Schmap Brisbane

I forgot to mention, in follow up to my I'm on the Schmap Brisbane Short-list post, it's been confirmed that my photo has been included. The page is here - http://www.schmap.com/brisbane/tours_tour1/#p=131021&i=131021_4.jpg

I'm on the Schmap Brisbane Short-list

Out of the blue I received an e-mail today to tell me that one of my photo's on flickr has been short-listed to be included in the fourth edition of the Schmap Brisbane Guide.

I finally get round to buying a decent DSLR camera and the photo that they've chosen was taken with my Sony Ericsson K800i camera phone. Typical! This is the photo they chose:

USS Kitty Hawk

The USS Kitty Hawk is in Brisbane this weekend - on one of the stops on her final Pacific Tour before she returns to be de-commissioned next year.

Even though the ship wasn't having an Open Day, we drove down to take a look. Because the Kitty Hawk is a SuperCarrier, it's too big to make it up river in to the City so it has had to berth at a tanker berth at the BP Oil Refinery near the entrance to the river, and the only place we could view it was from the far bank, off the beaten track with limited road access. Unfortunately, half of Brisbane decided to drive down to take a look as well, which meant we had to crawl in traffic for nearly 2 hours just to get to see her from a distance.

This is as close as we got...

And this is the best photo I could get zoomed in with my 55mm lens (I'm definitely going to have to buy the 70-300mm lens) ...


And this is digitally zoomed in and cut using Picasa


Still, pretty impressive. To put it in perspective, I used to serve on HMS Invincible which had a ships company of 1200 and usually carried 12 Sea Harriers and 6 Sea King helicopters. The Kitty Hawk has a ships company of 4,500 and can carry up to 90 aircraft. I believe the ones you can see on deck are mainly F/A 18 Hornets. The Kitty Hawk carries two types of F/A 18's - the F/A-18C Hornet and the F/A-18E Super Hornet (replacement for the F14 TomCat as seen in TopGun). Not that I'm a Ship Spotter or anything!

Of course, I've been a lot closer to US carriers in the past as the Royal Navy and US Navy work quite closely together, both on exercises and when operationally deployed. I just thought Rach and Lauren might want to see it so I let them drag me down there, honest.

When we got back we had a BBQ for our Sunday dinner - it's a hard life. I hear it's raining again in England. Never mind.

Move over David Bailey!

I've finally bought my first Digital SLR. After much research, I chose the Canon EOS 400D Digital Rebel Xti. It's only an entry-level DSLR but it will do for me. Anyway, after a lifetime of operating simple point and click cameras I don't know the first thing about focal lengths, exposure metering, slow-synch shooting, AE bracketing, and all these other wonderful terms. At least I didn't. I bought a book earlier this week and I'm just starting to get to grips with the fundamentals.

I always think it's a waste for these people who buy expensive cameras and only ever use them in the pre-set AutoFocus modes. I'm determined to learn about the features and digital photography in general. It came with a standard 18-55mm lens but as soon as I've got to grips with it I'm going to buy a second lens. Probably a 70-300mm lens for better zoom. I know you can achieve better quality if you buy prime lenses set at different focal lengths for different types of shots but that would mean carrying around an heavy bag full of lenses. Plus, it's not like I'm a sports photographer or wildlife photographer, my photo's will probably cover anything and everything so the two lenses should be ok for me.

I'm also going to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop properly. I've seen some amazing photo's that have been enhanced using Photoshop. I've used Photoshop before but I've never really delved into all the features

Maybe one day I might get serious about photography, upgrade to a more professional camera and try to make a few bob out of it. Anyway I'll soon see if the Canon EOS 400D is as good as the reviews say - it's charging at the moment