All very striking images! Thanks for sharing those. Fascinating! :) -c
On Sun, Aug 28, 2011 at 8:37 AM, Brian Walters <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all > > First - thanks again to those who provided advice a month or so ago on > photographing from a light plane. This flight was part of our recent > trip to the 'red Centre' of Australia. > > The flight was in a Cessna 210, carrying 4 passengers plus the pilot. > The lack of wing struts on this plane was a bonus for photography. The > two biggest problems were reflections in the windows, which were > difficult to avoid, and the mild jerkiness of the flight. I used my > K200D with the 16-45 mm zoom attached. I had other lenses available but > the cramped conditions made it difficult to change lenses, so I > eventually gave up on the idea. As it happened, the 16-45 mm range > proved to be pretty much ideal. My wife used an old Optio for the first > part of the flight but it wasn't up to the job so she commandeered the > *istDS with 50 mm f1.7 FA attached for the second half. Both of us shot > in shutter priority mode with the speed set to 1/350 - 1/500 sec. > > I hope you enjoy this small selection: > > http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1370864/Lake-Eyre/index.html > > Initially I was concerned about the lack of contrast in the images - > they were generally 'flat' with a limited tonal range. A simple levels > adjustment made a world of difference. The only other significant post > processing was in getting rid of reflections which mainly affected areas > of sky. I addressed this by sampling the colour of a section of the sky > and applying a colour gradient layer, masked so that it applied to the > sky alone. This tended to hide the reflections quite well. > > Overall, I was happy with the results. There are a lot of 'misses' but > enough keepers to make me feel that the exercise was worthwhile. > > For those who are interested - some background. Lake Eyre is usually a > huge, dry salt lake in the South Australian outback. It's catchment > covers about one sixth of the Australian continent but it only fills a > few times per century. In most years any rainfall in the catchment is > lost by evaporation or to groundwater well before it could reach the > lake. In 1964 it was the location for a successful attempt on the world > land speed record by Donald Campbell. > > Over the past couple of seasons there has been abnormally high rainfall > in the catchment, so much so that the lake is approaching full capacity. > It's an iconic place to both Aboriginal people and the wider > population. Most Australians would like to visit but it's in a remote > location which is only accessible on land via 4WD, so there is a growing > interest in flights over the lake. > > The Painted Hills extend over an area of about 200 sq km and are low > hills in contrasting colours of white, red, brown and orange. They are > not accessible by road and can only be seen from the air. > > > > Cheers > > Brian > > ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ > Brian Walters > Western Sydney Australia > http://lyons-ryan.org/southernlight/ > > > > -- > > > -- > http://www.fastmail.fm - A fast, anti-spam email service. > > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
