This week’s blog post is again a walkthrough of this shots taken last Saturday in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. 

This first shot is of a pair of Galahs (Eolophus roseicapilla) doing a spot of feather maintenance. These were taken fairly high up so image quality isn't the best, There are a few this week that aren’t the best for various reasons, in this case to heavily cropped in. 

I did manage to find some mushrooms for the week as usual this little group were only around 15 mm high so quite small, but made a great shot with the grouping, turns out that my batteries were a little on the flat side this week for the flashes so only had one working for these shots, so missed the usually back lighting / Rim lighting I try and get, but still happy with this one, I did use the piece of aluminium foil to act a s a fill reflector to give a bit of the two light effect.

This next two images is the same image as above but after playing a bit with it in Topaz Impressions, Some of these come out OK others less so these two are in the less so category. But each has their own flavour to them. 

This next one is another Mushroom this time around the plant bank in the grass beside the main tunnel to get to the entrance.  Again for this one only one of the Flashes had power but no excuse not that happy with this one. This one has some grass over the mushroom that I missed getting out of the way and I couldn't manage to get the bottom of the image clean, so a messy shot.

​ So this one was a good candidate for Topaz and this one turned out a little better with the colours. 

​From there I want up to the Lakes in the gardens and there was quite a few Welcome Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) were skimming across the lake, quite a few decent clear shots of these nicely frozen. These Birds are so small so all these shots are cropped quite heavily so won’t make for good blow-up prints and are starting to suffer a little form the crop. But good practice at panning birds in flight, If I can get these ones darting around it will give be a better chance at getting others latter on so always good to practice. 

A the same time this Australian Wood Duck (Chenonetta jubata) flew across the lake and I managed a couple of shots as it came across. By the time I noticed it and locked focus it had past would be better catching it coming towards me, so one to watch out for next time.

As the Afternoon got on a lot of the gardens was in shade so light was starting to go and in this one had to up the ISO these ones are also pretty timid so couldn't get to close so this ones cropped in so the Background on this ones starting to turn to mush here so not a great shot, need to be either closer of better light, this ones of an Eastern Rosella (Platycercus eximius) coming down for the final feed of the afternoon in the grass beside the lake.

Managed to find some sunlight and this one a much better quality image lower ISO and better lighting plus not so timid so I could get much closer to this Noisy Miner (Manorina melanocephala) Little over blown in the highlights but very harsh lighting here. Some days the light doesn’t play ball.

While the light was out there was a few insects in the daisies so had a bit of a quick go at some Macro work on the insect, again nothing to flash here not overly excited about these two, but so something else for me to practice with in the coming weeks looks like. I do like the striped eye of the first one.  

Last shot for the day was this little Rose Robin (Petroica rosea) Found this one twice in this location now so I know where to hunt this one down now just need to be there in better light, again low light so high ISO and a fair distance again, Be good to get a clean shot up closer and lower ISO, something to work on, so a bit to work on in the coming weeks looks like.

So that's it for this week’s shots from my walk in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. Some OK shots some that need more work and some over the top Topaz work that needs to be toned back a bit, but still learning this new tool so in the coming weeks this should improve, I hope. Stay tuned and follow the journey on that one. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog, back next week with more.

Glenn.

This week’s blog is a look at last weekend’s shots taken in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan. This week I've taken a few shots with different lighting or different post-processing of the images so with the same set up just moving the lights gives a different effect and feel to the shots.

This first one was on the first lake in the Gardens a Hoary-headed Grebe (Poliocephalus poliocephalus) Haven't seen one of these around for a few months now so good to see one back. 

This ones become a regular of late and only to happy to have its photo taken a Little Pied Cormorant (Microcarbo Melanoleucos) 

The same shot after some post processing with Topaz impressions 2 giving it a painting feel to it. 

For this shot I gave it a little more room to get in the mirror reflection, the last few weeks have been good for reflections here.  

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In this shot White faced Heron flew by and the cormorant is putting on a display trying to scare it off, the Heron wasn't really interested and kept flying past. 

Another good week for mushrooms this week. This week I've several shots with the same set up but just different lighting so you can see the effects the different lighting can have, some work better than others.  this first one its more of a natural lighting but still a lit shot. 

This one I've gone for underexposing and using only the lifting to light the mushroom you can see the effect of the back lighting on the right of this one. 

This one again I also took into Topaz Impressions and had a quick play with it, these so far haven’t taken much time to get these effects, given more time and a bit of practice and getting to know it better I'm sure some of these will turn out better. Starting to get a feel for what I like in it, though a long way to go yet here. 

This one’s sort of in-between with the lighting, but not a clean shot as there was still some grass in between the camera and the mushroom. So not the best. 

I had a bit of a play around with Topaz on this one to see if it improved it, but looks like I needed to take it much further, so not really hoary with these two. 

This shot shows the set up and actual lighting conditions for the next few shots, the Speedlites and foil are re-positioned in each shot otherwise pretty much the same, the camera is not moved though over the shots seams to sink lower so something I’ll need to watch out for next time. 

So the above shots are mainly just different positions or strengths of the lights, the next ones are after playing with them via Topaz Impressions and just some of the different effects you can get out of the same shot. You get the idea that there are so many options to play with here. These are just a few. Some go for the abstract to the realising styles of painters, so plenty to choose from there. 

So you can see from one setup you can do so much between lighting and post processing the above six shots are all form the same camera location. So plenty of options out there to explore. 

This next shot was for the same place I took these last shots from what I was taking these a little Rose Robin (Petroica rosea) came by to watch, it kept coming back so I managed to get this shot, would have preferred a slightly better angle to get the stick in the back ground away for the bird, but when I moved it took off, so one to look out for next time I'm there. 

Lastly for this week a shot of and Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) The first one a straight shot and the second one after playing in Topaz again, not happy with the bird life ones as yet so need more play time here to find what I like, but still a nice effect so gives you an idea what’s possible. 

For a limited time, the Topaz Labs have this at 40% off till the 7th July 2016 from memory and I also have a discount code that is supposed to give you $20 off, it also gives me $20 credit for the first person that uses it, after that everyone will get the $20 credit don't get anything. Which is fine I am only passing on what I find and what works for me, if you check back on some of my work on the last couple of posts you'll find a few more that I've used it on, you can take it way over the top if that’s what you like. I try and keep it a little more realistic so far though have done a few further down the track.  ‪http://www.topazlabs.com?hr=aq4E8 You can also give it a go with a 30 day free trial license from their site for anyone that’s interested. I've now bought the full license of Impressions, but not Simply as yet, I'll keep playing with impressions and maybe go for simply later on if I find a need or a want. 

So that’s it for this week’s blog, IT gives you an idea of the effects of different lighting and post processing can have on a shot. 

Thanks for dropping by my Blog I'll be back next week with some more. 

Glenn

This weeks blog post is a walk through of the shots taken this weekend in the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan.

This first shot was taken pretty mush were I pulled the car up, as I got out a small group or Eastern Rosellas (Platycercus eximius) were going from tree to tree, this was the best I managed they don't let you get too close to them, so still working towards a good shot of one of these. Their bright colours makes them easy to spot as they dive from branch to branch. 

Next up is the first of a few mushrooms I found this weekend, this one was a smaller one. 

This next one was a little further along and it wasn’t till I got it on the big screen that I realised you can see the spores falling for the cap, these are back light from the rear speedlite. 

While I was taking the last shot I had the second Camera set up on the tripod and as it happened a Golden Whistler (Pachycephala pectoralis) landed on a branch only about 3 meters away so I managed to get a few nice shots of this one. 

In the same place a small group of Superb Fairy-Wrens (Malurus cyaneus) can through and also got quite close so I got these shots as well the depth of field could have been a little greater on these two, in both cases the eye is spot of but the depth of feed let these ones down a little. 

Further still along and the White Faced Herons (Egretta novaehollandiae) are still around the small dam opposite the plant bank, ago a nice shot with a good still reflection.

A couple more mushrooms from the day both of these are focus stacked to get the depth of field.  

After the Mushroom shots It was starting to get on so I headed down to the lake to see what was going on there and found this Australian White Ibis (Threskiornis molucca)  circling the lake. 

The last three shots for this week was a juvenile Little Pied Cormorant (Microcarbo melanoleucos) The first one is with it in flight.

This one shows it n a determine walk to its next spot. 

The last shot was a nice close up as he sat on a bench and allowed me to get quite close to it. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week another good week with a few decent shots so happy with this weeks effort. 

Be back next week with what I manage to find. 

Glenn.