Sydney Luminous Festival - Canon G10

Went out last night, armed with my Canon G10, with a couple of photo buddies to shoot the Sydney Luminous Festival again. The weather was a bit dodgy with intermittent rain. Had quite a few shots ruined because of water on the lens.

Projectors warming up with targeting marks to ensure alignment

I really wanted to see how good my Canon G10 was for night photography at long exposures. Overall, I am pretty happy with results but I thought that they were a little noisier and definitely not as sharp as my Nikon D700.

Museum of Contemporary Art 

Sydney Opera House

Unfortunately, the maximum exposure for the G10 is only 15 secs and no bulb, so it was not always possible to shoot at f8 to increase sharpness and dof. 

Click here for more of my Canon G10 shots from the Sydney Vivid/Luminous Festival.

Sydney Opera House - Sydney Luminous Festival

The iconic sails of the Sydney Opera House is currently being used as a canvas illuminated by the artwork of Brain Eno, ex-Roxy band member, as part of a sound and light festival in the city. 

The "artwork" uses "self-generating software" to manipulate 300 of Brain Eno's drawings and projecting them onto the sails.




The inaugural Luminous festival started yesterday and runs until the 14th of June. The show starts at 17:00 hrs each night with the artwork morphing every few minutes. You need to be there a quite a long time to see all the possible incarnations.




The sails are illuminated on both sides of the Opera House but the display from the Botanical Garden end is static. The sails looks awesome with artwork projected onto them and I wished it could be like that all year round.

A marks the exact spot I was taking the shots from 

I took the shots from Sydney Cove, I arrived about 20:30 hrs and there were already quite a few photographers happily snapping away. I was very impressed with the display and I would like to back to take some shots at 17.00 hrs, the light should be fantastic just after dusk. So if you are in Sydney get down there and get some shots.






Here are some up close shots of the Opera House. It was harder to take shots here as there were people walking through your shots and the worst part is some of them were photographers who should know better.

Click here for more shots from the Sydney Vivid/Luminous Festival.

Waverley Cemetery - Bronte

Got up at 4:30am this morning and looked out the window. It was wet but no rain, a good sign. I called M to see if he was keen to go for the planned shoot but ended procrastinating much too long on whether to go or not. Anyway to cut a long story short we ended up going but missed the beautiful light before sunrise.






There were a lot of joggers running through the cemetery. The wind was gale force and the waves were HUGE. There was massive amount of salt spray coming off the ocean and there was also intermittent sun showers, which gave us a beautiful rainbow.

Conditions were not ideal for photography but we stayed for about an hour and scouted the cemetery for our next visit. We also managed to take a few shots.

Eden Gardens - Macro Photography

It's another lovely sunny Sunday morning here in Sydney. Time for more macro photography so I headed out to Eden Gardens in North Ryde to get some nice flower shots and hopefully shots of some creepy crawlies. Unfortunately, there wasn't any.

I am still trying to improve my macro technique, especially with the bee shots. Most of them were not usable. I need to learn how to get pin sharp shots of moving bees.

All these shots were taken hand-held with my Nikon D700 and Nikon 105mm macro lens with a dual SB-800 flash set-up.

Anyway, click here if you want to checkout more of my macro shots from Eden Gardens.

Sydney Botanical Gardens - Macro Photography

It was a beautiful sunny day in Sydney today so I decided to go down to the Sydney Botanical Gardens to work on my macro photography.






I had hoped for more insects but there were only flies, ants, spiders and a couple of bees. There was a nest of wasps but I was to chicken to go near them. I guess the bugs don't like winter too much.

All these shots were taken hand-held with my Nikon D700 and Nikon 105mm macro lens with a dual SB-800 flash set-up. My technique is improving with each outing but still needs quite a lot of work. I have to investigate and find out the best places to take shots of insects.

Click here for more of my macro shots from the Sydney Botanical Gardens .