I have taken quite a lot of photos in the past 6 months, with several trips to the zoo and visits to national parks and other local parks.

I’ve gone back and posted quick updates on things that I was intending to write about and also added photos for outings where I took the camera.

Here’s a quick index on what I’ve posted recently:

• Melbourne 2008:
  • Melbourne – Day 3: Healesville Sanctuary (Sep 26)
  • Melbourne – Day 4: Melbourne Zoo (Sep 27)
  • Melbourne – Day 5: Melbourne Aquarium and CBD (Sep 28)
  • Melbourne – Day 6: Melbourne CBD (Sep 29)
  • Melbourne – Day 7: The trip home (Sep 30)
• Munro Park (Oct 16)
• ZooChat (Oct 20)
• Lane Cove National Park (Nov 6)
• Taronga Zoo (Nov 8)
• Strange insect (Nov 22)
• Australian Reptile Park (Nov 30)
• New Lens for my Camera (Dec 5)
• Grey Butcherbird Family (Dec 9)
• Christmas (Dec 25)
• Lane Cove National Park for Lunch (Dec 27)
• Blue Mountains (Dec 30)
• Tawny Frogmouth (Jan 9)
• Dragonfly (Jan 30)
• Taronga Zoo (Jan 31)
• South American Festival – Bondi (Feb 15)
• Munro Park (Mar 16)
• Annoying Helicopters (Mar 18)

Below are some of my test photos showing my different lenses – I set up the tripod in the back yard and took a photo of an empty juice bottle over near the shed to show the differences in magnification. I’ve listed the photos in order of increased magnification, and included the 35mm equivalent lens lengths.

The Canon EOS 40D is a 10.1 megapixel camera which sees a 1.6x field of view crop for lenses, meaning a 50mm lens actually gives you an effective equivalent of putting an 80mm lens on a full frame (35mm) sensor camera (like the EOS 5D). Thus the 100mm – 400mm gives an equivalent range of 160mm – 640mm.

The A650 mentioned below is the Canon PowerShot A650 camera, a 12mp compact digital camera. I run it in 8mp mode since I don’t see the point in having a relatively cheap compact digital camera creating image files that are larger (in pixel count) than my expensive DSLR!

40D + 10-22 @ 10mm (35mm equiv = 16mm)

A650 @ 7.4mm (35mm equiv = 35mm)

40D + 10-22 @ 22mm (35mm equiv = 35.2mm)

40D + 24-105 @ 24mm (35mm equiv = 38.4mm)

40D + 70-300 @ 70mm (35mm equiv = 112mm)

40D + 100-400 @ 100mm (35mm equiv = 160mm)

40D + 24-105 @ 105mm (35mm equiv = 168mm)

A650 @ 44mm (35mm equiv = 210mm)

40D + 70-300 @ 300mm (35mm equiv = 480mm)

40D + 100-400 @ 400mm (35mm equiv = 640mm)

For that last image – on the original photo at full resolution I can quite clearly read the fine print on the bottle label!

I also took the camera + lens for a short walk around Munro park for some real-life tests. This is a heavy lens, so it is going to take a bit of getting used to. My arms were aching from lifting it up to take photos – but I’m sure with a bit more practice, I’ll develop the necessary arm muscles to make it much easier to use.

Here are a couple of photos I took with the new lens (none of them have been cropped):

Unknown insect

Grey Fantail ?

Superb Fairy Wren

A Beagle called Bagel

Night-time photography

15 second exposure at f/9.0 with 10mm focal length

22 degree moon halo

I had to look up what it was called – 22 degree moon halo

Sim gets creative

Long exposure with deliberately placed shadow.

Anyway – we have a large family of skinks living on, around, or under our front steps. Every time we walk in or out, we see them sunning themselves on the bricks and scurrying off to hide when we come along.

This one sat still long enough for me to take a couple of photos. At this point I was still experimenting with some of the file format settings and hadn’t got to playing with depth-of-field yet.

Skink on our front step

Icebergs in Adelaide ? Dec 1998

We bought our first home in Jan 1998, and lived in it for only 9 months before I was offered a job in Sydney. Leanne’s sister had already been living here for a while, so it was a good opportunity to be closer to her – and Leanne had no trouble getting work either.

This photo was taken just before Leanne moved over to Sydney (I had already been over for several months after starting work in October). Looking across the front yard towards some of the lovely standard Iceberg Roses that the previous owners had planted.