This weeks blog has two days of shots this week, Saturday in the Australian Botanical Gardens and Sunday something different the Symbio Wildlife park at Helensburgh

 https://www.australianbotanicgarden.com.au/

https://symbiozoo.com.au/

Saturday I went for the usual walk in the gardens. Nice enough day out this weekend so was looking promising. 

First up around the stolen generation memorial was the usual group of Superb Fairy wrens, plus a couple of Variegated Fairy-wrens (Malurus lamberti) This one is banded to has been captured at some stage by the banding group in the gardens which capture and ring birds for their studies of the bird life in the gardens. These ones are really quite colourful. 

Next up is the ever present Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis) These ones are around all year round and always pose for their photo, this ones also banded. 

Next up one of the many Galah's (Eolophus roseicapilla) that make their home in the gardens, This shot shows of the grey of the bird against the grey trees, so easy to see why they have the grey colour when seen in this shot. 

The gardens also had a population of Rabbits that seam to have made there home here, most times they take off when they see anyone this one stayed long enough for this shot. 

 Next up one of the many Magpie-larks (Pee wee) (Grallina cyanoleuca) This one was patroling the grassed area of the walk beside the water cannal opposite the plant bank. I set up and took a series of shots this one wasn't at all afraid and ended up only a few meters from me as it kept walking towards me. Most times its best to set up and wait for them to come to you. 

Not so brave is the Eastern Rosellas (Platycercus eximius) these guys never stick around and are always taken from a distance, any time you even look like getting close they take off, this small group only stayed for about two minutes before they took off so this was the best I got of these ones this week.

As I got to the car I found this Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita) exploring a tree hollow.

From there I drove up to the connections gardens to see what was about where I got this shot of a female Superb Fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) under the Bunya pines. This one has been collecting spider Webs for its nest so caught in the act here. This ones probably the best shot for the Day. 

From there I walked down to the lake to practice some birds in flight shots, there was plenty of swallows darting around the lake so they make good practice, this week they were to good for me, but the practice paid off as I got a few good shots of the Cormorants in flight.

First shot is of the Little pied Cormorant (Microcarbo melaoleucos) just coming to the surface shaking off the water. 

Then a series of shots of the Cormorant as it circled the lake low.  All these next ones shot on the tripod with the gimbal head.

On the way back to the car I stopped by the paper daisies Still not happy with what I'm getting there this one was a close up so not so bad. Might play with this one with Topaz in the coming weeks to see what I can do with that. 

Sunday, We headed out to the Symbio Wildlife park, been about 40 years since I was last there so lets say its a little different to what it was back then. So unlike the gardens where all the Birds are wild birds in the wild even if banded, all these shots are of captive animals. For this trip I only took the one Camera the 7dMk2 and one lens the 70 to 200 f2,8 MK2 L lens, so all the next series of shots are taken with this combination. 

First to are Koalas, we go t there in time for feeding time, so these were a little active compared to the normal sleep in the tree fork. 

The next two are of the Sumatran Tigers (Panthera tigris sumatrae), there’s a pair of these there, these shots are taken through the wire fence So some of the shots didn't turn out, The trick is to get as close to the wire as you can, use a wide pen aperture and then try and get the subject to be at a reasonable distance for the fence as the shots are, otherwise the fence shows in the shot, Even so I can make out the fence blur in the first shot if you look closely in the upper left over the grass you can see the diamond pattern of the fence. 

This next shot is through glass and is of a Cotton-top Tamarin (Saguinus oedipus), These ones are tiny but the next ones are even smaller. 

This little ones are the world’s smallest monkeys and are pygmy marmoset (Cebuella pygmaea). To get an idea of the scale the black rope are shoe laces, so if you compare the width of the shoe lace against its eyes you start to get an idea just how small these ones are. Both these shots are also taken thought glass. 

In case you hadn’t had enough of cuteness yet this next series is of the Red Pandas (Ailurus fulgens) these guy pretty much like Koalas most of the time they appear asleep, Happened to be around feeding time for these shots so a little bit of activity here for these ones. 

Next up the ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta) out catching some some, not that it was that cold when this was taken but still happy to pose for this shot. 

The park also had a pair of Freshwater Crocodiles (Crocodylus johnsoni or Crocodylus johnstoni) 

As well as a pair of Dingos (Canis lupus dingo).

The last shot for the week is of a meerkat (Suricata suricatta) on watch duty, keeping an eye out this one was constantly scaring the skies looking for something threatening.

So all up a few decent shots of different animals than I normal do. Again these last shots were all of captive animals all my shots amongst the gardens are all naturally wild animals so it’s a patience's game for them, these ones it’s more a walk up wait for the right moment and shoot. 

Next week I'm doing a Ranger guided walk in the Dharawal national park so we'll see what shots I get from that one next week, having done a few of these the walks good but usually with a group of people I don't get so many shots so we'll see what next week brings.

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

Glenn

This week back to normal, I managed to head out this week with the cameras after a few weeks of not feeling the best, mainly a cough that just won’t go. But definitely on the mend now and doing much better. So this week I managed to head out to the Australian Botanical Gardens, Mount Annan and got some shots. 

I started on the walk from the stolen generation to the plant bank, first up was the Bell Miners (Manorina melanophrys) theses a small colony of these around the stolen generation memorial. First shot is the better of the two but still a bit too much greenery in the way. Still a nice enough shot for two weeks of no shots. 

This second shot not so good, the light wasn't great really harsh and slightly missed the focus on the eye on this one so not the best. 

 I kept walking after reaching the plant back and walked along the path beside the cannel where I found a pair of Yellow Thornbills (Acanthiza nana). The first shot here is the pick of the week for me, Happy with this one all-round Focus is good on the Bird and eye, the composition is well framed with the branch and overhead leaves and flowers framing the bird and the little bit of air moss on the branch to keep you searching the photo for more, so happy with this one, also like the colour tones to the shot where it’s all a yellow flavor to it all.   

In this shot I'm certainly being stared down. 

This ones of a little Striated Pardalote, He was way up in an old dead gum tree so only the tiniest shot of this one. 

As I was taking the Pardalote shots I noticed down along the cannel what I first took to be a hark hovering just above the ground then I realised it was a Noisy Miner (Manuring melanocephala) As I watched it turned out there was a small flock of these all taking turns to hover over an ants nest then they dove down and grabbed an ant and landed near by to eat. These are normally closed as honey eaters, but not today. This series of shots shows them in hover mode and the last few a dive and take.  

As I walked back to the car along the trail I came across this Australian Raven (Corvus coronoides) unfortunately the tail was behind the small tree and it soon took of so didn't stay around for a second shot. 

From there I drove up to the connections gardens to see what was on offer there, being the start of Spring here the wild flower display of the paper Daisies was out in Bloom more on that later. But first I headed up looking to see what I could find in the way of mushrooms, When I saw this Eastern Spinebill (Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris) These ones are pretty quick but I managed two decent shots of these this week.

I also managed to find a small group of mushrooms so got a few different shots of these. 

Lastly to end of this weeks shots the Paper Daisies (Rhodanthe chlorocephala) in flower opposite the visitors centre, This year earlier on in the year a large storm came through the gardens and several sections of the gardens were either Raging rivers or lakes, these garden beds were the rivers so large sections were washed away and had to be rebuild up and replanted. The Daisies are now in flower and make a great display but not as thick as previous years so guess the storm took its toll, think they have another week or so before they will be at their best. These are native to southwester Western Australia. So a few shots of these to end this week.

So after two weeks of no shooting, back into it this week with a few good shoots. We'll see what this week brings, feeling much better now thought the cough still hasn't left me yet, but doing much better. So all good. 

Thanks for dropping by this weeks blog, be back next week with more. 

Glenn.

The power of Lightroom’s organisation features.

Lightroom is far more that a software for just editing your photos, one of its biggest strengths is the ability to catalogue and search for images using various methods.

Lightroom is only as powerful as the data it stores. So depending how much data is captured or added as you add images the more power you give lightroom to later being able to find an image.

Lightroom has many ways to sort and find images, from collections, to smart collections to metadata (The data captured by the camera including type of camera, date, camera settings, down to lenses used and focal lengths. Star Ratings colours flags and key words. You can search on one or as many of these as you like to narrow down your search. 

Some of this I'm well organised with others still trying to work out whats best and will give me the best results, so very much a work in progress and what works for one person won't work for all, so what I'll cover here is what my current process is and what I can use the various search results for. 

Starting with collections in th library module. The smart collections have the little yellow cog in the lower right corner of the icon, where as the ones below are standard collections and the images need to be physically added to them. 

Light room has two types of collections. Smart collections and plain collections, Starting with the simple collections, a collection is a named virtual folder (not really a folder) but everyone understands folders, that you can set as a target collection or just simply drag and drop images into. Note collections even though they appear as folders in the left navigator panel they really aren't and are a series of virtual tags that an image can be attached to. The actual image is in a folder on your hard drive somewhere where you imported it into, but can be in several collections folders with only one copy on the hard disk. Saving hard disk space and duplications of images, For instance you may have an image of a sunset over the sea and have a folder for sunsets and a folder for Sea side shots, the image can be in both collections. 

​Smart collections are a step up where you can set certain criteria and as images are added to your lightroom catalogue they will depending on the criteria automatically be added to the collection. For instance you could set up a Criteria for a smart collection for all images taken between certain dates, within some may Kilometres of a known point and with certain keywords, would all automatically be added into a folder, you can take it further and say only with 3 or more start ratings. I have a similar collection set up each year when I'm looking for my photos to submit to the local competitions, all photos between the certain date, within the area the competition allows the shots to be taken and with 3 or more star rated shots go into the smart collection, I then only have to review a select number of images to make my final selection. Of cause this only works if you star rate your images as they are added into the catalogue. So the search is only as good as the data you add. 

This screen capture starts to show you how you can add various search criteria to a smart collection to really drill down to only a select set of images, this will search your entire lightroom catalogue and keep it updated as you keep adding images into the catalogue

As I have over 100000 images now, and earlier on I didn't keyword, the earlier shots are not so easy to find. I also have a smart collection which includes all the images without keywords, and another one for all the images with no GPS data, as the data is added these automatically get removed for the collections. Hence the smart part of the collections. Very powerful and simple way of finding certain images. When I have spare time I go into the Smart collections and start to add in the keywords, rate the unrated images or add in the geotag information. 

Each shot you take also captures a stack of metadata which again is fully searchable. From Aperture, Shutter speed, focal lengths shot which includes working out the actual focal length used with a zoom lens.  Camera body, Lenses used is also captured and searchable. Great for when your thinking of getting a new lens or camera body you can start to check which focal lengths you prefer, what settings are the ones you use the most etc, then drill down to the shots if you want to see with you took with that combination. Based on tis infomation you can start to see what are your favourite lenses, focal lengths shutter speeds etc, even if you use flash or not, so from this you can start to see were to upgrade a lines if you have the spare cash to spend on new gear.  

Two other methods of sorting images is the star rating and coloured flags. Star ratings I'm reasonable at and use one start for a shot that’s in focus, two stars for a shot in focus and is a clean shot that is no branches in the way of a bird, or no distraction elements that spoil the shot. Three star images are ones worth more work on or maybe had more processing done, Four starts are the better shots and getting to the ones I'd show around or upload to social media, though at times the three star shots also make the social media scene. Five starts are my best off shots and I try and limit how many are in this category. The coloured Flags I use to mark images for various reasons usually Red for focus stacked group of images, Yellow for images of note usually for a temporary use then remove the colour later once that’s done, and Blue are for images to be returned to for further processing. Green and purple as yet I don't have a use for so are kept up my sleeve for something at a later date. 

Lastly is Keywords, this one you can go as wild as you like with Keywords. But the good thing is if you export an image the keywords from lightroom will be in the metadata so when you bring it into some social media it already knows the keywords so you don't need to add them again great for 500PX and a few others. So for my keyboarding I have a hierarchical system, with at the top level Event, People, subject, Social media. Then I break each of these down further for example in people I have work people, Family etc, then the individuals under that. Speaking of people Lightroom now has facial recognition which helps to add the people keywords in, as you start to keyword people Lightroom starts to learn and will suggest names against images of faces. You'll find this feature in the library module at the bottom there’s a small icon of a face. But be warned it will find a few odd shots and think it can see a face in it and you'll be surprised who it things some people are. under Subject again I break it down Animals, plants etc with Animals further broken down into Birds which in turn is broken down into the individual species. Each image can have as many keywords as you like, but the trick is to be consistent in your naming. You can copy and paste strings of keywords against images and also and also use the spray can icon in grid mode to mass copy strings of keywords to multiply images. 

This is really only scratching the surface of the power of lightroom and there are plenty of great resources online on how to go about organising your work within lightroom and many more things some links are here below, these are all great resources. 

http://blogs.adobe.com/jkost/lightroom-training-videos

http://www.lightroomqueen.com

http://lightroomkillertips.com/library-2/

Well that’s it for this week’s blog, hopefully this weekend I’ll be well enough to head out with the cameras and see what I can find two weeks of no shooting is just not right. We'll see how I go. Still suffering a bit of a cough but nothing like I was, so hopefully next week I'll be back to sharing images here. 

Thanks for dropping by my blog this week, something different. 

Glenn