Andy Yip Photography

Kinda got back to this after so many years. Haven’t been taken much of star trails for a few reasons. The change over from film to digital means the change in how it is taken. One single long exposure will result in a lot of noise generated.  I just ain’t ready to learn and try at that time. Another reason is that not many people are interested back years ago and finding accompany is difficult. I would not want to go out to the forest alone. This is probably the main reason. Thanks to digital now, taken any star field and star trail photos are made much easier. It’s not too hard anymore to find accompany as photography gets easier and more popular.

The 2 images below are taken at Mount Coot-tha. Mount Coot-tha isn’t the best location and not one of the locations i will recommended. It is too close to city and suffers from very bad light pollutions. Very sadly i found the sky from my front yard is even darker than it. Surprisingly though, the star trails turn out to be alright. I reckon the way those car trails are there actually made it pretty interesting (My own opinion only). The aeroplane is an accident though.  The star field could have been better with a darker sky. I was expecting to get some photos of the milky way and of course it is too bright for it, nor do i know the location. What a shame i can’t recognise any constellation that appears at this time of the year anymore. The only one i can recognise is Pegasus and that doesn’t help much.

Apart from taking star field and star trails photos, another things that i have tried is this time lapse video, something that is very popular these days.

It is again the thunder storm season when summer starts. Ever since it started to get warmer in Sep, we already had like 5 or 6 storm like this, although not as severe. Hopefully people managing the dam has learnt the lesson last year.

While sorting out some old photos i came across some photos with these Daddy Long Legs. The only spider that i don’t mind having at home as they actually keep redbacks and huntsman away.

Some photos taken during the trip back to HK in March. Taken at the peak, which has one of the best views in HK.

Part 4 contains mainly landscape photos taken throughout the day.

Part 3 has more birds in actions. The photos of lorikeets were taken at the Polish place in Mt Tamborine near Gallery walk. Looking at the lorikeets you will know where the word “Angry bird” comes from, why it has to be angry bird and not happy bird, funny bird etc. More duckies at the Cedar Creek Estate Winery. The rest of them are either taken at the Botanical Garden or randomly during the day.

This Lorikeet is a bit camera shy at first.

These lorikeets were in an argument.

And fighting is the only way for them to solve it. How sad..

Another 2 were also having a fight

An intruder came.

Acting silly…

Waiting for the perfect moment

And this is what happens to the intruder.

Back to eating after the intruder’s gone

This is what happens when you keep talking while other’s eating. “Get out of my way” said the Lorikeet.

More ducks, in particularly, one dancing duck and couples of flying ducks..

From the front, duck actually flies like a bat

Also found in the botanical garden are heaps of bugs..

Due to the massive amount of image produced, also because i found it too hard to choose and display only a few photos, i have decided to break up the second day into different parts. In this post i will display mainly the flower photos taken in the botanical garden in Mt Tamborine.

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The first activity of the second day was astrophotography at Mt Tamborine. This brought back memories of the old days where i was taking heaps of star fields and star trails photos on a film camera. I stopped taking this type of photos ever since i have switched to digital. Taken astronomical photography with DSLR is an entire different story, at least for star trails. Back in the days of film, i used to take star trails with a single exposure of 20 minutes or more.  Now with digital, an exposure of such duration will most likely result in a lot of noise. Tried that with my D200. The image below was actually stacked by around 32 images, each exposed for 30 secs with f2.8 aperture and ISO400. The resulting image looks much clearer and seems to have avoided most light pollution too. Unfortunately, the setup on that day wasn’t perfect for star trails. It was severely covered with clouds and there wasn’t any foreground to make a nice landscape too. Anyhow, it would be a good experience for the next shot.

The next day ( mentally it is the next day after a night of sleep, although it is still the same “day” ) we got up at around 6.30am. Without having breakfast, we headed straight to the botanical garden in Mt Tamborine. This time of the year, botanical garden is a perfect place for shooting flowers and probably insect. I will only post those flower photos in this post since there are so many.

A closer look of the flower.

An even closer look so we can see the pollens.