It's All About the Small Things

I had a couple days of vacation I needed to burn before the end of the year, so I took Thursday/Friday off.  The weather wasn't the greatest to head out on the road to do some photography, so I stuck around the house.  In the back yard I have a couple small Maples which have lost all of their leaves, but still had a few seeds hanging on.  So I grabbed the 7D, slapped my 100mm f/2.8 Macro on and started snapping shots. There was this one small group which were especially interesting since they were entangled in a spider's old web.  I didn't even notice the spider web until I snapped a couple shots and checked my focus.  Isn't it funny how you sometimes don't see the little details until they smack you in the face.  :-)  Hope you enjoy.

New Toy

So, for some reason I've been wanting a new camera.  Don't get me wrong, I love my Canon 7D.  It's just that I wanted something a bit more portable when I go on trips where I'm not primarily taking photos (yes, it happens once in a while).  I also wanted a small camera that takes great photos and still gave me control over the aperture, shutter speed and so on.  I could of just gone with a point n shoot, but the quality of the photos just wasn't up to my fairly high standards.

So, what did I end up getting?  The Olympus E-PM1 (Pen Mini).  It's small, takes great pictures and I can change out the lens when I want to.  Just to give you an idea on how small it is, here's a pic of it sitting next to my car keys.


I've taken it out a few times to fool around with and so far, I'm pretty happy.  The User Interface is a pain to learn at first, but once you figure out how to turn on the Power User mode, it's easy to switch up settings and get what you want.  You can also customize buttons / dials to what you want.  I have the wheel on the back programmed to control my aperture.

One note, if you want to work with RAW photos, leave the Olympus software that comes with the camera in the box.  It has a horrible GUI and is SLOW as hell. Seriously, I have a high end powerful PC and I was sitting there waiting 5-7 seconds for each setting I changed to take effect. When you're adjusting say the contrast 3 or 4 times to get it just right, you're wasting a ton of time sitting there waiting.  I wouldn't want to even think how long it would take to work through a hundred or so photos on my PC, besides a computer from 5 years ago.  I don't understand how Olympus can put this kind of crap SW out there with a straight face.  Luckily I have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom which makes things much easier/faster to work through my photos.

How are the pictures?  Well, here's a couple samples.  These were taken with the standard 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 "kit" lens that came with the camera and edited in Lightroom.





As you can see, the quality is pretty good.  I can get some nice Bokeh, even with the relatively slow kit lens.  I picked up a Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 for low light shooting.  Haven't had a chance to get out and really test it out though.  I think it will be great to use as a primary lens when I want to travel lite.

Australia - Finally putting up some photos

So Australia was great and I enjoyed pretty much every minute of being there.  Check out the sites below.

Wrapping up Sydney and hitting the road

So, I hung out in Sydney for a second day. I shot some more photos of the Opera House and a video as well.  I haven't worked on the photos yet, but I did put a quick video together.  This was about 6:45 in the morning and it was so peaceful there on this little point sticking out from the pier.  This video was taken with my Canon 7D and I'm really impressed with the video quality.


I went out to the normal "Opera House/Harbour Bridge" spot hoping to get some shots of the Opera House bathed in the morning sun, but I was shut out again.  It was funny, to the left the city had full on sun and was perfect, but the Opera House was bla grey.  I stuck around for about 20 minutes hoping a sliver of sun would come out, but looking behind me at the forbidding dark clouds, I knew it wasn't happening. 

The rest of Monday I walked around the city checking out the Maritime Museum, the Sydney Aquarium and whatever else looked interesting.  Not a whole lot to say except I was ready for bed when I got back to my hotel.

Tuesday morning I checked out of my hotel and hopped on the train back to the airport to pick up my car. I had booked an automatic, but when I was checking in at the front counter, the guy asked if I would take a manual.  I said "sure" and he seemed a bit surprised and repeated himself, "Are you sure? It's a manual, you'll manually shift the gears." I don't have a problem shifting with my left hand. Growing up I used to shift for my mom all the time.  Also, my dad dislocated his right should and couldn't use it for 3 months, so I always would shift for him when we went out.

I have to say though, I was a bit nervous about driving in Sydney.  There's a ton of traffic and of course you're driving on the left side of the road.  When you've been driving from the left seat in a car for a long time, changing over to the right side makes the car seem HUGE.  The car I have isn't that big, it's about the same size as a Mazda 3 hatchback, but it felt like I was driving a 71 Cadillac. After about 10 minutes of weaving through traffic, trying not to hit anyone while paying attention to where the female voice on the GPS was telling me to go, I started to settle down and get into the groove.  I do have to say that Sydney drivers are very polite.  No one honked at me and everyone let me in when I turned on the blinker. It was actually much easier driving here on the left side of the road then driving in Manaus, Brazil on the right side of the road.  The only thing that is still getting me is having the signal on the right side of the steering wheel instead of the left.  I keep turning on my wipers when I make lane changes.

It was nice getting on the road and out of the city.  My destination was Port Macquarie and I drove the Freeway most of the way.  I did take a side road along the coast for the last 40KM and I have to say, the coastline along here is beautiful.  Found my backpackers (hostel) here in Port Macquarie, walked around the town for a bit then picked up a six pack and headed back to the lodgings.  Ended up sitting on a bench with 7 or 8 people from all over the world talking about anything and everything until 11 when the owner said, "sorry guys, we're shutting it down for the night".

I think I'm going to stay here one more night.  I met some cool people and we're going to go check out some of the local sites.  Any ways, breakfast is ready and I'm starving. 

Hello from Sydney

It’s 5:30 Monday morning local time and I’m wide awake.  The jetlag actually isn’t that bad on this trip.  I fell asleep around 11:00 PM and only woke up at 1:30 AM and 3:00 AM then decided at 5:00 AM it wasn’t worth tossing and turning anymore and got up.  When I woke up at 1:30 or so, I could of sworn I had slept over 8 hours and it was light outside.  I got up, took a peak outside and found I was wrong… That’s when I checked the time on my laptop and saw I had only slept for a few hours.
So the trip down here went very smooth.  No big issues, no plane problems, connection issues or what not.  My cold wasn’t too bad either besides my ears not easily popping when they wanted to.  I had some Orbits gum though which helped on the ascend and descend. I even slept, with some major help from Nyquil, for about 8 hours on the San Fran to Sydney flight.  If I hadn’t of gotten that sleep, I would have been a zombie wondering around Sydney waiting for my hotel room.
So far getting around Sydney is a breeze.  I hopped on a tram at the airport which dropped me off 1/2 a block from my hotel in Circular Quay (pronounced “circular key”).  I then checked in with the hotel to see if my room was available at ~8:00 AM, which it wasn’t, no big surprise there.  Left my bags with the front desk, grabbed my camera and headed out to explore. 
Yesterday was fairly dreary and wet.  Not the greatest weather/light conditions for shooting photos.  But I did get a few good shots. First thing I did was head towards the Opera House.  It’s a slow 10 minute walk from my hotel.  Walking there, I was still half in shock that I was actually in Australia walking the streets of Sydney.  At that early in the morning on a Sunday, pretty much the only people out and about were joggers.  So I basically had the place to myself, which was great.  Just on the other side of the Opera House there is this huge Botanical Garden which is actually very nice to walk around in on a early Sunday morning.  So I headed further out through the gardens to where everyone gets their standard Opera House / Sydney Harbour Bridge combination shot. 




As you can see, the light was blah and the skies were grey.  At the hour this was taken, the Opera House should have been shining gold with the morning sun rising behind me.  Still, it was a nice sight to see and shoot.  Maybe I’ll get lucky today or tomorrow and the light will be better.
Exploring further into the gardens and up a small rise, I ran across this view of the Botanical Gardens below the city skyline which made for an interesting shot.


I don’t know if these photos actually look that good because the LCD on this laptop of mine is crap when it comes to correctly displaying contrast and color.  I’m winging it for now, but saving all my photos to go back through when I get home.
Since the light was flat, I wondered around the gardens some more.  It is very peaceful walking through a park in the middle of a huge city.  Me, I’m not that big on cities, so getting out of the hustle n bustle is a big plus. 


As I was saying, it was peaceful until I got to one part of the gardens.  I heard this screeching from what I thought was birds up in the trees, until I looked up and saw these:


Yes, you are looking at huge, noisy bats.  Serious, they are at least the same size as an average seagull on the Oregon coast. Big guys flying around, hanging upside down and doing whatever bats like to do.


It seems they are called Grey Headed Flying Fox and are causing some controversy here in Sydney.  Some people want them to be driven of from the gardens while others say it’s cruel to do so. At first I was a little apprehensive about having all of these bats hanging from above, but it was actually pretty cool listening to them talking, flying around and all. Luckily there was no falling guano. 
After stopping for a cup of coffee and muffin in the gardens, I headed towards The Rocks to explore some of the older part of Circular Quay.  It’s the normal tourist trap.  Lots of little shops, street vendors and what not.  The main reason I headed that way was to walk Sydney Harbour Bridge.



There was some nice views up there of the Harbor and the Opera House, but when it started raining harder, I had to turn around and head back.




Anyways, I actually went and took some more photos this morning before I finished typing this up.  So now it’s 9:20 AM, I haven’t had anything to eat and I've only had crappy freeze dried coffee from the minibar.  There’s a Starbucks around the corner which I’m going to have to hit soon. 

2 hours until liftoff

I have been impatiently waiting for this day for over 3 months now and the time to take off is down to less then 2 hours.  Here I am, sitting in PDX, drinking an Americano and looking out the window at the sunny afternoon thinking to myself, “I’m finally going… am I crazy?” Of course I’m not crazy, I’m headed to the land down under! 

So, I have my trip 90% planned out.  I’m leaving 10% open in case something interesting comes along.  The plan is to get out of the U.S. first. I don’t know, maybe I’ve been spoiled with all the travelling I’ve done for work the past 10 years, but staying in the U.S. for over a year straight has driven me to the brink.  I want to get out there and do something, somewhere just as long as it’s not here. And when I say “here”, I’m not talking about Portland, I’m talking the U.S.

Sorry, started venting there.  Back on track:  what am I going to be doing in the land of Aus. As I said in my previous post, first stop is Sydney.  I booked a room using points for a couple nights at the Marriott Hotel on Sydney Bay.  There is no way I would pay 300 bucks a night to stay there… but 60k points and no money out of my pocket?  Sure, I can do that!  The hotel is smack in the middle between the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, two of Sydney’s most recognizable landmarks.  Should be pretty cool.  So hopefully I’ll be able to sleep on the flight down there so that I can hit the ground running Sunday morning at 7:00 when I land.  Cause I want to go explore as much as I can in the 2 days I’m there.  The cool thing is that Sunday evening an old co-worker of mine who used to live in Malaysia is going to meet up with me. I haven’t seen him in 4 or 5 years and I’ve never met his family, so it’s an added bonus.

After exploring Sydney, I’m renting a car and headed north along the coast to Brisbane.  it’s a 12 hour drive straight through, but I plan to take 2 or 3 days.  My aunt Barb lives with her husband in Brisbane, so I’ll be staying with them for a few days.  Then I’m flying into Cairns which is up north. I have a hotel booked on North Beach and from there I plan to explore the area’s rain forests and of course go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef.

Then it’s onto Alice Springs to explore the Northern Territory’s harsh dry lands and Uluru (Ayers Rock).  after 5 days in that area, I’m off to Melbourne, probably stay a day or 2 there then get a car and drive up the coast back to Sydney. 

It’s going to be a lot of travelling and I’m going to se a huge variety of landscapes to capture with my camera.  Oh yeah, I brought my Canon 7D, four lens, 2 tripods, pocket camera and pocket video recorder.  It wouldn’t be a proper trip if I didn’t bring along my gear.

Well, I’m going to sign of for now.  I’ll be posting as much as I can while I’m on this trip and I hope you follow along. 

Umm.... if you're still out there, hello.

I can't believe I haven't posted anything on here since October of 2009.  What the heck was I doing?  Oh yeah: there wasn't anything interesting to post, I haven't done any serious traveling, I haven't done much in terms of serious photography and life has been pretty much a big bore due to work, work and more work. 

Well, that's about to change.  I have plane tickets booked to arrive in Sydney, Australia on March 27 and then it's 3 weeks of non-stop action in the land down under.  I have a rough schedule laid out which includes, but might change at any moment, a couple days in Sydney.  Driving up the coast to Brisbane to visit an Aunt of mine.  Then it's making my way up to Cairns to see the rain forests and of course go snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. Cairns got hit pretty hard by a cyclone, so it's going to be interesting to see what it's like there so soon afterwards. After that, I'm still kind of in the air on what I'm going to do.  I wanted to go to Christchurch in New Zealand, but after the big quake they just had, I'm not so sure.  Still have to investigate a bit more. 

Anyways, I'll be posting on here what I've done and seen along with pics.  It should be a fun trip and I can't wait to go.  In the mean time, here's a couple photos I've taken in the last few months.



Bottom of Munson Creek Falls located south of Tillimook, OR.


Sunset at Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach, OR.