Saturday 31 May 2014

Photo Competition

I hadn't planned on entering any photos into competitions, but I saw a link to one on a mates facebook page that looked interesting.

Figured it wouldn't hurt to upload a few. Not expecting anything as there does look to be a fair few photos (especially with being able to enter 3 entries) and some very good ones.

Anyway, lets see what happens.

Here's the link to the comp - Click Here

This is what I entered into the categories that interest me:

NATURE



ACTION



LANDSCAPE



Monday 26 May 2014

Super Dungeon Explore!

Another Sunday and another days gaming. This time a break from Malifaux... we just couldn't resist the lure of playing something else :)

Especially since Rob had recently gotten Super Dungeon Explore.


Apparently this is based on some arcade game, but I am clearly too young to remember that game :)

I would play some Mage, Mark was a druid (who stayed in frightened bear mode all game), Phil was the paladin and Lee played a ranger. Rob would be game master.


Note the essential gaming supplies of beer and snacks. More on the beers later... (worried yet Rob?).

The game had kicked off by the time I arrived, but the team was doing okay. Until we split up. Why did we split up!?

Mark and Phil ended up trying to hold off a horde of bad guys who were swarming them whilst Lee and I went for the treasure :) Suffice to say Phil didn't last long. Mark's frightened bear certainly did a good job of dealing with loads of the critters though....




We were soon in trouble. Killing all the critters meant the big stuff was coming on and soon the big boss would arrive. Our troubles probably weren't helped by me deciding that it would be more fun to refuse to resurrect the Paladin and use the card to remove an effect on myself instead :) 

Then it was boss time. I was the closet, so moved up to have a crack. The ranger had recently died and the bear was still frightening critters. I would face the boss alone....


And I got burnt to a crisp for my troubles....

That left the druid to see what he could do.... frighten it to death maybe?


Nope. He in fact gave it a hug. And it was such a hug that it ended up breaking every bone in the boss killing it!

Victory!

Having realised we'd made a few errors.... quite key errors in fact.... we decided to set-up for another game. As Mike and Garth were almost finished their game of X-Wing, we waited and so I took a few pics of their game:



For our 2nd game, I decided to play the sorceress. We set-up and entered the dungeon....



We seemed to be making good progress through thoughtful use of all the characters abilities (and by getting the rules right for obtaining potions). Unfortunately, it was getting late in the afternoon, so I had head off. Means I'm not actually sure on the end result..... but I'm sure the team would have won. :)

All in all, a good fun and simple game. Great for playing with mates over a few beers.

So, anyway... onto those beers.



Please note that I bought the Tuatara. Rob got the other two, not me. A lot of mileage was had out of the name of one of the beers he bought..... can you guess which one?

Sunday 25 May 2014

Sunrise Photography

After the sunset photography earlier in the week, I was keen to head out with Lee to try another sunrise at a local spot (the last time I tried involved a very early and very long trip to Miranda and resulted in a very poor sunrise!).

The weather overnight was looking dubious, but with the wind, we figured there was a good chance it would all blow over during the night. So, alarms were set and an early night was had.

At 5am... I woke to the sounds of heavy rain.... Luckily it was just a shower, so since we were up, we decided to chance our luck and go have a look anyway.

Unfortunately the weather and sun didn't come out to play, but I still got some nice shots in the early morning light.

Set the camera on Av f7.1 initially and f/11 later. Iso was in the range of 100 - 400. Exposure times were very long....




The Sea Scouts who camped there overnight must certainly be some hardy souls with all the heavy rain we had overnight.....

Wednesday 21 May 2014

Sunset Photography

The weather has been pretty good here of late, but it is getting much colder now. With the sun going to bed early and the cool winter nights, it makes for some interesting photography.

Lee rang me last night to grab the camera and pop out with him to have a crack at photographing the sunset from a local spot that looks out over Auckland city...

Didn't try too much settings wise. Just stayed on Av, Iso 100 and f/7.1 - 9. Here's the results:

Auckland City - A Winters Sunset




The clouds really add some nice imagery to the photos. What images can you make out in the clouds? :)

I'm pretty happy with the result. Unfortunately a lot of the detail of the city itself is lost. I probably should have tried a few shots using my 50-250mm to get a better view of the city. Still it's not going anywhere, so plenty of other nights to try out other things! 

One other thing I did was bracket all the shots (+ and -1 exp stop each time). This was so I could try some HDR processing in Photoshop. Not sure I like the end results. Either the photos just aren't really right for an HDR finish or I haven't processed them correctly. Here's a couple of examples anyway... interested in peoples thoughts...

Set 1: The 3 original photos (-1, 0, +1 exp)



After HDR processing:


Set 2: The 3 original photos (-1, 0, +1 exp)



After HDR processing:


Finally, I liked this photo so much I just had to convert a copy into black and white:

P-51 Mustang Takes Off