OMG, Cleland yet again? What?

Andu, Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby

Everytime I step onto the bus to Cleland, a thought goes off in my mind... are you insane? Surely everything there to be shot at has had eaten too many shots! In addition, dark clouds were looming, even though it was *hot* in Adelaide.

Indeed, when I first stepped into the Dingo enclosure, I was greeted with really awesome shutter speeds that remind me of shooting indoors. Yes, it was a real dreary day :(

Fortunately, this minor weather altercation results in a wonderful opportunity - the furballs were reacting in ways very much different from weeks before. The top picture is a Yellow Footed Rock Wallaby. Hidden amongst the huge man-made-but-naturally-feeling rock structure, these little buggers are not only tough to spot, but also hiding in concrete caves to fend off the warm weather. Translated, using a 8x binoculars, you're only going to see a tiny bit of fur, if you can pick them out of the surface clutter.

Today's clouds brought them out enmasse on the rocks, but unlike the Red Roos, they have an aversion to people (or maybe it's my dress code.), and won't snuggle up for food. Thankfully though, they were pretty close, and my 300mm was able to fill the frame easily.

Tawny Frogmouth, awake!

Similarly, in the avairies that dot the park, the birds seemed more active than usual. Or perhaps I'm paying more attention to them today, take your pick. My usual tawny was very obliging today, to look me in the lens a for one very nice shot.

Female Superb Fairy Wren

Bothered to actually try to catch a shot of the Wrens that are flittering all over the place. An act of frustration, I tell you. Especially with a long lens. By the time you get the focus point there.... they're... gone! GAH! I was especially lucky to catch this female trotting up to me, and I fired off a rapid barrage of shots, only of which a few were good and sharp. I'm getting more enamoured by our feathered friends, the more I learn about their names and habits.

Eurasian Coot

I was also testing the theory that VR actually kills sharpness. I took it to try a whole sequence of exposures using the 70-300VR @ 300mm. I won't post pictures here, so take my experiment what you will. At low shutter speeds, in the region of 60-100, VR definitely shows up, so long as the subject is still. 120-300+ is kind of a grey area. VR enabled shots were definitely on the ball, but a good percentage of VR disabled shots were up to speed. Now the interesting part was a sequence I shot at 1/400. I did quick bursts of 4 shots with and without VR, and it's quite obvious that the non-vr shots are actually sharper (I did a test on a very nice, still Masked Lapwing). Interesting times.....


I gave in and spent time in the Roo enclosure today. I can't decide which is more fun, feeding the roos here in Cleland, or the Wallabies in Gorge. For one thing, I don't remember the wallabies being as scratchy. I went head on using the 55mm manual focus lens, and oh man, it's so frustrating trying to get anything in focus! Props to the MF photogs that were able to nail shots in the days of olde. I was only able to get anything usable when I happened upon some calmer specimens. I miss auto focus in this case :) Stopping down to 5.6 seems like a very good compromise; good depth of field, yet still leaving a smooth background. F8 royally sucks, by bringing too much detail into the background, super super sharp as it is.

Flash was used the whole day together with the flash extender, or off the camera in wireless mode. Definitely getting a hang on dialing in the exposure compensation; -2.7EV for close up critters, to abouot -2EV for further shots.

Of course, I went there primarily for dingo hunting, and here's a few pictures to tie up this long and non-vfx related blog post.