A Night on the Harbour

[gcowan]

I spent a night at a dinner on a harbour cruise….



f4 1/8sec. 50mm f1.4 lens.

a little abstraction


f1.7 1/15sec. 50mm f1.4 lens.

a little more abstraction. Opera House and City

f4 1/8sec.



Just for fun.
Simple adjustments on Lightroom. All hand held on board a boat at ISO 1600.

Graham

[Donald]

That's not abstraction. That's just too much wine!

[Wavelength]

I would like to see it this way.....

[img][/img]

Regards

[Downrigger]

Handsome. I'm quite amazed at the first being hand-held for 1/8 second. Extraordinary steadiness, VR, or both.

[Shadowman]

Nice, first image.

[Ken Curtis]

Hi Graham.

I believe you can crop off some of the water, as Nandakumar has shown. The bottom half of the water does not add to the composition. I also think you can crop off the right side, just to the left edge of that large tree, for the same reason, the right side does not significantly contribute to the image. I like what is left with the bright lights of the city behind the opera house.

As far as the panning blurs go, you may want to try a slower shutter speed and move the camera slower. Instead of pressing the shutter release while you quickly pan with a 1/15th exposure, at 4 to 8 seconds, you will have more time to make purposeful motions. You should also find that moving the camera up and down produces some interesting blurs too.

[gcowan]

That's not abstraction. That's just too much wine!

Donald, Nandakumar, Mark, John & Ken,

Thankyou gentlemen.

Donald I think you may be right. The whole series was just a spur of the moment thing for a bit of fun. I only had my camera with me because I wanted to do some street photography earlier before the cruise started.

There is a mural in the opera house behind the glass wall overlooking where these images were made. Painted by John Olsen it is called Five Bells from a poem by Kenneth Slessor, a tribute to a friend who was drowned in the harbour. I have long thought about doing something based on this mural. These images are another step in the research even though they are only lightly made.
If you are interested this link [http://dl.nfsa.gov.au/module/1664/] has a simple video of the artist talking about the mural to Betty Churcher, who was the head of the Australian National Gallery.

Nandakumar & Ken, you may be right about the crops. I hadn't really thought about it nor did I consider the image as a stand alone. It was the first shot in what turned into a series, so the crop isn't really appropriate in that context. If it was worthwhile I might consider cropping the sliver of the harbour bridge pylon which is showing and keeping the frame dimensions the same.

Mark I was astounded at the sharpness myself, even though I braced against the hand rail. There is no fancy electronics just a nicely balanced manual camera. Consider also I was on board a boat.



Graham

[Downrigger]

Mark I was astounded at the sharpness myself, even though I braced against the hand rail. There is no fancy electronics just a nicely balanced manual camera. Consider also I was on board a boat.
Graham

Astonishing! You may have some VR in your elbows - I'd check.