Adelaide Weekend Day Trips: Hallett Cove

This is a start of a few blog posts about what to do in Adelaide on the weekend for a day tour. As some of you know, I can't drive to save my butt (except 10th scale r/c, where I may be able to put up a fight. Anyways...)

Hallett Cove is a very quiet conservation park located about 40minutes from the Adelaide Railway Station. Buy a Day pass, and jump aboard the Norlunga train (below the Casino)o. Alight at the Hallet Cove station (there is also a Hallet Cove Beach Station, you can do that too, but there are more signs at the earlier Hallett Cove Station). Trains seem to move at half hour intervals, but later in the day they start to move at 1hr intervals, so plan ahead! The train station has alot of time schedules so pick one up.

I spent at least 4 hours there slowly walking the various paths and taking in the sights. The highlights there would probably be the Sugarloaf:



Walking down to the beach (make sure u wear proper shoes - a good part of the beach is solid rock, not sand...) to check out the very interesting rock formations:



And enjoying the view in general. I've loads more, but I haven't yet decided on their final look. These are the few I've printed out that look reasonably good.



The terrain there is very easy going, but not suitable for wheelchair access.

Church

Due to *cough* some unbelievers, I'm going to upload a series of test pics.



This is the church directly besides the Rising Sun Pictures office... thought the composition looked cool and fired of two shots. Processed using Bibble Pro, most of the contrast adjustment was done using Ansel Pro. I then altered Ansel's luminance slider to bring down the color saturation, hopefully giving a faux film look.

Using the D200 and leaving the D40x behind

So... I've been using the D200 on at least 4 day trips around Adelaide, and I think this is THE slr for me (until the replacement for the D300 comes out, then I get the D300 el-cheap! or someone invents the digital version of the Contax G. With a leaf shutter.).

I think the D200 generates noisier real life images compared to the D40x at ISO 400 or greater.

This has been a concern for quite a bit, but honestly, I am very certain this won't be an issue in prints, and even ISO 3200 pics (with horrible noise) shrunk down to web size after a good run of Noise Ninja is generally un-detectable. So. Noise is out of the equation, though I must still say. If you want to pixel peep, get a D40x or newer gen camera.

Apart from that, both cameras supposedly use very similar sensors, and I can't tell what camera did what honestly.

Where the D200 really shines is the pro-build. The auto focus is awesome, 11 focus points helps alot when composing a shot, 5fps drive is also somewhat awesome if less used. I think the thing that I love about the 200 is feel of all the knobs and controls on the body. I can change my ISO (well I'm actually using auto iso but still), WB or Quality settings by holding down one of the holy trinity buttons and then adjusting my thumb wheel. It saves alot of time. The 200 also comes with the motor drive, so. Primes here I come :) RGB histograms also help, plus it has the luminance graph that I rarely use now.

The weather sealing of the camera body also gives me alot of confidence shooting in inclement weather. Last week, I was at Morialta Falls where it was raining on and off. I'm pretty sure if I had the D40x, I would have stuffed the camera in the bag. With the D200, I had the confidence to just shoot in the rain. Sheltered of course, under my hat, not fully exposed in the elements - my 18-55 isn't exactly weather proofed ;) Got some lovely pics, just no time to put them online.

Only downside is the battery life, but oddly my new battery, after 3 cycles, is giving me nearly 400 shots (actually 387) shots with 51% free life. That was today, when I was doing a trail along Hallett Cove Nature Reserve. I only reviewed shots that I thought were important (and problematic) - else I am beginning to understand and trust the matrix meter.

In terms of lens wise, I think the 18-55 is a very good range and should serve anyone very well as a walkaround lens. I did mention in a previous post that I am acquiring the 16-85, which will give me a 24mm equv lens, which I am very certain will see lots of use as I've found myself wanting just a bit more at times today.

Sigh. Front focusing Sigma 28mm :(

I've had this idea of shooting with a fast prime in low light for a while, and finally decided to get a Sigma 28mm/1.8 - versus Nikon's own 28/2.8 - why oh why can't Nikon release a fast F1.8 prime like Canon? Sometimes, I do wish I was using a Canon body in order to use their (seemingly) nicer lens line up.

In anycase, my Sigma 28mm 1.8 arrived today in Australia, barely 4 days after I placed the order to B&H Photo on Friday. SWEET!

Unfortunately... did some testing against a chart, and quite annoyed to see it front focus by a few mm. No much yes? But imagine if I were to take a closeup of a bug or flower, and the focus of say, was on the bugs eyes, but the actual picture showed the bugs' mandibles in focus, that is NOT what I want.

In real life tests, results were exactly as determined by the focusing chart - everything was front focusing. This was particularly bad shooting at distance objects at F1.8 as the subjects would be just out of focus :(

I am really sad, as stopped down, this was the sharpest lens I've ever used on my camera. I really wish I could keep a good version of this, but I'm not going to spend time sending this to Sigma for repairs and stuff.

Tischer also reports similar issues with this lens. Given that I know I'm going to be firing this baby off at F1.8 (if not, why buy a fast lens hey?) the front focus is really a bummer. I'm just going to be exchanging it for a 16-85VR, which is a perfect 24-1xx range. Should be a good stepup from my 18-55VR, which I'll sell with my D40x. Ah well.

GW

A Taste Of Spice

Was told about this place, a Malaysian restaurant along Gouger street. Gouger street is known in Adelaide for its string of restaurants of all flavors.

I attended a jazz gig at the Dom Polski Centre, where the Black Note Jazz club has events on Fridays. A good acquaintance noticed that I was from Singapore, and recommended me this place. Check it out if you miss home style food!

Marmalade Cirus @ The Gov!

http://picasaweb.google.com/GallenWolf/MarmaladeCirusTheGov

This was about 2 weeks ago at The Governor Hindmarsh Hotel - Marmalade Circus LIVE! My first ever live jazz gig, it's amazing. I'm trying to get as much time to spend at such events.

"Photography" wise, the camera put out a very respectable performance, thanks to the pretty good lighting at the hotel. I only wish I had a lens with more reach, something like a 70-200/2.8 will be awesome, in order to crop closer and have a better shutter speed. Alots of my shots were in good shape, handshake wise, but the low shutter speed of the slow lens meant any movements by the musicians made them a blur.

Slowly updating stuff.... first up. Shots from the zoo with my new Nikon 55-200 VR

http://picasaweb.google.com/GallenWolf/AdelaideZoo

This is my second outing with the D200 - the last one was last week to Barossa Valley... in the rain. Got some nice memories, but am currently still struggling to understand how the exposure metering works on the D200, the controls, and how to process the pics in Bibble Pro.

Spent a good chunk of the morning shooting at random, understanding the matrix meter. It seems that when the contrast is within the capture range, the exposure is 100% spot on. But when dealing with high contrast scenes, I will need to take more time to ensure a good exposure. The following pics were taken with the matrix meter with no exposure compensation, and it's a relatively good fun shoot.

This is also my first time having the 55-200VR on my camera for an extended amount of time. Most of the pics only had cropping to fit it into a square due to the close range of the animals, but I would have wished for a 300mm or longer lens to really frame it close (see the wild dog shot) Still, I was having a really hard time dealing with camera shake, VR or not. While it works wonders for static objects, shooting moving objects at F5.6 in low light has me bumping the iso up to 800, sometimes even 1600 just to get a high enough shutter speed so that motion blur would be more acceptable.

In terms of lens quality, I am really surprised by this kit lens. It picks out details very well, and corner to corner is very sharp.

Also figured out how to use the AF-C (Continuous AF) mode - it's kinda not my kind of mode as it doesn't have a focus confirmation beep, so I do tend to be antsy using it. But even with the el-cheapo lens, the D200 and it tracked many of the animals, especially like the pacing Leopards and Lions, very, very well. I can't wait to take this guy one day to a rally course. (Of course by then I'm hoping to loan a nice 70-200 F2.8 VR :P )

D200 rocks. I can't imagine how the guys with a D300 are enjoying it!

Ehehehehe newer toy! Nikon D200

I think everyone is selling their cameras just because the D300, D3 and D700 are out/on the way here. Do I lust for one of them? Hell yes. Can I afford them? Hell no. I'd rather spend the cash (which is non-existent) on them on a tour. Do I need one? Hell no. Especially not the D3 - since I'm a wimp at carrying heavy stuff.

But the net result is - lots of people are selling their D200s away (my old dream camera - no longer a dream camera sadly. Because I got one :P ) - which, right now is a superb buyer's market for DX lenses and older bodies!

So here's my latest toy, taken with my D40x:


Woo! D200! Observe the exposure. Next:



My D40x + 10-20mm taken by the D200. Both cameras are set to EV0, Aperture Priority. The D200 meters the scene darker. Which, in my opinion feels better - if darker overall - the black blacks stay black. and the lcd is less blown out. Scientific yah? Well one of the key reasons I wanted the D200 was the supposedly better meter. This test is obviously not conclusive of anything - hopefully this weekend will be clear skies, so I can go out and shoot shoot shoot :)

Now the D40x was about a year in the market. But the D200 was out in 2005. The thing that made me hesitant about getting a D200 was high ISO noise. Let's see the 3200iso (HI-1 Boost) from the D40x:



And now the D200's boosted 3200 mode:



Very similar, but the D40x has the edge. I think. But that edge is minuscule. Next, using Bibble 4.10 and Noise Ninja set to 10:




Finally, the D200 with Noise Ninja also at 10:



The noise reduction with Noise Ninja probably went overboard - I just switched on NN, and exported the image, thinking back I shoulda tweaked abit.

In any case, in my newbie eyes, the D200, oldie but goodie, is still able to keep up with the D40x which supposedly has better noise reduction algorithms. The net result of this is that, I am not in the least bit afraid to push to ISO 3200, so long as I can get the shot. The 4 crops above are 100% crops straight out of Bibble, so you can see it's not too bad.

I've only got the camera for a few hours, only browsed through the first few pages of the manual. Man, this camera is so danged complex. Much more dials and levers and what not. Which allows one to change settings very much faster than my 40x - with it's push a button, twirl the command dial style. That said, the D40x is no way bad. It is what it is, a superb entry level DSLR.

AF speed using the 18-55VR kit lens is amazingly faster and more accurate. Note that I haven't yet fussed with the AF settings, so I'm not sure entirely what's up. Now the 5FPS shooting speed is SCARY. I was passed the camera with it set to C-HI mode, and it gave me quite a shock when pushing down the shutter snapped off a few shots. The shutter button is also an entirely different affair. It is softer to engage, and I'm sure this allows one to engage the shutter with less camera shake.

While I'm gushing all over this baby (did I mention it was my dream camera?) - no real photography has been done with it. So I may be cursing and swearing once I come back this weekend. Which reminds me, my new LCD arrived. Woot! Can't wait to process stuff in Bibble Pro.

PS: Anyone who hasn't tried Bibble has to try it. It doesn't have the halo artifacts you get with Lightroom or Capture NX when you push the fill light too far. I recently evaluated a whole chunk of raw processors (LR, NX, LightZone, Bibble, DxO) and decided to go with Bibble. Best quality I could push from all the processors, and the price is well. Awesome :)

New toy: Sigma 10-20mm X)

I've been using mostly 28-70 zooms on my film SLR, and 40-50mms on my RFs. Rarely do I even use the 70+mm range, though I'm always wanting.

Yesterday, a little gem popped up on ebay - Sigma's 10-20mm - which, on my D40x gives me like 17mm lens (!!!!) something I've never ever used before. Sure, I'd lust for a nice 12mm to be on my imaginary R8 - but that's not likely to happen in the next 15 years. I lucked out and got a really nice copy.

I was pixel peeping a bit with shots on the 10mm at F4 and F8, they seemed very sharp throughout. I can't wait to get this baby on a field test =)

GW

Hancock, Kung Fu Panda

I was expecting quite a bit from Hancock - Will Smith's latest film - and for a good while, it lived up to the trailer. Till halfway through the film, it's like they suddenly changed the director and scriptwriter to a bunch of baboon hammering on macs. What were they thinking?! The story just went downhill - bad. Granted, the fx was awesome, but only when it's not willy-nilly thrown in. Gah.

Kung Fu Panda, otoh. AWESOME. It's awesomeness overexposes sooo many other films, even probably the entire shrek line. (Shrek seriously should have been done with the first flick.) Story wise, no complaints. CG and fx wise. No either. It's a great flick! Watch it!

Speedracer Rocks!!!

Awesome film. You got cars, explosions and girls. Perfect mix! Everything about the artwork is so fresh, and the CG cars - wowtastic. Ignoring the over-the-top drifts, jumps and spins, the cars were extremely well animated and felt just right. This ranks right up there with the good stuff.

If you do watch it, you may wanna skip the credits 'cause that gave me a headache =)

Next film will be Zohan or Get Smart. Which one first? Hmm....

Alvin

I hate color management

My pics look great on my laptop LCD, but at work, they kinda suck, or have a color shift of sorts. Asking one of my friends, Maung who is a lao-chiao at DSLRs, he immediately caught my problem - the possibility that my monitor is not calibrated right. Most of my pics he says are underexposed. But they looked fine on my lappy :( So I got the Spyder2 to properly setup the gamma and color temp. And lo and behold. Indeed, LOTS of my pics are like .5 to 1 stop underexposed :(

I've got a few hundred pics online, i'm not sure I'm in the mood to re-process all at this time :( Not to mention the captions. ARGH!

New "color managed" pics up @ http://picasaweb.google.com/GallenWolf/SouthAustraliaPics/photo#5212476828461651346

The Happening, Prince Caspian

Watched the Happening over the weekend, and let's say, there needs to be a 5 mile keep away warning. It was absolutely pointless to watch, and it is up there with crap shows like Mimic and Sound Of Thunder. The premise of the show was really good, but the ending is utter crap. Something like The Mist - where the main part of the show was pretty enticing, but the ending. OMG. Was BAD. Someone should do a skit of people knocking their heads into windows after watching the show. I know I wanted to scoop my brains out.

Prince Caspain, OTOH was a different beast altogether. Now the first show had awesome effects, but I wasn't really in love with the story. Caspian though isn't as magical as the first (I'd compare it to HP1 vs HP5) - but this did not sully the taste of the film one bit. In fact I thought it gave the show much more down to earth flavor. Throughly enjoyed it. Excellent story, and the effects don't seem to be the major driving point. It really touched my heart though, and I did leave the cinema feeling a tad sad at the ending. My only nick was that there isn't enough Aslan! During the standoff of Aslan VS the bad guy, I was really hoping he'd magically transform into a burning lion and like burn everything away. :P This is a PG rated film after all. In fact there was a lot of slashies, but no blood. Definitely a kiddy show. Ah well he did return with a pseudo LOTR trees vs humans ending.

It's up there with Ironman - the OMG it's awesome I don't mind watching it again kinda show. I think I may pick up the first dvd just to rewatch and re-live the show again.

Watched Hulk 2

Can't say I liked the film, effects and all were alright, but the plot.... what plot? And there wasn't enough smashy going on. Not that funny either :(

Ah well. Let's hope speed racer will be better :)

Alvin

Adelaide - Melbourne Road Trip

Quick post. It was a long weekend - Queen's Birthday, so a bunch of us took a nice drive down to Melbourne.

Pics here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/GallenWolf/MelbourneRoadTrip

I'm on OSX! Psych!

I'm kidding! I saw this website a real long while ago, it's a total facelift for XP to have the look and feel of the mac. Given I'm running Virtual Box, I though I'd try it out. But first, I cloned my XP installation (Virtualization FTW!!!) - hence I have a safe spot should I screw up.

It's a 30 odd mb download, and installs pretty fast. When I boot up xp in vbox now, which is rare since I do save-states, it boots up all pretty and white :) One wonders if that is the same screen you get on a real mac.

GW

Adelaide Zoo!

Well, seemingly I actually went out on a Sunday. So no gaming today, but lots of snapshots and had a great fun time doing lots of processing at home.

Today I set my D40X's color settings to Vivid+, from the usual setting of nada. Can't really tell much on the LCD, but back home, whoa, uber saturation! It's very nice for all the greens - I get the kind of saturation and kick that I like, but it over enhances the blues and warm colors. I now need to de-sat or pull down the blues, and some times the warm colors as well, else they are a mish-mash of near-solid colours.

Is this better? I'm not sure, I need to do more shoots, but overall I am very pleased with the results. I much rather decrease saturation than pump it up, but this also does have it's own drawbacks like sucking out areas of color where you DO want it there.

Anyways:

Pictures here!

Barossa Valley

Visit the Barossa Valley today, it's about a 40 minute ride from Adelaide. It's the home of many many wineries, but it lacks sufficient amount of Houdini to make me love it. J/k!

Click here for pics!

Cold...

It's bloody freezing this morning, so cold, I didn't even get out of bed to make breakfast! Weather reports like the lows are about 10 degrees C, so erm. Not good. Breath was condensing just by exhaling (outdoors only thankfully).

I recently got a soft shell (from Mountain Hardware!) for use during home-work-home wear, it's doing really great, no need to wear more than a t-shirt under. It's at work my fingers are freezing off! Damned fingers. Time to hunt for gloves.

Alvin

Indy 4 and Ironman

Just watched Indy 4 oh.. half an hour ago. It was a blast; no complaints. Catch Ironman if you get the chance; it's a full out hour of laughs!