Venice

A pickup point for Gondolas in Venice 

In this post, I thought I would concentrate on some of the things that we first noticed while wandering around the floating city - not so much the things that one thinks of as quintessentially Venetian, such as gondolas and Carnevale masks, which I will look at in more detail in later posts.

The image above is of the main Gondola "pickup point" at St Marks square. A 5.30am start was required to photograph the area around St Marks square without tourists walking into the frame. This area is unbelievably busy during "normal" hours of the day. The church in the background is San Giorgio Maggiore on the island of San Giorgio.

Read on for more info and images.

A Vaporetto navigates the Grand Canal

Venice consists of two main islands, which are divided by the Grand Canal, and a number of smaller islands. The Grand Canal, as the name suggests, is the main waterway used to get around. It starts in the Venetian lagoon and ends in St Marks Basin. The areas along the two banks of the Grand Canal are very touristy and full of restaurants and souvenir shops.

A Gondola glides along the Grand Canal

There are 4 bridges which span the Grand Canal. Of these the Rialto is the best known and the oldest - in fact, until the middle of the 19th century, this was the only bridge to span the Grand Canal. The Rialto is named after the market on eastern bank of the canal. It was initially a pontoon bridge built in 1181 by Nicolo Barettieri. Due to increased traffic the bridge was replaced by wooden bridge in 1255.  The wooden bridge burnt once and collapsed on two separate occasions, the last of which was in 1524. The stone bridge which stands today was built in 1591. It is constantly packed with tourists, either taking pictures, looking out over the Grand Canal or browsing around the two rows of shops which span the length of the bridge.

The Rialto Bridge

The Ponte dell' Academia is a relatively new wooden bridge across the Grand Canal. It is also the closest crossing to St Marks square. The entrance to the Gallerie dell' Academia is at the foot of this bridge on the eastern bank. The bridge offers two of the best views of Venice.

The Grand Canal photographed form the Academia Bridge

The islands of Venice are home to around 80 churches. Walking into most of these is like walking into small museums, as a number of them contain paintings and sculptures of the great Venetian artists including Tintoretto, Veronese and Titian.

Santa Maria della Salute photographed from a Vaporetto

All these images were captured using a Canon 7D and a Canon 24-105mm Lens. I also had a circular polariser on the lens.

The Louvre - Exteriors

The Louvre - Paris, France

I can't believe a month has already passed since we left on our trip. We got back this morning after nearly 24 hours spent on planes and in transit and needless to say, I feel like I've been hit over the head.

I'm not sure how to start processing and blogging about all the images from our trip. I'm leaning towards randomly picking a location for each post with the aim of keeping the blog a bit more interesting. If anyone has a better idea please let me know. Now I've got around a 110 GB worth of RAW files to go through... At least I'll have something to do in my spare time for the next year or so!

I think the Louvre Museum in Paris is an appropriate place to kick things off. In this post I've decided to only cover the exterior of the Louvre. I'll go through the interior (Yep, photography is allowed inside as long as the flash is not used) in another post at a later date.

The panorama above was created by stitching 10 separate images.  I used the tripod and a remote shutter release to minimise camera shake.

Read on for more images and info.

The forecourt of the Louvre - Paris, France

This image is of the Sully Pavilion with part of the glass pyramid, designed by I.M. Pei, in the foreground. I wanted to capture the exterior of the museum in the night as, like most of the monuments in Paris, it is very well lit. It was a short stroll to the museum from our apartment in Le Marais, which was convenient. The entrance to the Museum, for those who have not pre-purchased their tickets, is through the pyramid.

The Glass Pyramid at the Louvre - Paris, France

The queue for tickets can be quite long, especially at the start on the day. It starts at the pyramid (middle of the panoramic shot above) and extends out to the Denon pavilion (this includes a section of the queue which doubles up on itself about four or five times). It then extends along the Denon pavilion, through the Sully pavilion and into a second enclosed court yard, the Cour Carree. We bought our tickets online and sauntered into the museum from a separate entrance without standing in any queues. Buying tickets online is slightly more expensive but it is worth it as you save a lot of time once there.

The Sully Pavilion at the Louvre - Paris, France

This shot of the Sully pavillion was taken from near the pyramid. The main doors, which are closed in this shot, lead on to the second courtyard mentioned above. The forecourt of the Louvre is accessible at all hours of the day to anyone. We even rode through it on a night bike tour.

The Pyramid at the Louvre - Paris, France

This shot was taken from the steps of the Sully pavilion. Walking straight from this point takes you through the Tuileries gardens to the Champs-Elysees and the Arc du Triomphe. The Denon pavilion is on the left of the image and the Richelieu pavilion is on the right.

Holidays! (Blog won't be updated for a while)

Travel Essentials

After what seems like ages, we are finally heading off on holiday. We leave for Europe in a couple of days and needless to say we are really looking forward to it. Apart from a new circular polariser and an extra 8GB memory card, I've not bought any new equipment for the trip. I've got an extensive shot list and if I manage to get half the shots I'm after, I'll be happy.

Unfortunately while I'm away I will not be able to update the blog. I will get back to it as soon as I return. Last time I was away I got back with around 70GB of images. I have a feeling I'll exceed that this time and as a result have a whole heap more to share here.

Read on for lighting information for the shot above.

The lighting for the shot was actually pretty straight forward. I fired a Canon 430 EX, gelled with a full CTO, from just behind the camera at 1/8th. It was fired into a white foam core board placed just out of frame on the left hand side of the image. The entire shot was lit with light bounced off the foam core board.

If I was to take this shot again, I would use a reflector (probably a piece of white A4 paper!)  to light the area below the lens. I think that part of the image is a bit too dark. I'd have to place the piece of paper just out of the frame on the bottom right hand corner of the frame. The area would still be relatively dark but more detail will be visible.

Scrabble

Scrabble board lit with a single light from three angles

This is a technique which I've used on a number of occasions when I need to light something from multiple angles with a single strobe. I've covered it in an article for digital photography school sometime ago. The post is still available online at http://digital-photography-school.com/making-the-most-of-one-flash-case-study . More info after the jump.

The first step of the process is to capture the "base" image. As seen below, the base image is evenly lit (in this case by bouncing the flash off the ceiling). Whatever appears in shadow in  this image, will be in shadow in the final image as well.

Base exposure used to produce the final image above

The "key light" images have to be captured next. In these images, a strobe is used to emphasise certain areas of the image. Typically a snoot or gobo will be used to control the direction of the light. The first key light image was captured to emphasise the tiles. A snoot was used to control the spill light here.

Key light image used to emphasise the tiles

The second key light image was captured to light up the area under the bag. Again, a snooted strobe was used to control the spill.

Key light used to emphasise the area below the bag

Once the image have been captured, I used a star trail action to merge the images. The end result is the image at the top of the post.

A tripod has to be used to make sure the camera doesn't move between shots. This ensures you avoid problems with merging the images during post processing.

This technique can only be used to photograph stationary objects.

Rose Ringed Parakeet

A Rose ringed Parakeet photographed in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Of all the parakeets found in Sri Lanka, the Rose ringed Parakeet is by far the most common in the lowlands. A flock of about ten birds visit our garden twice a day to feed on the fruit trees and whatever is left out on the bird tray. More images and info after the jump.

A Rose ringed Parakeet photographed in Colombo, Sri Lanka

Interestingly, this bird is one of the few birds that are not protected. They are actually considered to be an agricultural pest (more info on this here). They have been able to establish feral populations in a number of European cities as well as South Africa and India. Most of these populations have been established by introduced birds as well as escaped pets. Unfortunately these birds are still popular as pets in Sri Lanka.

A Rose ringed Parakeet photographed in Colombo, Sri Lanka

All the images in this post were captured with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm lens. I didn't have to zoom in to 400mm to capture these images as the birds let me get quite close to them.

A Rose ringed Parakeet photographed in Colombo, Sri Lanka

More info and images of this bird at

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/10/rose-ringed-parakeet.html

Somersby Falls - Part II

The Main Waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

The Somersby Falls picnic area in the Brisbane Waters national park, on the central coast of New South Wales, is the starting point of a short walk along Mooney Mooney Creek. A number of decent sized waterfalls are within a ten or twenty minute walk from the picnic area. The first, and most impressive, of these is the waterfall pictured above. More images and info after the jump.

A Closeup of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

One of the most interesting compositional elements of the main waterfall, in my opinion, is the branch which extends across the water fall from the left of the frame (shown in the image above). I think it helps convey a sense of depth in the  images of the waterfall.

A section of the lower falls - Somersby Falls, Australia

The drop of the second fall is not as big as the main waterfall but the rocks, moss and leaves make for some interesting compositions. I didn't have any ND filters on this trip and had to rely on an aperture of f22 to get  a suitable shutter speed required to capture the silky feel of flowing water. We got there quite early in the morning and fortunately the sun wasn't too harsh at the time.

The main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

The wet moss and ferns growing on the rocks along the creek add a lot of colour and interest to the images of the creek. The fact that the area is very rocky allows photographers to capture interesting compositions of small sections of the falls themselves.

A section of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

Somersby Falls is only around an hours drive on the F3 from our place in Sydney. I've been up there on three occasions already and will definitely head up there again. It's probably best to visit in late July or early August as the winter rain would ensure a decent amount of water flowing through the creek.

A section of the main waterfall - Somersby Falls, Australia

All images on this post were captured using a Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. The aperture was set to f22 and the ISO of 100 for all the images on this post.

More images of Somersby Falls

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2010/08/somersby-falls-part-i.html
• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/09/somersby-falls.html

Somersby Falls - Part I

Somersby Falls - Brisbane Waters National Park

I've visited Somersby falls on two previous occasions and spent a fair bit of time photographing the three waterfalls. I went up there again last Sunday with Dean Toh and spent a couple of hours wondering around, photographing the different sections of the falls. The panorama above was one of the highlights of the day.  More info on this shot after the jump.

*The panorama was created using ten images.

In order to create a panorama which is made up of multiple images, a tripod is essential. Ideally the images would be shot in "manual" mode so that each of them are captured with identical settings. When capturing the images it is also important to ensure that there is a substantial overlap between adjacent images. This makes it easier to identify control points between them. These control points are used during the stitching processes.

During post processing I double check all the settings paying particular attention to the colour balance, fill light and blacks. All settings have to be identical across all images to ensure the final panorama is smooth. Stitching the images together is straightforward process and can be completed in any image processing software.

This image has to be viewed large for the details to really stand out. The final image was jpeg file which was over 10MB in size.

The images were captured using a Canon 7D and a Canon 24-105mm lens.

Other Shots of Somersby Falls

• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2009/09/somersby-falls.html
• http://devwijewardane.blogspot.com/2010/08/somersby-falls-part-ii.html