Perth by Night (new 350D pics)

[Kombisaurus]

Ok.. this is my last post of new pics this weekend, I promise (maybe).
I went to a friends place last night, and threw my camera in the car because I knew I'd be driving home through the city on my way home and thought I'd take some pics of the Bell-tower just for something "postcardy".

Anyway, just as I arrived and was walking towards the bell-tower, they switched all the lights off! (admittedly it was 4am) - so no pretty photos of the belltower all lit-up.
Instead I took a couple of photos of the city from the river foreshore, which turned out OK. I was tempted to go up to kings park, but resisted the urge because I know I'll be up there with a bunch of shuttertalk people next weekend! When my 70-200 lens arrives next week I think I'll go over to South Perth and get some nice shots of the city from across the river.

But.. on my way down the freeway I was distracted by heaps of sparks coming from a slow-moving train that I drove past. I took the next exit and came back up the other side of the freeway, parked in the emergency stopping lane and chased after the train with camera and tripod! It turns out they were railway workers with a special train to grind the track into shape. The train they used was travelling at a jogging pace, and I chased after it taking shaky hand-held photos before I met one of the workers who told me it would be turning around and coming back - so I then set up my tripod to wait. The darkness and movement of the train meant I had no hope of getting any sharp image of the train (all these photos were taken at 800 ISO), but the background is recognisable and the sparks look great.

I'm not sure if the photos of the train really "work", but the sparks certainly make them interesting and it was quite spectacular and unexpected. Even the hand-held photos had a strange quality to them.

[adam]

Running around taking photographs at 4am!!!!

Sounds familiar.... haha
(When I set out with Peter, Long, Jon to South Perth and Matilda bay to catch the sun rise on different occassions)

I like the last picture which shows the train making the sparks. I've never seen/heard of such a machine, probably because I've never looked into these sorts of things, but it's cool!

It's nice to see pictures of our city here of familiar places, and of strange things occuring in these familiar places (such as trains sparking the tracks!)

After taking photos of the fireworks on Australia day, and other night outings to Kings Park and around the place, I realised that I need a better tripod; Mine should be arriving next week Also next week, is another busy week, so I won't have much time to play

Thanks for sharing!

[Peted]

Freeway? Heading north? Say ho to my Mum and Dad!!

[guerito]

Like the pictures... The last one is my favorite. Stunning shot! It's really a pity you couldn't get it sharp, but it's great even blurred.

Maybe you could have got it a bit more sharp with underexposure? I think the sparks and lamps are somewhat blown out, so it might have helped. Anyway, too late now. The picture is great as it is.

[Irma]

Beautirul pictures Adrian. I love #1, it is so clear... the lights are perfect The trees are fantastic, the color is great! I like the sparks in the pictures of the train, and the motion... Have you considered adding those to the "speed" assignment? I think those fit beautifuly

[adam]

Where did you shoot those trees?

[Kombisaurus]

The trees were on Barrack St about 100m from the Bell tower. About 30m to the right of where I was standing when I took that first photo.

[StudioJ]

Heh I was expecting photos from Kings Park when I came in here! The first shot looks really nice when its taken just before sunrise or just after sunset where you still have some colour in the sky. What is that on the right hand side of the trees? They look rather blurry but in an odd kinda way.

[Kombisaurus]

Thanks guys,

G.. yeah, I wish I had've cranked it to 1600 ISO and underexposed a few of them to reduce the motion blur.. but I only had seconds while it drove past me and didn't feel confident enough with the camera yet to be able to make these changes intuitively on-the-fly, so I thought I should instead just leave the settings as they were and concentrate on the shots.

Irma, good idea about adding the train pics to the speed assignment - I didn't think of that. I have already added the trees to the "trees" assignment (along with another pic I like of a climber on a wall).

Jamie, yeah I had to resist the urge not to go up to kings park... I could even see the pretty coloured lights up there that make nice photos even without looking over the city.
I was a bit disappointed it was still so dark at 4:00-4:30am. I was expecting to be going home a bit later and was hoping to catch the first rays of sunrise.
I agree that it does look fairly dead at 4am on a Sunday. I've taken photos of the city (from Kings park, surprise suprise) at around 7pm on a Friday night and they look fabulous. Not only is there still some colour in the sky, but all the office building lights are still on and the freeway is full of streaking headlights.

I am yet to take some photos of the city from South Perth, but I've seen other photos that look spectacular from there. It is kind of cheating a bit, as those scenes have been done over and over.. but nonetheless it is still good practice and you end up with great looking images.
One place I have had some success from is down near Point Walter or behind Raffles just off the Canning Hwy near the freeway. You need a fairly strong zoom (400mm 35mm equiv would be perfect), but it gives a great view of the city and some lovely reflections off the water if its calm.

Regarding the odd blurry bit, I applied a bit of photoshopping to the photo of the trees (the 2nd photo), kind of a spot filter effect where the corners are a bit blurred. It might not work in this case, but at the time I thought it added a bit of atmosphere to the foliage and softened the footpath a bit.
Only RAW processing done to the first photo, and only RAW processing, noise reduction and cropping done to the train photos.

[StudioJ]

South Perth is a great location for all kinds of shots not just the city. The lights in the cafe precinct (Mends St) and the jetty down the end. Lots of fishing going on down towards the bridges and the bridges themselves. Another great place nearby is down Adam's haunt at Matilda Bay or at the South of Perth Yacht Club (if you want to shoot back towards the city)

[shuttertalk]

Hehe, I shall dub thee Nightstalker..

The sparks from the trains is definitely unique -- maybe you should try panning?

[adam]

I read in a newspaper on Saturday that South Perth has the most car breakins! scarey! haha