My Photography Gear

This is a full list of all my photography gear, I will try my best to keep it up to date as I buy and sell various things

Camera Body

• Pentax K200D
• Canon Powershot A590 IS (running CHDK software)

Pentax Lenses

• Pentax SMC DA 18-55mm AL II f3.5-5.6
• Pentax SMC A 50mm f1.7
• Pentax SMC M 50mm f1.7 (has fungus)
• Pentax SMC M 28mm f2.8
• Pentax SMC FA 100-300mm f4.7-5.8

Russian Lenses

• Mir 1 37mm f2.8 M42 - SOLD
• Helios 44-2 58mm f2.0 M42 - SOLD
• Jupiter 9 85mm f2.0 M42
• Tair 11-A 135mm f2.8 M42

Others

• Sigma 10-20mm f4.0-5.6 (enroute from ebay!)
• Tamron 17-50mm f2.8
• Hanimar 135mm f2.8 M42 (for sale)
• Soligor 135mm f3.5 M42 (for sale)
• Vivitar 135mm f3.5 M42 (for sale)
• Pentacon 30mm f3.5 M42 (for sale)
• Vivitar 35mm f3.5 M42 (loose rear elements, its my paper weight)

Lens Accessories

• Quantaray 2x AF Teleconverter (with Powerzoon contacts, may work with SDM - yet to be tested!)
• Vivitar Auto Teleconverter 2x-22 (allows wide open focusing but has no contacts and no autofocus) (for sale)
• Vivitar Auto Extension Tubes AT-22 (allows wide open focusing but has no contacts and no autofocus)
• 49mm Hoya 3 position rubber hood
• 58mm black metal hood - bought from ebay (for FA 100-300)
• Lens cleaning brush
• Lens Cleaning tissues
• Lens cleaning cloths (lots of these) - 3 packs are available from DealExtreme
• Giottos Rocket Blower Medium
• 67mm -> 77mm filter step up ring (allows 77mm filter on a 67mm threaded lens)

Lens Filters

• 49mm Cokin CPL
• 49mm UV x3 (came with various lenses)
• 49mm Blue
• 49mm Hoya Star Six
• 49mm Hoya Centre Spot (blurs out the edges, leaving only the centre of the image clear)
• 52mm Kenko MC CPL
• 52mm Hoya R72 Infrared
• 52mm Hoya NDX400 (9 stop ND filter)
• 52mm IR720 as mentioned here
• 52mm ND400 as mentioned here
• 62mm Kenko MC CPL (for sale)
• 62mm Kenko MC UV (for sale)
• 67mm Kenko PRO1 Digital Protector
• 67mm Kenko PRO1 Digital CPL (enroute)
• 77mm IR720 (enroute)
• 77mm Kenko MC CPL (enroute)

Cokin P Filters and Accessories

• Chinese copy 3 slot Cokin P holder
• 52mm adapter
• 49mm adapter
• TianYa ND8 filter
• TianYa ND8 grad filter (soft graduation)
• TianYa Sunset (orange grad) filter

Flashes and Accessories

• Sunpak Auto 200 flash (part of Dad's gear, unsafe for DSLR hot shoe mounting)
• Optical Trigger
• Hand made diffuser using cardboard, alfoil and plain white paper

Other Accessories

• Cable Release Remote - bought from DealExtreme
• IR Push Button Remote - bought from DealExtreme
• 3 axis hotshoe mounted bubble level - bought from DealExtreme
• Pentax D-BG3 battery grip for K200D

Tripod

• Slik 500 Pro DX w Head

Cedar Creek Long Exposure

Cedar Creek 3 Falls
Originally uploaded by jezza323

Here is an older shot I took. This is of Cedar Creek just outside of Samford not far from Brisbane. No processing details from this one as it is from quite a while ago. Although I can promise that the PP was minimal, just some white balance tuning, tone curve and maybe a slight exposure adjustment.

This was taken quite early in the morning, the sun was still hidden behind the trees. I combined this with a circular polarising filter, and a Cokin P sized Tian Ya ND8 filter on my K200D with kit lens at 18mm and my trusty tripod.

The exposure was 8 seconds at f11.0 (where I find this lens to be the sharpest).

Post your water long exposure shots in the comments section!

Summer Storm vs Shutter Speed

We just had a lunchtime summer storm roll through Brisbane, so while it was raining I took some shots of a tree near my house with the rain coming down on it. I thought it would be interesting to see the difference in the image of the rain with some different shutter speeds.

I setup my Pentax K200D on my tripod, mounted the Tair-11a 135mm f2.8 lens to get in close to some of the rain, and to keep the background blurred I set the aperture to f2.8. I set the camera to Aperture Priority mode (Av) to let it meter itself. The ISO was set to 400. This was the achieve a nice short shutter speed, and the resulting exposure was 1/640 sec and is shown below.

The following exposure I set the ISO to 100, and added a TianYa ND8 Cokin P sized filter in front of the lens (just held it by hand). This was to achieve a much longer exposure, and we end up with a 1/30 sec shutter speed and is shown below.

Take note of the difference in the rain drops. The first shot freezes the drops in mid air, while in the 2nd shot you get a long streak of falling water droplets. I personally prefer the first image, it conveys a sense of action to me that the 2nd image does not.

Processing on the first image was as follows :-

• Shot in Pentax RAW (PEF)
• Import into Lightroom 2.5
• Processed as shown below (settings not show have not been altered)
• Export to JPEG for Web

Great Lightroom 2 helper!

I was just reading this article, top 5 lightroom commands. I learnt something very handy so I'm sharing straight away. Lightroom 2 keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + "/") will display the available keyboard shortcuts for the current module! Don't forget to tell your friends, and don't miss out on the other 4 helpful lightroom commands.

Flashlight parabolas - something to try!

I've just stumbled across this post while reading some blogs, and I thought I would share it. I will give this a try soon and will be sure to post the results. I think its time for me to give light painting a bit of a try.

So get out your lights and start swinging em around! :)

Happy New Year & Project 52 Launch

As we approach the end of 2009 let me wish you all a wonderful and prosperous 2010. At the same time I would like to announce that I will be starting a project 52 (1 photo per week) for 2010. I will post all shots, all processing info and all locations here on my blog. So back to the celebrations, Happy New Year!

Project 52

• #1 - Southbank Peace Pagoda 
• #2 - Kurilpa Pedestrian Bridge
• #3 - Anzac Square Eternal Flame
• #4 - Mt Cootha Lookout
• #5 - Cathedral of Saint Stephen
• #6 - Brisbane General Post Office
• #7 - Wellington Point
• #8 - Japanese Garden, Mt Cootha

More Russians

Some more russian lenses I have thought of since my previous post on the subject which are quite well regarded. Also wanted to mention the fact that I have finally ordered a Jupiter-9 85mm f2.0 M42 mount lens. It may take a few weeks to arrive from Russia itself though. Anyway, back to the lenses. This list should get you started on a collection of great fun Russians

• Zenitar 16mm f2.8 fisheye (still made new in all mounts)
• Mir-20 20mm f3.5 (quite wide on a film or full frame SLR)
• Mir-24 35mm f2.0
• Mir-1 37mm f2.8 (but the later Mir 1-B is reported to be a bit soft)
• Volna-9 50mm f2.8 Macro around 1:2
• Industar 50-2 50mm f3.5 pancake (VERY small)
• Industar 61 LZ 50mm f2.8 also Macro around 1:2
• Helios 44 series 58mm f2.0 (some discussion about which is best HERE)
• Jupiter-9 85mm f2.0
• Helios 40 series 85mm f1.5
• Tair-11a 135mm f2.8
• Jupiter 37 135mm f3.5
• Jupiter-21 200mm f4.0
• Tair-3 300mm f4.5