Howdy friends!

I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted a blog, sorry! Life has been a bit hectic, but I am still at it!

Recently winter weather has moved in with a big attitude. It’s actually not even winter, but that’s a debate for another time, lol On 31 May things got pretty wild here with the weather, the day before winter begins in Australia, 1 June. Often our Gulf of St. Vincent is so calm that it looks more like a large lake, but not for the past week.

As I went about my morning activities I couldn’t help but notice how rough the water was due to the high winds. Gladly I had my camera with me, as I usually do these days, so I popped down to the Bright Jetty for a walkabout to capture some of the windy chaos. The wind was so powerful it nearly blew my beanie off of my head! I made my way under the jetty and setup my rig where I had small bit of dry sand between the rocks behind me and the rising tide line.

I was happy to find my ND filter in my camera bag. This is something that I have rarely used, often because I don’t have not with me. I think I need a slightly bigger camera bag to do this properly! I spent some time with some test shots, with the ND filter in various positions. I found the sweet spot and composed a number of long exposures images. I shot from below the jetty and then from the beach on the north side of it and then on the jetty, facing west. I realised that by the time I got to the third shot there was a fair bit of salt water mist on the filter. I was not well prepared with proper cleaning materials so I made the best of it.

Using my trusty Olympus EM1 MKII paired with my M. Zuiko 12-40mm 2.8 Pro and my Inca 8 stop ND filter I captured a few decent daytime long exposures using Olympus Live Composite mode. Considering I have NEVER done this before I was fairly happy with the results.

Featured in the first video below are three images from the day, in colour as well as black & white.

The first, from under the jetty: 12mm / F22 / ISO64 / 50 seconds

The second, just north of the jetty: 12mm / F22 / ISO64 / 79 seconds

The third, from on the jetty: 12mm / F22 / ISO64 / 96 seconds

All were captured with the ND filter maxed out.

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It has been rainy much of the week. I decided to take my camera to work with me a couple of nights to try to capture some reflections and/or light trails after dark, while waiting for my train to leave.

The second video is from Friday night. It was cold and way too rainy to wander around chasing reflections. I made my way to the train station and hung around up by the street. I didn’t have my tripod so I didn’t expect to be able to do much with light trails. Then I spotted the flat topped bollards across the train station entrance, and I found some hope! I didn’t have much time so placed my camera on top of the post and fired off a couple of quick test shots.

The image in the video was with the following settings: 12mm / F7.1 / ISO320 / 185 seconds

I made the videos using Final Cut Pro, which I am still learning to use. The music in the videos was also created by me. I love being able to combine original images, video and music into something I can share with others.

As always, thank you so much for your continued encouragement and support!

– Dave