A couple of days back I purchased a Canon 5D body from Jamie after finding out he was selling it at a bargain price. It was an offer that I knew I wouldn’t come across again any time soon, so I jumped at the chance.

Yesterday, I decided to take it out and play around with it a little. Me and a few work mates played a round of golf at Glen Iris Golf Course and I got to take a few quick photos in between playing. The top photo is of my friend Ryan and the one below is one that he took of me. I had to process the top image a bit as it was the first photo I took and hadn’t changed any settings yet. The sky was blown out so I (quickly) added in some clouds from a different shot I took on the day.

I am loving the full frame goodness that the 5D offers. My wide-angle lens actually feels like a wide-angle! I’m looking forward to taking it out on a landscape shoot as soon as I can. Maybe tonight or tomorrow night.

Thanks Jamie.

Here’s another shot from my trip down to Dunsborough a few weekends ago. This is a 7 frame panorama from memory that needed a lot of work in Photoshop. I must not have been concentrating at all when shooting the frames for this one. I’m quite pleased with the composition but not with the effort I put into capturing it.

I haven’t been doing a whole lot of shooting as of late - been busy with other things - but i’m hoping to get back into the swing of things as soon as possible.

I put up a few new links in the right column, so check them out!

I’ve been asked a few times on the blog how I find the Nodal Ninja panoramic head so I thought i’d do a little write up on it for all the people interested in buying a panoramic tripod head.

Before I purchased the Nodal Ninja, I bought a Panosaurus, which did the job it was designed to do, but I found it a bit of a hassle to set up each time I wanted to shoot panoramas. I accidentally left it in my car on a hot day and it warped which was the end of that.

Over the Christmas holidays I met up with a fellow flickr photographer, Beau, at Kings park and he was using a Nodal Ninja. He asked if I would like to try it out for a few shots and of course I said yes. It took only a matter of seconds for him to take his camera off of the NN3 and for me to put mine onto it. It was also quick to level with the use of the bullseye level and ezLeveler (the ezLeveler is an optional extra). After shooting a few frames I knew I wanted one. And once I got home and loaded the images onto my PC and watched them stitch seamlessly I wanted one even more. A few weeks later I purchased the Nodal Ninja 3 mkII pack from their website. They were out of stock at the time so I was refunded my money and told that they would have more in stock within 1-2 weeks and I would be notified and receive free express delivery. They delivered on that promise.

The Nodal Ninja 3 is small, lightweight and easy to set up. It came with detailed instructions. Most Canon and Nikon camera and lens combinations have been pre-measured and are listed on the website, which makes the initial set up simple. The default detent ring allows for 15/18 degree rotations. The NN3 package also contains 20/24, 45/60, 72/0 and 90/120 degree detent rings which suit different lenses.

I haven’t had any major stitching/parallax problems while using this product, besides the usual moving water, and would highly recommend it to anybody looking for a budget panoramic tripod head. The main thing you need to do to achieve good results is to make sure the head is level. See some examples of what the Nodal Ninja can do in some of my previous blog posts.

For more info check the Nodal Ninja website.

I have given my main site a makeover and would like to know what you think of it. I will eventually get around to making the blog match but don’t have the motivation right now.

I’ve been getting asked a lot of questions about the Nodal Ninja pano head so I might post up a review later. If I can manage to put some words together, that is.

Neal and I were planning to go out on a shoot at Cottesloe Beach last night but plans changed so we headed out there this morning for sunrise instead. Dylan Fox came along, too, so I finally got to meet him.

The sunrise wasn’t anything special but I think we all still managed to get a few nice shots. You can see one of mine from this morning above. It is a 7 shot panorama, each frame at 5 seconds. I played around with the colours a bit in Photoshop and added a motion blur to the sky (one tip I learned from Christian at his course).

Christian Fletcher is holding another photography course on the 19th of April starting at 7:30pm. Read more here. It is well worth the money if you are into landscape photography, no matter what experience level you are at.

I’m working on another image from this morning at the moment and will put it up later if it turns out nice.

Thanks for stopping by.

I thought I’d share another panorama from my trip down to Dunsborough last weekend just to keep the blog rolling. This was my first pano with the Nodal Ninja down in Dunsborough and, like the other two I posted earlier, the light isn’t great.

I think Neal, Dylan and I are heading back down south on the 19th of this month so I might get a second chance at some of these spots and hopefully the skies will be more interesting.

Also, I think I will be purchasing a 5D body sometime in the near future. If anybody knows of any good deals, please let me know!

I’ve been asked to photograph a party this coming Saturday night and I was wondering if anybody has a good Canon party (low light) lens they might be willing to lend to me, as all I have got is the 17-40 F4? A flash might come in handy, too. I would appreciate it a whole lot and will pay in cash or alcohol.

Thanks, guys.