For some time now, my trusty Canon EOS 300D has been showing signs of aging. After all, I have had it for seven years, and while USB 1.0 was all the rage back then, the new ‘resident’ in our flat, a brand-new, raunchy, 27-inch iMac with 8GB RAM, 1TB of disk space and an uncertain number of CPUs (four? eight?) throws a wobbly every time the camera is connected, being unable to imagine such a relic even exists. Most of the pictures end up imported with Aperture’s hideously unhelpful ‘unsupported file format’ message.

We tried giving it smelling salts (different USB cable, different USB port, different photo application) to no avail. Yet exactly the same pictures, from exactly the same memory card, using the same USB cable and the same application, import just fine (if extremely slowly)  into my older model.

Clearly, there is absolutely no point in having a top-level graphics-capable computer available if I don’t use it for photography work. So, what to do? I admit, it seems like a rather large jump from “my pictures don’t download properly to state-of-the-art computer hardware” to “I need a new DSLR”. After all, this particular problem could be solved quite easily by procuring a USB2.0 card reader for roughly 1/50th of the price of a new camera. But I have improved significantly as a photographer in the last seven years, and as a result the camera’s technical specifications have become insufficient for what I want it to do.

For instance, its minimum shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second is far too long. Connect my 50mm prime lens to it on a sunny day, open the aperture as wide as it’ll go (f1.4) and ask the camera to take a picture and it will blink the shutter speed furiously since a correct exposure cannot be achieved with that setting. “So, close down the aperture,” I hear you say. Well yes, that would work from an exposure perspective. Artistically, however, the  increased depth-of-field may not be what I want.

Anyway I’ve been considering a camera upgrade for the best part of a year, and compared specifications between models for ages. This weekend I finally bit the bullet, walked into an excellent camera shop, pointed at the Canon 60D and said “May I exchange this for an exorbitant amount of beer tokens, please.” The shop was happy to oblige, and the Generous One insisted on buying me a 16GB memory card to go with it.

I’ve played with the camera a lot over the last few days, and am extremely happy with it. It’s a little heavier (read: the build quality is better) but the handling is a noticeable upgrade; it feels solid and secure in my hand. Plus, shutter speeds down to 1/8000th of a sec, 18MP pictures, fast USB2.0 downloads, far improved sensor quality, Live View, a hinged, rotating LCD display…. I’m a happy bunny. Here are some pictures I took with it over the last few days.

It can take HD video too, by the way. For me, that wasn’t a selling point but I certainly intend to play with it. A topic for another post, perhaps.

Oh, and it can make coffee. (Only kidding.)

A few days ago I read this post on how to photograph waterdrops. It looked awesome so I thought I’d have a go to see what I could come up with along those lines.

First, the technical issues: Waterdrops needed to fall from some height into a receptacle, ideally evenly spaced. Experiments involved hanging plastic bags from ladders, using different receptacles, changing the lighting, the background and the lenses… and making a mess — inevitable where water gets splashed around deliberately. Eventually I settled on a whisky glass (because it’s pretty) set in front of an (out-of-focus) batik napkin.

Literally hundreds of shots later, including variations on how full the glass should be and which lens to use, some of the best pictures are shown below. Enjoy!

When out and about recently on a warm, sunny winter day I ran into some very photogenic birds. One alighted on a River Cat and wouldn’t budge. Once settled, it obligingly looked directly at my camera.

Back in the CBD I stopped by the City Botanic Gardens. Walking along the path I heard loud chirping. On investigation, I found a Noisy Miner chick! Being noisy, indeed. It hadn’t quite got the hang of flying yet and kept choosing twigs for which it was too heavy. I photographed it for a while, until Mummy turned up. Who wasn’t at all pleased with me and my camera, and thus proceeded to fight me off with energetic scratches and flapping wings. I got the message and took the final shot of her feeding her chick from further away.

Mt Coot-tha Botanical Gardens came up with the goods today, including some awesome spider / spiderweb shots.

Today we went to Daisy Hill again, so that the Obsessive Cyclist could indulge in a mud feast. Meanwhile I went to find some koalas in the Koala Centre. The same two koalas were there as last time, though they had shifted position slightly in the intervening fortnight. Imagine my surprise when one of them actually started moving, looking around and taking an interest in the world! I got a shot just as it was looking at my camera. A few moments later it went to sleep again.

I also found the world’s most awesome sign on the picnic tables scattered around the park: “Don’t feed the kangaroos.” Made me giggle, anyway.

I shall not regale you with further descriptions of mud. A single picture will do the job, I think. Enjoy.

Today is Labour Day. As we discovered to our cost, this means that everything is closed, including supermarkets. This causes a certain problem for dinner arrangements. But on a fine day that could be in summer, who cares? It’s local November and the daytime temperature was 27C and sunny.  We drove to the Mangrove Boardwalk in Wynnum, 15km east of Brisbane, taking photographic gear. It was awesome!

It’s a three-day weekend, hot on the heels of last week’s five-day weekend. One wonders why fully half of all public holidays fall into April. Well, Labour Day is technically in May but only just.

Anyway… Yesterday was Shopping Day. Shopophobia of Certain People notwithstanding, we drove to what must be Brisbane’s biggest shopping centre, Westfield Chermside, on the northern fringe of the city. This unnatural acquiescence to the suggestion of shopping is explained by recently-acquired knowledge: Brisbane has an Apple Store after all. At Chermside. (In fact it has two, the other is in Robina, close to the Gold Coast. To get there one passes perilously close to the local Ikea. But I digress.)

The Apple Store in Sydney is just about the only thing we were missing up here. Finding one after all caused feelings of happiness and joy, especially in people whose current iMac is three years old. Being remarkably good, we resisted the temptation of an impulse purchase in the form of a 27-inch iMac with a terabyte of disk space and 8GB of RAM. But the seed of a thought is germinating… Let’s see how long it takes to blossom…

So, I made the most of being able to investigate a huge shopping mall, and got away with only a couple of tiny little purchases to help me through the cold winter. Evening temperatures regularly drop below 20C by now so warm clothes are a necessity.

To balance out yesterday, today was Mountain Bike Day. Daisy Hill again. In a guide book I had spotted a trail called “Nirvana”, which was declared to be “famous”. It neglected to say what it was famous for but since it’s quite close we had a look at it. I got about 10 meters in, pushed over a log, walked through some mud, then looked at this steep drop without any kind of guide rail and said “nope, shan’t”.

Back we went towards the car — a one-hour ride on hilly, muddy tracks is quite enough for me anyway. I suggested a race: I would take the wide track back while less mud-averse people would take the single track that we’d discovered last week. I won! (Yes, ok, single track is harder snd at least an extra km etc.). When we met up again, this vision in mud greeted me with a huge grin. I’m rather glad I didn’t ride that trail today.

Back at the car I swapped my bike for my camera while the Intrepid Mountain Biker set off to achieve Nirvana. Birds were not shy at all.

And if you have ever wondered how muddy it is possible to get riding a mountain bike, this is the answer.

I also had an opportunity to craft a picture for today’s Daily Shoot. Green is not hard to find in a forest.