

If there are any quirks in your optics that you have not yet discovered, you will now.

I took a number of shots at ground level looking up through the grass into the sun. Of course I did not look directly at the sun, I just held the camera and pressed the shutter. The previews looked fine on the camera but when I got to the big screen I had hazy white dots, ghostly arcs and a funny rainbow arc out near the periphery that might have circled the entire image if it were not for the dark ground.

So now my next project will be to work out what causes these effects and what I can do to either get rid of them or make them work for me in future shots like these.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 73 - Day's End'. 1/400 sec at 24mm f/22, ISO 400

For the past few months we have done a lot of travelling back and forth from Adelaide to the Barossa Valley and every time I pass by this big field of treated pine posts I think how amazing it looks.

Standing by the roadside you notice the ordered pattern of posts on an empty field transition from tight diagonal rows through to spacious vertical and back to tight diagonals again as you scan from east to west.

As you drive past, the effect combines with the undulation of the hills to create beautiful geometries.

Tonight we just happend to be driving by when both the time of day and the sky combined to create perfect lighting. Click...


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 72 - Unnatural Geometry'. 1/5000 sec at 105 f/4.0, ISO 400

Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 71 - Tanunda Show Clowns'. 1/800 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 200

Sometime we have no real feel for just how quickly our visual landscape moves; an issue that is quickly corrected when taking photographs.

Reflections on moving water are the translation of tiny movements into hugely magnified ones. 5mm of ripple can move a tall city building 50m sideways in an instant and this in turn means very fast movements for photography.

My first attempts at freezing this reflection of a city building on the Torrens River were disappointing. I soon realised just how fast the image needed to be taken. A wide aperture, high ISO and a 1/2000 second exposure is what this one took.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 70 - Reflections'. 1/2000 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 1000

At first look there is nothing special about this image but the story behind why I took it is quite interesting.

The task was determine which combination made a better image. Either 1000mm using a 500mm F8.0 mirror lens in combination 2x converter or 400mm using a 200mm F2.8 prime in combination with the same 2x converter.

The results were quite interesting and will make good material for further investigation. The 1000mm combination certainly had the magnification but the resolving performance for fine detail was quite poor. Even when scaled down to the same image magnification of the 400mm combination the 400mm still had the edge in resolving some detail in low contrast regions. On the other hand there was a softness in the 1000mm image which was also appealing and made what fine detail was resolved look more natural.

Well I choose the 1000mm in the end but for small web content is was a line call on choice.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 69 - Full Moon'. 1/50 sec at 1000mm f/16, ISO 250

How strange to ponder the shadow cast not by the brilliant sun but the sombre moon.

Owen Broughton's Sundial scupture has become the Adelaide Festival Centre Plaza Moondial but would it tell time through the night as by day? If you would like to read some more about this beautiful sundial please visit http://www.cityofadelaide.com.au/sights/sun-dial/.

I could do the research, study the maths, perform the calculations.

I'm so certain I could find the answer that I'll leave it up to others and instead take some more photos.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 68 - Moondial'. 30 secs at 15mm f/13, ISO 2000

It was not the most pleasant of evenings by recent examples but we simply needed to get out of the house.

We are so lucky living near the ocean but far enough away to forget just how near. A 12 minute walk is all it took this evening with dog in tow to enjoy the sea air and the refreshing breeze. Perhaps the chill breeze had kept people away. Perhaps even the beach struggles to attract a crowd on a Tuesday night. I just don't know.

In any case this evening presented a wonderful opportunity to capture the deserted beach back lit by the lights of Henley Square, the jetty and the Adelaide suburban lights beyond.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 67 - Deserted Beach'. 30 secs at 24mm f/14, ISO 200

When I look around the walls and ceiling of this beautiful Adelaide tearoom I can't help but be taken back a century or more to times when this kind of grandeur was expected.

The lighting was actually darker than depicted in this image but I wanted to really show the detail in the columns , the cornices and the windows.

A gorgeous place for my birthday dinner. Thank you Jennifer for a lovely surprise.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 66 - Saldechin Tearooms'. 8 secs at 24mm f/11, ISO 200

What a beautiful day to find ourselves in the vineyards of Inkwell Wines and what a privilege for vigneron Dudley Brown to to part with some of his gorgeous Zinfandel fruit for our own wine making odyssey.

The catch, well we had to pick the fruit of course! So armed with tubs, buckets, secateurs and sunscreen, Andy, Gav, Jennifer and myself took to the vines like old hands and soon had picked enough for a decent batch.

After picking Dudley invited us to sample his latest offering, the 2010 Inkling (Shiraz Primitivo) and 2010 Infidel (Primitivo) and Irina showed us the new wines being made. Ok so now we have a standard to aspire to!

Now it you did not know already, Primitivo and Zinfandel are identical grape varieties. The Italians call it Primitivo while the Californians call it Zinfandel. In any case A 'Zin' by any other name is still a Zin! Oh, and just in case our wine does not make the same league as Dudley's, we purchased a case of his spectacular wine to take home with us!


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 65 - A Zin By Any Other Name Is Still A Zin'. 1/200 sec at 105mm f/4.0, ISO 200

There is something magical about freezing a moment in time and then taking the time to experience it.

As I sat today watching the swallows dive and drink from the river I though how amazing it would be to capture such a moment.

In the low light I struggled with aperture, shutter speed and depth of field. I needed high speed to freeze the movement but the large aperture and shallow depth of field made focusing almost impossible. After many attempts I decided I would need to come back and try another time when I had more patience.

In the meantime I can at least enjoy this one shot I got in focus as a swallow is coming into the frame.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 64 - One Tiny Moment. 1/1600 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 400

I miss the old trams...


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 63 - Shiny New'. 1/50 sec at 24mm f/14.0, ISO 100

There is a wonderful skeleton of scaffolding, steel and concrete which has emerged on the Adelaide skyline at the western end of North Terrace. I say 'wonderful' not in any one sense but for many reasons.

First and foremost in the context of this image, it looks fascinating! I love the intricate construction of supporting structures surrounding an emerging new building. It reminds me of Mechano construction sets I played with as a child.

Next is what it means for Adelaide and South Australians. This new building will eventually be the new home for the inaugural SAHMRI. (South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute) and I just love what this means for the advancement of medical science and our commitment to it.

Lastly I have it on good authority that this will be one of Adelaide's most amazing architecturally functional buildings ever created. I can't wait to see it grow its skin! See http://www.sahmri.com/.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 62 - SAHMRI Skeleton'. 1/125 sec at 105mm f/8.0, ISO 250

Have you ever wondered what noisy silence might be like? Well perhaps not quite silent but hardly noticed at first.

I was down by the river Torrens again today watching water birds and taking photos in the rain. It was not heavy rain and there was a busy stillness in the air. I could not put my finger on it at first, this feeling of business but as I sat and watched the scene about me became busier and visually noisier the longer I paid attention.

I started noticing the speed of the river beginning to burgeon with the extra flow. I started to notice the increased level of bird activity around me. Then I noticed the reflections on the water and the silent cacophony playing out as disturbed reflections on the surface caused ever increasing circles and interfering ripples.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 61 - Silent Cacophony'. 1/250 sec at 165mm f/8.0, ISO 1600

I'd thought the sunset was over when I looked into the sky above. This Long-billed Corella, Cacatua tenuirostris, showed me otherwise as the the last rays of sunset coloured his normally white plumage pink and orange.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 60 - Last Rays of Sunset'. 1/6400 sec at 200mm f/2.8, ISO 1600

Many mornings I drive past the mouth of the River Torrens where I have often seen a a couple of fishermen surrounded by pelicans and other sea birds and wished I had my camera. This morning I finally remembered.

Today I witnessed the most amazing interaction between a man and a pelican. As he packed up to leave, a pelican who had been previously content to stand by and wait for the odd morsel became very animated. The pelican waddled around him, poked its beak into his bags and then into his jacket. In response the man playfully grabbed his beak and pushed him repeatedly away. This carried on for all the while the man and his other fishing companion took to leave the beach.

I did not get a good shot of the two interacting this time around but plan to try again soon. I did however get them chance to take some wonderful closeup images of these beautiful sea birds.


Photo: Robert Rath, '366 Days of 2012, Day 59 - Mr Percival'. 1/1250 sec at 200mm f/3.5, ISO 400