Timelapse movie shot with an iPhone 4

The last few days I’ve been having fun creating time lapse movies around Airlie Beach Lagoon, a few short minutes from where I live. The video shown above was created by piecing together 270 photographs, all shot with an iPhone 4 in the middle of the day. I used an app from Joby Inc called Gorillacam to do the time-lapses. You can read more about it over on the Joby website at: http://joby.com/gorillacam. Basically what this wonderful app does is allows the photographer to shoot multiple photos spaced at a set interval. You can take photos as fast as 1 second apart, or up to 2 minutes apart.

To hold the iPhone steady through all 270 images, I used a Joby GM2-A1AM Gorillamobile for iPhone 4. Gorillamobile is a neat little tripod for your iPhone that fits in your pocket, ready to be carried where ever you go. It’s flexible, wrappable legs attaches to any surface for hands-free use. With Gorillamobile I can now take full advantage of the iPhone five times digital zoom. Without it, I found images far too shaky to be of any use!

To stitch all 270 photographs together into one timelapse movie, I used Quicktime 7 pro. Quicktime is the easiest software I’ve seen for fast conversions, a few clicks of the mouse and its done! You simply click along the top toolbar on File / Open Image Sequence / choose your images and click ‘Open’. Once you’ve viewed the time lapse, you can then export it for sharing online.

It can’t get any easier than that

iPhone 4 timelapse movie is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

I finally found the culprit eating all our tropical palms out back …. yes, it was a green grasshopper. So I grabbed the Canon 7D and macro lens for a couple of quick snaps. Here is my favourite below.

The grasshopper was photographed with a Canon 7D Digital SLR + Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens.

EXIF DATA

ISO 200
Aperture f/5.6
Shutter Speed 1/125

No flash was required as it was the middle of the day with plenty of light. The overcast day however was an advantage as far as colour goes. Truth be known, overcast days are my favourite for photographing macros as the colours are always at their best!

Macro Photography – Green Grasshopper is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

A heavily pregnant praying mantis made its way through the rainforest behind our yard and up onto our patio a few weeks back. She seemed quite content letting me take as many macros as I wanted, following the lens around with her huge eyes, possibly seeing its own reflection in the glass, which happens often when photographing insects. An important lesson I learned early on in macro photography was to find an insect that is just as curious about me, as I am in it!

When I first started out, I always seemed to be running around like a mad women chasing bugs around! That only results in shaky wobbly images that get thrown out in the trash. Instead, take your time and search out insects that are lying around extremely still. Macro photography is a game of patience.

Here are my 3 favourite shots of the praying mantis. The first with a darker background was due to it standing against a darker corner. It then moved onto yellow patio furniture, hence the yellow background in the second shot. Before flying onto a green shrub ie the green background in the last image.

Female Praying Mantis

Heavily pregnant praying mantis

Macro of a praying mantis cleaning itself

All these images were photographed with a Canon 7D SLR + Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens + Twin Lite MT-24EX flash.

Praying mantis macro is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

Snorkelling the reef with a Canon Powershot D10 underwater camera

Last weekend I had the opportunity to snorkel on a fringing reef over at Green Island, roughly an hour from Cairns in Australia. This was the first time I’d used the Canon Powershot D10 underwater camera in the ocean, which left me more than happy with the results.

The first photograph below is of Brain Coral. For all these snorkelling images I had the camera set to underwater mode with a macro focus. I found this the best setting, especially for coral images where I duck dived down to approximately one meter (and closer) from the bottom of the reef.

Brain Coral - photographed with a Canon Powershot D10 underwater camera

Now another favourite image of mine, this time of bright green coral.

Photographing the Great Barrier Reef

The pink coral shown below helps give you an idea as to the photo quality taken with a Powershot D10. I recommend this camera to anyone who enjoys snorkelling and underwater photography. It can handle up to 33 feet, so depending on how deep you dive, it could be a handy camera for scuba diving as well.

Fringing Reef

Anyone who’s snorkelled the Barrier Reef will tell you there are literally hundreds of sea turtles. Here are a couple of my favourite photographs from the day.

Swimming with a turtle

And another

Photographing turtles - an amazing experience!

The only thing that stopped me dead in my tracks while photographing turtles was this huge lobster, rocking back and forward with the current.

Lobster sitting at the bottom of the reef

Can’t wait to take the powershot d10 snorkelling with me now on reefs here in the Whitsundays

Canon powershot d10 underwater camera is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

Loving this set up for macro photography – Canon 7D + Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens + Twin Lite MT-24EX flash.

Since coming back from our Melbourne trip I’ve been having a ton of fun playing with the new Canon 7D and macro photography. When I first started messing around with macro, I owned a Canon 400D and absolutely loved it! Most of the macros you see in the gallery are taken with the 400D. After upgrading my camera to a full frame 5D Mark II, macro photography just wasn’t the same and I was starting to lose interest.

Don’t get me wrong, the Canon 5D Mark II is a great camera …. for landscapes! I just found for macro photography I was having to crop way too much for my liking. I also found the detail seen in the insect or bug wasn’t the same as I see with the 7D.

With plenty of rain here in the Whitsundays, the marsh flies have been out in their hundreds. What’s a photographer to do? Grab the Canon 7D + Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens + Twin Lite MT-24EX flash and go take insect portraits of course

Here’s a favourite macro from yesterday!

Insect macro - marsh fly

Canon 7D + Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens + Twin Lite MT-24EX flash is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

A series of frogs photographed with a dedicated macro lens

Having a rainforest on our doorstep has lots of advantages, including these gorgeous green frogs. This past week, the Whitsundays has seen a down pour tropical rain. Luckily for residents this also means we get to enjoy a symphony of frogs!

So what’s a photographer to do in wet weather? Like any good photographer, we grabbed our cameras, macro lens, and tripods, and went photographing frogs. Here are a few of my favourites from yesterdays shoot!

Double Chin - Green frog photographed with a Canon 7D camera + Canon 100mm macro lens

All these frog photographs were shot with a Canon 7D camera + Canon 100mm macro lens.

Frog foot in macro

For those who love macro photography, I have a Flickr group set up over at: SLR Macro Photography

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Can’t help but think of this next one as Kermit the frog with his huge eyes staring right at the camera

Kermit the frog - head on frog macro

Last but not least, the fat belly frog!

Lazy Frog

All these frog images were photographed with a Canon 7D camera + Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens + macro Twin Lite MT-24EX flash. They were post processed (only slightly to add sharpness to the eye area and cropping) with Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.

Photographing frogs in macro is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

Cityscapes in black and white

We recently enjoyed a trip to Melbourne (Australia) where I was fortunate to photograph plenty of cityscapes. After returning home, I started to realise the photos were well suited to post processing as black and white images. I started processing them this way due to the rainy weather Melbourne had during our visit and wanted to extend that atmosphere across to the viewers. It didn’t take long to notice the images where beginning to take on a cinematic feel that I really liked!

Note: For those photographers who are serious about black and white imagery, I highly recommend looking into software called Silver Efex Pro.

Silver Efex Pro provides complete power and control to create professional quality black and white images from your color digital photographs. It’s brilliant, I use it often and can’t say enough about it!

Here are 3 of my favourite black and white photographs from our trip:

Rainy Days, photographed from our hotel window

The photo above was captured with a Canon 5D Mark II digital SLR camera and processed with Aperture 3 (Apple) + Silver Efex Pro plugin.

The next two images below were similarly processed, however they were originally captured with an iPhone 4.

Chanel, post processed in black and white!

Personally, I really like the cinematic feel to the photo above.

The next photo is of Melbourne Central Station. We noticed this gorgeous historic building while waiting to meet our son, so pulled out the iPhone 4 and started clicking away.

Melbourne Central Station

From now on, whenever we visit this interesting city, I’ll be looking and photographing it from a black and white perspective!

Cityscapes in black and white is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

Long Island in the Whitsudays

Yesterday I had the opportunity to photograph Long Island here in the Whitsundays. What can I say, but wow. What a tropical paradise it is for photographers. It doesn’t matter what way you point your camera, there is a photo to be had.

Main beach at high tide

Even on low tide there was much to photograph. To be honest, we thought this was bad weather for photography! For the most part it was overcast and cloudy. But when the sun and blue sky did shine through, it was perfect for lots of dreamy tropical shots.

Long Island (Whitsundays)

Next time we’ll be sure to take our snorkelling gear. The ocean seemed full of marine life such as turtles and colourful parrot fish to name a few. A tour guide said just under the wooden wharf is the best place for snorkelling and underwater photography.

Wooden wharf at high tide

So if you’re ever in the Whitsundays, don’t forget to make time for Long Island …. you’ll be glad you did

I know we’ll certainly be going back many times!

Long Island is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

Airlie Beach Sunset

We’ve finally found it! The best place to photograph gorgeous tropical sunsets in Airlie Beach (Whitsundays Australia) is at Whisper Bay. If you’re in the area and take a short stroll down the boardwalk, you’ll notice on a corner a few tropical palms. Perfect for an evening silhouette

Tropical sunset at Airlie Beach (Whitsundays Australia)

No doubt we’ll be visiting time and time again over the next few years or so.

Photographing sunsets in Airlie Beach is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography

WD ShareSpace 4 TB Review – Centralized storage for photographs

A couple of weeks ago I started my search for a good centralised system to store all my photographs, instead of having them spread across several external hard drives. The other problem I had since buying a Canon 5D Mark 11 was that the file sizes are huge and quickly take up all available space on my MacBook Pro. It was then, that I came across one called WD ShareSpace by Western Digital. At first it was the amount of storage space that caught my attention. Currently the WD ShareSpace comes in 3 sizes, 2, 4 and 8 TB. I opted for the 4 TB.

Why did I opt for the WD ShareSpace instead of a large external hard drive?

1. One of the grabbing factors for me personally was that the WD ShareSpace offered Raid capabilities. Basically what this means, is that it’s really 4 hard drives working in an array called a RAID array, acting as one single volume (drive). The data goes into this device and is redundantly spread out among 4 drives. If one hard drive in this device fails, pull it out, slap a blank one in its place and the array rebuilds itself and you lose no data. Unfortunately this means you lose 1/4 of your storage, leaving you with 2.68TB of redudandant storage available. If you don’t like that idea, it’s easy to turn RAID off and use it simply as a normal external storage device. Personally I like the security of RAID, knowing that if one drive fails, I can hopefully restore my photographs. Presuming the technology works as intended of course. I don’t plan on finding out any time soon!

2. Now for the really cool part. This hardware is called ShareSpace, because you can plug it into a spare ethernet connection in your wireless router so the whole household can use it! So in essence, it becomes a home drive. It even comes with a built in iTunes and Media Server to store all your music and video so it can be played on any computer in the house. Now if you’re like me and don’t like the idea of every one in the household having access to your photo library, you can also plug it directly into your laptop (presuming you have an available ethernet port). If not, then still connect it to your router, and set a password that only you know!

Any Cons so far?

1. After reading the PDF document on their website, it seems if a drive fails and needs replacing, it must be a Western Digital drive with the same capacity as the original. Hopefully, Western Digital keeps making these drives.

2. There seems to be a lot of talk around that this is not true hardware RAID but rather software RAID, hence the much cheaper price. On Amazon reviews there seems to be a lot of different opinions on how easy it is to recover lost data if a hard drive was to fail. With this in mind, I wouldn’t recommend it for a large office data centre. But definitely do recommend it for backing up photographs or home office use.

As all experienced photographers know, it’s always a good idea to back up your photography in a couple of different places. If you sell your photography or have precious family keepsakes, it’s even better if you keep a copy in two different physical buildings for obvious reasons. Personally I backup my most important images to Apple’s MobileMe service.

WD ShareSpace review for photo storage is a post from: Tanya Ann Photography