Wentworth Falls - Empress Falls Trek (Blue Mountains)

I did the Wentworth Falls - Empress Falls trek yesterday. The climb down to the bottom of Wentworth Falls was the easiest part as it was straight down. The trek from Wentworth Falls across to Empress Falls was not too bad. The waterfall here is definitely more impressive than the one back at Wentworth Falls.

The climb up from the bottom of Empress Falls to the top was a killer. It was toughest thing I have done to date. I guess being totally unfit didn't help. I honestly thought I wouldn't make it back up. I was gone, my legs were like logs I couldn't lift them at all and I was sucking in the big ones and my heart rate was somewhere up there in the stratosphere.

I was totally stuff and had to stop multiple times to regain my energy along the climb. It was embarrassing to see parents with babies strapped to backs effortlessly glide pass up the side of the mountain. Finally, I spotted the kiosk/diner and a feeling of relieve swept over me.

I finally made it after after 5 long hours. First thing I did was buy an ice cold bottle of coke, it was just what the doctor ordered. I also ate some biscuits and rested for about 20 minutes before trekking back to the Wentworth Falls car park, which took about 15-20 minutes.

Here are some photos from my trek. Please enjoy them.

Wentworth Falls (Top)

Path to the bottom of Wentworth Falls

Wentworth Falls (Bottom)

Path to Empress Falls

Path to Empress Falls

Empress Falls (Bottom)

Anyway, you can see more of my shots here.

Turimetta Beach, Sydney, Australia

What a gem, I have never even heard of this beach until two days ago. The funny thing is that I have been to both North Narrabeen and Mona Vale beach on either side of it. We started at the northern end of the beach and worked our way along the beach to the southern end.

The southern end has much more to offer a photographer. I will be coming back for some pre dawn and sunrise shots in the very near future.

Here are some of my shots from the southern end of Turimetta beach.



The walk back to the northern end and the climb back up to where the car was parked was a killer. Next time park at the southern end, less walking and more time for photography.

Middle Head, Sydney, Australia

What an interesting place to visit and photograph. I have always wanted to check this place out. I first saw this place in the Australian movie "Stone". The day started out fine but was overcast by about lunchtime.

So if you live in Sydney and looking for interesting places to photograph. I highly recommend that you get down there. You won't be disappointed.

Will definitely revisit to explore more of the tunnels and get more interesting shots. Here are some of the shots from my visit.




Here are some interesting facts about Middle Head.

The first battery was built in 1871 and was designed by James Barnet, a colonial architect. The fort was built on a strategic location and received many additions until 1911. It formed part of a network of 'outer harbour' defences. They were designed to fire at enemy ships as they entered the harbour. The whole area is linked by an extensive network of underground tunnels, ancillary rooms, gunpowder magazine and a disappearing gun emplacement.

High Speed Photography (Water Droplets)

Here are some of the shots from my first attempt at high speed photography of water droplets. It was kind of a hit and miss affair.

Orphaned droplets

This looks like a little guy praying

This was my goal!

More Orphaned droplets

The next thing I like to do is build a circuit to automate the whole process so I can capture more predictable/consistent results. So stay tune.

Sculpture By The Sea 2008 - Tamarama to Bondi

This annual exhibition started earlier this year, 16 October - 2 November, due to the new daylight saving time. This free event is staged along the Tamarama to Bondi coastal walk. The weather wasn't playing ball this year it was overcast and gloomy, definitely not conducive for great photography.

This year, we decided to go on a week day. There was less people which made it much easier to take shots without having to wait too long for people to get out of your way. Oh and it is much easier to find parking.

I reckon the sculptures this year were not as interesting as last year's but that's only my opinion. However, I would still recommend that you check it out. If you can't make it this year, there is always next year. Please enjoy the photos.

Time Lapsed Photography

I have been meaning to have a go at doing some time lapsed photography for awhile now. Since my Nikon D200 has a built-in intervalometer it should be a piece of cake. I had a quick read of the manual and figured out how to configure the intervalometer, basically you need to tell it the interval between each shot, how many intervals you want and how many shots you want to take per interval, this is, of course, dependant on the size of your CF card. I also set the D200 to basic jpegs to maximise the number of shots.

I copied the files off the CF card onto my PC and imported them into Adobe Lightroom so that I could automatically resize them to 640x428. I then imported them into Windows Movie Maker along with some royalty free music I downloaded from the web. I then synced the music to the length of the video and when I was happy that everything was working properly. I hit the publish movie button, way too easy. Not bad for someone who has never used movie maker before until today.

I noticed that towards the end of it (movie) when it was getting darker the scenes started flashing (going dark, then light and dark again). Perhaps it was because the white balance was set to auto, I will need to do some research on what is causing this.

Overall, I am happy with what I managed to do on my first attempt. The sixty-five seconds long movie consisted of 522 discrete jpeg images which took 43 minutes to capture.

Jervis Bay

Mark organised a weekend trip down to Jervis Bay for a shoot. We stayed at Eugene's parents holiday house down in Culburra Beach.

We started off at Murrays Beach, then across to Cape St.George and later on in the afternoon we walked down to Penguins Head for some dusk shots.

Eugene cooked dinner, it was pasta with a spicy chorizo sauce and a lovely salad with avocado, tomato, cucumber and lettuce. They pasta was very very tasty.

Eugene also brought along his Xbox 360 along for some after dinner entertainment. The boys enjoyed playing Halo 3 and especially geometry wars. Mark and Jeff kept trying to outdo one another all night, the eventual high score went to Mark at over 90,000. However, they couldn't touch Eugene at over 200,000 but I was rubbish at it.

Eugene took some fantastic shots of Mark's facial expressions whilst he was playing geometry wars. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw the shots, they were hilarious.

Stayed up to watched Cadel Evans lose the Tour De France

The plan was to stop at any interesting photo op on the way back to Sydney. Unfortunately, the weather was awful and the light was really shit. We stopped off in Bowral for some pies at the Gumnut Patisserie. I had a steak mushroom and a chicken leek pie. They were very yummy indeed, especially on such a cold day. It helped that the store won best patisserie in NSW for 4 years running.

We also planned to stop off at the Mount Annan Botanical Gardens on the way home but it started raining down slushy ice just as we got there. Ah well, next time..

Anyway, check-out more of my shots here >>
http://www.lozzmann.com/index.php?cat=31

Toronga Park Zoo

It was an enjoyable day at the zoo (except for the school kids). Hadn't been here in 15-16 years and it has changed quite a bit. Had to crank up the ISO as most of the zoo was in the shade and the big cats were behind glass as well so therefore cannot use flash (damn) due to reflections. Although this didn't seem to stop most of the other zoo visitors.

Anyway, check-out more of my shots here >>
http://www.lozzmann.com/thumbnails.php?album=41

Robertsons Point Lighthouse

It was a toss up whether to venture out into inclement weather for a shoot. The prediction was for showers that morning. We decided to brave it and luckily for us the weatherman got it wrong. We drove out to Cremone Point to checkout this lighthouse that we had found on Google Earth the previous week. There was still a light mist when we got there and it was quite tricky to get down the ladder (bolted into the side of the cliff), as it was still dewy and very slippery, carrying the tripod and the heavy camera backpack. It was definitely well worth the effort.

Check-out more of my shots here >> http://www.lozzmann.com/thumbnails.php?album=38