Satin Bower Bird

Female Satin Bowerbird - Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

The Satin Bowerbird is the best know of Australia's Bowebirds and can be found along the coast of New South Wales and Southern Queensland. I had seen the male in the Royal National Park on a number of occasions (record shot inside) but hadn't been able to see the female until recently. Due to its size and calls, it is relatively easy to identify as it draws attention to itself. I was able to tick off the female Bowerbird on our trip to the Barrington tops. A number of females Bowerbirds frequented the area near where we stayed and provided me with a number of opportunities to photograph them.

More images after the jump.

Male Satin Bowerbird - Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

The photograph of the male above was a record shot taken in the Royal National Park, south of Sydney. A better shot of a male Satin Bowerbird is on my shot list! Both male and female juvenile Satin Bowerbirds look like the female to being with. The male starts changing around the third year with the overall blue-black plumage not appearing until the seventh year. 

Female Satin Bowerbird - Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

The Bowerbirds have bright lilac coloured eyes which make them unmistakable.   They are usually seen in rainforests and wet eucalyptus forests but move out to more open woodlands throughout the autumn and winter months. 

Female Satin Bowerbird - Ptilonorhynchus violaceus

The photographs of the female Satin Bowerbird were captured with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm lens. A Canon 400D was used for the photograph of the male.

29/52 - Spaghetti from Above

Spaghetti from Above

This weeks entry for the project is quite literally, Spaghetti from above. I saw a similar photograph on flickr sometime ago and really liked the way the Spaghetti seemed to be shooting out at you from the black center. It sort of looked like a long exposure shot of fireworks to be honest.

Lighting setup shots and details after the jump.

Lighting Setup - Spaghetti from Above

Although two flashes are visible in the setup shot only one is actually lighting the subject. I used the second lash to trigger the first one. I was using the flash control system on the 7D which relies on the on camera flash to trigger the external flashes. I could have use my Cactus triggers and a single flash but why simplify something that can be complicated?

The light for this image was from a Canon 430 EX II fired at 1/2 power into a reflective umbrella from above the subject on the right of camera. The Canon 580 EX II was used to trigger the 430 EX II. I couldn't trigger the 430 EX II as the flash from the 7D was pointing down at the subject and would not be "seen" by the 430 EX II above.

Graffiti Alphabet Pink Color A- Z Design

Pink Graffiti A- Z Alphabet

Just want share this simple graffiti alphabet. Please enjoy this graffiti design. Thanks. . .

Yellow Admiral

Yellow Admiral - Vanessa itea

While we were up at Barrington Tops I managed to photograph a number of species of butterfly. The Yellow Admiral, also known as the Australia Admiral, was probably one of the more colourful butterflies I saw on this particular trip (I'll upload the other species over the next few weeks).  They are native to Australia, New Zealand and the Norfolk Islands.

More photographs inside.

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Yellow Admiral - Vanessa itea

Yellow Admirals are quite common throughout their range as long as their food plants are available. Unfortunately for me, their food plants include stinging nettles which were in abundance near where we stayed. These butterflies are strong fliers and, according to some web sites, have survived wind blown travel from Australia to New Zealand across the Tasman sea.

Yellow Admiral - Vanessa itea

The best time to photograph butterflies is probably early morning as butterflies take a while to "warm up" and get active. I was surprised at how close I was able to get to them to take these photographs. I was actually limited by the minimum focusing distance on the 100-400mm lens which I had on at the time.

Yellow Admiral - Vanessa itea

These photographs were captured with a Canon 7D and the Canon 100-400mm lens.

28/52 - Oreos... Dunk or Lick??

Oreos - Dunk or Lick??

I wanted to take a photograph that actually highlighted the texture on the face of an Oreo for this weeks entry. To be honest I'm not thrilled about this shot. The glass of milk isn't too obvious as only a small part of it is visible. I didn't want to zoom out as that would have resulted in the cookie being small and less dominant in the frame. The only reason I included the glass of milk is because I thought it balanced the image. Please let me know what you think in the comments.

Lighting setup inside.

Lighting Setup - Oreos... Dunk or Lick??

This was a two light setup, I would have used a light tent but improvised as I don't have one.

I used two white foam-core boards and a white wall around the subject to bounce the light. I placed the cookies and the glass of milk on a white sheet of A4 paper to create the white background.

A Canon 430 EX II was fired at 1/16th and zoomed to 24mm at the white foam core board on the right of the subject.

A Canon 580 EX II was fired at 1/128th and zoomed to 50mm aimed at the cookie and fired form camera left.

Crimson Rosella

Crimson Rosella - Platycercus elegans

The Crimson Rosella, although relatively common, has not been the easiest bird for me to photograph. I had seen them on a number of occasions along the east coast of Australia but hadn't been able to get a clear shot. I found a few of them around where we stayed in the Barrington Tops and was finally able to get some unobstructed photographs of these birds.

More images after the jump.

Crimson Rosella - Platycercus elegans

I found them frequenting a small creek that ran behind the house where we were staying. They would arrive there at roughly the same time each morning which made things a bit easier for me. I was able to photograph them while they were feeding and also while they were cleaning themselves in the stream.

Crimson Rosella - Platycercus elegans

The light wasn't the best as there the creek was in a valley and there was a fairly dense canopy overhead. The birds moved around a lot and I had to use a fast shutter speed to capture these images. In order to get around the problem with the light, I had to bump up the ISO. I generally try to keep the ISO at 100 but the 7D performs pretty well in this regard.

Crimson Rosella - Platycercus elegans

All the images on this post were captured with a Canon 7D and the 100-400mm lens. 

 Crimson Rosella - Platycercus elegans

27/52 - Coke

Coke

I decided to use a can of Coke as this week's entry for the project. I wanted the shot to have a cold feel to it and had visualised the final image fairly quickly. Lighting it was a whole different ball game. I didn't want to photoshop the final image to alter the colours but wanted the ice cubes to be a very specific blue. 

Lighting setup shot and info after the jump.

Lighting Setup- Coke

I tried several shots using a full CTB, a 1/2 CTB and a 1/4 CTB but was not too happy with the results. Shooting through a piece of white A4 paper didn't work either. Changing the white balance on the camera to "tungsten" got me closest to the colour I was after. 

I used a Canon 430 EX II fired at 1/32 from under the can as the primary light for the ice. The light from this flash provided the cool blue tones.

I bounced a Canon 580 EX II, fired at full power through a CTO, off the ceiling for fill light. The CTO gel was used to neutralise the white balance setting on the camera. This light combined with the light from the 430 EX created the exact blue which I was after. The fill light also lit the can itself.

The fact that the ice cubes were melting added to the degree of difficulty for this shot as I had to work fast and think on my feet.