I don’t know what’s happening, but trying to buy Lee Filters from the US just isn’t happening. I have been watching on B&H Photo for months now and even Adorama and nothing is coming and staying in stock and as soon as the product comes available within hours their out of stock again for months.

I have been waiting to replace my own Lee Filter Soft Grad set as they are totally flogged after 9 years of use. Sure they could have been better cared for over the years and not put into pockets, in between legs but it was more important to get the shot at the time than worry about slipping it back into its case. In saying that I’m very careful with my new Lee hard grad set.

Anyway I found a company in the UK that seams to have everything in stock. From the filters to the adaptor rings and the foundation kits.

I just bought my soft grad kit (.3, .6 and .9) filters for $128 pound that’s $247 Aust + postage. Pretty good and a better price than B&H where the filters cost $283 Aust + postage.

The website is www.morco.uk.com

Hope this helps all of you waiting and looking for these filters.

A few posts ago I added a shot of this spot in Woy Woy on the Central Coast that was shot on the 5D Mark II. This is a shot taken with the good old trusty Fuji GX617 from the same morning just a bit earlier. The film has captured the colour a lot better and the composition is much more flattering as well.

From memory F22 @ 2 sec | Velvia 50 | 2 stop lee ND soft grad.

This was the sunrise that started my Blue Mountains Day Course on Saturday (10th Oct 09). Shot from the amazing Wentworth Falls Lookout. You can see the falls on the far left of the shot.

I would have shot this even wider but the safety rail gets in the way which is a pain in the ass.

I looked to take a shot at the same time with my Fuji GX617 but the angle of view is so tiny compared to what you get with a digital panoramic like this. Cropped to a 2.4:1 ratio.

7 image stitch with 5D Mark II at 32mm on 17-40 f4 lens, stitched with Photomerge in CS3. 3 stop Lee ND Hard grad.

It’s nice to finally head out again and shoot. Been a few days stuck in doors because of bad weather. So I headed out to this new spot that I visited during the recent dust storms.

Having looked at the final panoramic I wished I had of shot it at a different angle and back further from the shore line as I really don’t like the curved effect in the foreground. But this will make a nice addition to my stock images.

8 image stitch at 40mm on 5D Mark II cropped to a 4:1 ratio.
Lee 3 stop ND soft and Lee 1 stop ND hard.

I have been wanting a wide angle lens for sometime and have researched a lot of different sites and forums. For me price isn’t an issue as I am a firm believer that if you by the best lens the first time you will never buy twice and because I use it for work could justify the $1100 difference between the two lenses.

Anyway I bought the 17-40mm f4 lens for two main reasons over the 16-35mm. The main one being the 17-40mm lens takes a 77mm filter where the 16-35mm takes an 82mm. Big deal you may be thinking but for me this was the deal breaker. I really love shooting with my 10 stop ND filter and they arn’t available for the 82mm lens. Quite a few people on forums also put this as a negative and wished companies like Hoya and B+W made an 82mm 10 stop filter.

Another selling point for the 17-40mm for me was that at apertures of f11 and up the image quality is said to be equal to that of the 16-35mm, it is when the 17-40mm lens is shot at wide open that the 16-35mm is the far winner in image sharpness and contrast as you would hope and expect seeing you dropped the extra cash for the f2.8 lens. Seeing I don’t shoot at those apertures often I didn’t see the need to want this.

One thing I have found with the 17-40 that I believe is a trade off is that even when shooting at f11 and up in aperture at 17mm there is a small issue of fall off that is evident in certain lighting situations. But I knew this prior to purchase after reading the article on the Luminous landscape site. Though the article was based on the 16-35mm f2.8 Mark I not the Mark II lens.

I think in the near future I will own both lenses. 17-40mm for the long exposure shots and the 16-35mm for everything else. Maybe owning both is a bit excessive but for me at then end of the day I want the best lens that will get the job done at the exposure time I want and need for the look and effect in a shot.

Don’t you just love when the weather guy (Tim Bailey on channel 10 for us NSW people) tells you that tomorrow will be fine but end with a late thunder storm. With summer approaching and the temperature set to sore this year I am really going to dedicate my self to chasing these storm fronts and the wild weather and lightening it creates.

This shot is taken with my new 17-40mm f4 lens @ 17mm at the Skillion, Terrigal on the Central Coast, NSW.

(Why I bought the 17-40mm f4 over the 16-35mm f2.8 will be in my next blog post)

I have made the full post production of this shot as a Masterclass photoshop tutorial that goes into exposure blending and masking in different water layers and I also cover how I go about capturing these kind of images for blending.

This tutorial is recorded in my new format at 1280 x 720 HD.
Tutorial available for immediate download for $12.95 at this link.

On the 23rd of September 2009 people on the eastern states of Australia awoke to an amazing site. The glow in the sky could only be described as something similar to that of a major bush fire nearby.

Over the news they described the event as once in a life time and the worst dust storm on record. Flight were diverted from Sydney airport to Brisbane and a staggering 75 thousand tones of dirt was being dumped on Australia every hour.

These shots are taken around 7.30am on the 5D Mark II. On returning home my hands were stained red from the dirt and my camera gear was coated as well. They estimated that the clean up bill is in the 10’s of Millions as a result of this even. By mid day it was mostly gone with just a slight haze.

I have uploaded a video to Vimeo showing you some of the shots taken and how amazing the light was straight out of the camera. Click here to go to the link.

A shot taken while waiting for my Newcastle Day Course to start last month.

An easy +1, 0 and -1 exposure blend put together in CS3 (I really need to upgrade to CS4).

Played around with the Render Effect filters and used Omni light to add a bit of drama to the image. Takes a fair bit of playing around to get it right. But it is worth exploring.

5D Mk II | 24-70mm f2.8 lens

 
No I haven’t been to America shooting… this is the beautiful work by UK landscape photographer and all round nice guy Jaspal Jandu. Jas has done something no other photographer has done and that is publishing a book of panoramic landscape images from around the world which has been titled Natural Wonders – A panoramic vision.

I have spoken to Jas a few times over the phone and was also privileged to pre view the first 20 pages of this book before it’s release. Some of the stuff is just amazing and when you flick through the first few pages you can instantly see the work and commitment (let along frequent flyer miles) dedicated to such a project.

Jas’s website also features his work along with a blog where he posts experiences and also new images taken on his journeys. So click on any of these image to check out the book or just enjoy looking through his work and the places Jas has been too and the moments captured. You wont be disappointed.

Jas’s book comes in two edition types a Standard edition and also a Special edition which he can sign for buyers. The Standard edition is 25 pound (plus 10 pound int postage) and the Special edition is 80 pound (plus 15 pound int postage)

This shot was one I snapped on my Sydney City Day Course yesterday (Sunday 6th Sep 09) in the late afternoon.

It is an 8 image stitch from Observatory Hill with the trusty 70-200mm f2.8.

Click the image to view large.