Articles from tiabunna

Thoughts on lunar eclipse photography

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Thu, 27 May 2021 06:14:54 +0000

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Well, you've all seen them - maybe including mine (clickable at left) - images showing the golden tones of a lunar eclipse. So, having now photographed a couple of eclipses, here is a set of images from last night's event, with some observations.

First of all, the name for it. Apparently we had a "Super Flower Blood Moon" eclipse: which leads me to ask who comes up with these strange names? I have no idea on the "flower" part of the title, but the "Super" apparently was because the moon was at or close to its perigee, the closest it approaches Earth in its orbital motion. The "Blood Moon" bit is because of the red colour of light reaching the moon, diffracted through the sunset part of the Earth's atmosphere.

Let's be clear though, what an eclipse like this means is that the moon is in shadow. There is a huge contrast between the "lit" and the "shadow" parts. Yes, it can be made out with the naked eye, as can the colour. That said though, it's pretty dark and any photo exposed for the dark area will be vastly overexposed for the "lit" part. It's a bit like trying to get a photo of both parts of a half moon. What it all means is that the photographer needs to update the settings constantly, due to changes in the extent of the eclipse.

So, having given all that background, here are some photos with brief notes. I should mention at the start that these were all taken with an old manual RMC Tokina 1/5.6 400mm lens. The end result is that the exif does not record the aperture setting and I was changing it to meet the changing needs of the images, so I'm sorry but I don't have a record for that. I also should note that these images were taken with a full frame camera set in "crop" (APS-C) mode and then were cropped further in processing.

The first image is one I posted on ipernity shortly after the eclipse, when it was late at night and I wanted to get a photo up before heading to bed. It was taken early in the eclipse with a shutter speed of 1/320 and an ISO of 200. (this is clickable)

1/125 ISO 400

1/50 ISO 1600

1/15 ISO 1600

0.25 sec ISO 3200

0.3 sec ISO 1600

1/100 ISO 800

1/125 ISO 100

If someone finds this useful, then this article will have served its purpose. Good luck with your eclipse shots. George

Australian Fires

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Tue, 07 Jan 2020 07:16:00 +0000

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I must begin this article by offering my very sincere thanks for the kind messages of support and concern we have received from so many ipernity members. It really has brought home to me that this is a very caring community group, not merely a photo sharing site. The essential point you need to know is that Pauline and I, and our furry friends, are safe and well and apart from being covered in soot and losing power and communications, our property has not been affected by the fires. As at writing, the nearest fires were stopped a few kilometres from us.

Beyond that, where do I begin? Probably, for the benefit of those overseas, a little background on fire seasons and conditions here. There has been a fair amount of what I would have to (politely) call 'disinformation' from some in our national government (the correct term relates to taurine excrement).

Yes, Australia has always had some bushfires, though on nothing like the scale seen this year. Our climate means that, in the southern part of the country, the summers are dry and winters wet, while in the north it's the opposite way round. We also have droughts, sometimes lasting several years as the current one has done across much of the country. Putting those factors together gives the basis for fires. UPDATE 9/1/20 The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has just issued a report that 2019 was the nation's hottest and driest year on record.

What has changed though, is that (despite what the climate change deniers want us to believe), temperatures in Australia are rising. www.bom.gov.au/state-of-the-climate . The item above has a graph showing average temperatures, with new record highs being set regularly. Higher temperatures result in lower humidity, meaning the vegetation dries out more and that makes it more inflammable. Climate change also results in changes to the way weather patterns move, so sometimes making rain less likely or hot dry winds more likely in certain areas, or even bringing extreme rainfall events, particularly in the tropics.

Putting these together results in more erratic weather and fire conditions. In the north of Australia, Queensland has some beautiful rainforest in its southern mountain areas. You may refer to this kind of forest as “jungle”. This has been saved as National Parks and, many years ago when I lived in that area, I used to go walking and camping there. It was always moist (usually dripping water). Fires there were virtually unknown. In the past few years I have been amazed by the news of extensive and intense fires in these areas, from which the forest may never recover in its original form (eucalypts are more resilient to fires and are likely to take over).

Further south, where I now live, I am old enough to have seen a number of droughts. That said, I do not recall ever seeing the vegetation as desiccated as it has been recently. Put that together with lower humidity and the tendency to more intense fires becomes obvious. It is interesting that a delegation of 23 retired senior fire commissioners, from around the country, tried to warn the national government about this many months ago tinyurl.com/y4px8z4m but they have been ignored and the Prime Minister would not spare the time to meet them.

The retired fire experts noted that, in normal years, “controlled burning” (low intensity intentionally lit fires) would be done during calm cooler weather when vegetation had built up excessively. With rising temperatures and drier conditions, the opportunity to do that safely has now been reduced greatly.

What has been tremendously heartening, among all the gloom and awful devastation the fires have caused, has been the amount of community support. Starting with the thousands of volunteer firefighters “The Firies” around the country, who have donated all their time, in some cases now for months, toward control efforts. Then there are the community groups who have assisted with the operation of evacuation centres; the wildlife carers who are working hard to save as many of the fire affected wildlife as possible; and the businesses that have donated food and other support for those affected and for the many workers.

As I said at the start, we have been fortunate and have been spared direct contact with the fires. The fires left us without power, internet or communications for various periods and we have seen some of the direct fire effects - I have added some relevant images in my ipernity photo stream.

Preserving History

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 10:02:23 +0000

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If you're like most people on this site, I suspect you take a few thousand photos yearly. I know I do. I'll be honest, a great many of mine are hardly worthy of a second look, but they accumulate in my computer's hard disk. Maybe a hundred or so yearly warrant that second look. Some, though even fewer, deserve 'historical retention' (for want of a better term).

Let's work on the thought that the image of a great sunset, general landscape or flower isn't going to have 'historical retention' value unless it won some major prize. But very probably the photos of the kids, family heirloom photos (think of Tacheles' photos by his Great-aunt Sophia in the early 1900s), and other shots of significant times or events will be worth passing to later generations. Maybe not all excel technically, but the content creates the value.

Sadly, in many cases, unless the images are accompanied by some notation to identify who or what they're about, they become almost meaningless. We have 'heirloom' family photos which fail that test. Anonymous (presumably family) people from the 1800s, photos my father took in the Pacific in WW2: all meant something to those who took or were in them, now the relevance is lost and the images almost worthless.

That would be the case with almost all the images in my computer, assuming someone was prepared to wade through all the 'unimportant' stuff to find those of long term value. Then again, I also have collections of negatives, prints, and colour slides, taken in pre-digital times. Most are unlabelled, even those I consider significant.

And I haven't even started to talk about the colour print photos from the 1970s. I presume the condition of those is much the same worldwide: the colour has long since 'fallen out' and the prints have faded to a dullish orange colour with almost no contrast. Now unusable. At least I have the negatives for most, if I get around to copying them.

What if, long ago, we'd had digital cameras? We bought an Amstrad 6128 computer way back in the 1980s, it had 128K of memory compared to only 64K in the Commodore 64 (!!), but it had a different floppy disk to any other computer. At work there were computers with large paper packet floppy disks (those really were “floppy” :-)). And the interesting thing is that none of the material from the various disks or software of those times would be readily accessible today. My current computer doesn't have a floppy disk reader of any kind and even CD/DVDs are becoming obsolescent. Digital storage has very clear limitations.

Save the material on the hard disk? A year or two back I had a hard disk crash: are all your digital images backed up? Maybe put them on 'the cloud'? Just the past few days, I was told that an early internet social forum “Friends Reunited” is about to close – and have you checked the ipernity blog item “Uptime 3535”? If not, I'd strongly suggest doing so right now.

So the message from all that is that I see electronic records as a very mixed blessing, useful indeed in the “here and now” but rather ephemeral. And loose 'hard copy' images without detail are useless. If you want to save something you consider important for posterity, what's the answer?

I have a good general idea of what among my collections I consider of value (in a long term personal/family historical sense). And that is why I have been busy copying my collection of slides and negatives, such as this one.

In recent weeks I have been busy putting many of the more significant of my Antarctic photos, taken 50 years ago (where has the time gone?) into book form. Over the past few days I have finished and it is now published. In it, apart from the photos, I have included words and explanations to make the strange doings and technology of pre-internet days comprehensible to younger readers: how many of them would have heard of (or know the purpose of) a teleprinter or a telegram boy? I am passing copies of my book to family members.

Some of the images and stories you can read on my “Antarctica back then” album www.ipernity.com/doc/tiabunna/album/471761, but there are many more in the book. If you're interested, you can see a preview of it here www.blurb.com/b/6854165-yikla-well-usually and you also can purchase a copy of the book through that site. I hope to also make it available as an Ebook (update: since done). The book tells the story of living and working at Mawson Station in 1966 and on a four month surveying trip to remote and previously unvisited mountains, with just six other people and only morse code radio contact with the outside world. I have shown the book and our survey trip route in red on the following photo.

I hope this article gives you some food for thought on which of your images you may want to leave as 'significant items' for posterity and how you might go about ensuring that they retain their relevance and accessbility.

Smartphones and cameras

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Thu, 31 Jan 2019 10:59:11 +0000

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Back in 2009 (only ten years ago as I write this) I had a "fold-up" mobile phone. I bought it to make telephone calls - the obvious reason. Then I found that I could also send text messages and that it had "predictive text" (which almost invariably produced results that were risible). It also had a built in camera.

There is an old photographic saying that "the best camera is the one you have with you". That's true enough, if the alternative is no photo at all and, clearly, the phone makers recognised that and decided to join the pocket camera market.

Now, let's look at two images taken early in 2009 at the local football ground, where a fleet of helicopters was based while being used to control a large bushfire running in a nearby National Park. The local volunteer Rural Fire Brigade, of which I was a member, was called in to act as standby airport firefighters. Thankfully everything went well and I had time to take some photos. I hadn't used my phone for photographs until then and I found the images it took were poor quality, to say the least. The first photo below does not warrant enlarging beyond thumbnail size.

A week later the fire was still burning and I again found myself called in for "airport duty". This time I took our pocket Canon Ixus camera, capable of taking images of 3 megapixels. As seen above, the comparison in results was dramatic. There could be no doubt that the pocket camera was far ahead of the phone.

Fast forward ten years and phones now are "smart phones" with (I read) more computing power than was available to the Apollo moon walking astronauts. Not only that, but their cameras also have developed enormously and the front facing camera of my new one has 13 mp, adjustable aperture (somehow), variable ISO, and the ability to create "faux bokeh" when in "portrait mode".

The new phone and an article on how they are taking so much of the camera market led to me doing a little exercise of photographing a rose in our garden, using the phone and my DSLR fitted with a 50mm lens. I posted the two images together, as seen below, and asked for opinions on which took which. While everyone made the right choice, I think the very fact that the question was even viable tells a story in itself on how far camera phones have advanced. Click on the image to go to the original page and comments.

Now, don't get me wrong - I'm far from interested in giving up my 'real' camera in favour of using a phone though they do indeed produce quite a good result in good conditions. As might be expected, if the ISO is raised, the image becomes both soft and noisy. But, if there's a photo waiting to be taken and the only thing available is a smart phone, then it's reassuring to know there's a good chance of a usable result. I took this final image (clickable) as a test with the phone's "night" setting. It's not great quality but still surprised me - the settings, after I checked, were 0.5 sec, f1.7, and ISO 12,800!

ADDENDUM

If you're interested in how a full frame camera takes this scene, click on the image above and I've added a full frame shot for comparison in the PiPs and comment stream. What intrigues me is that the full frame had a manual f2.8 lens (ie slower than the phone's f1.7), the ISO was the same at 12800, yet the full frame shutter speed was half that of the phone at 0.25 sec, rather than 0.5 sec. Something doesn't quite match up!

And now? Happily updated.

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 10:39:17 +0000

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This article was first written when ipernity management announced the imminent closure of the site, from about the end of January 2017. Things have moved on and, at last (!!! :)) , the site has passed fully to the Ipernity Members' Association.

As this is my preferred site for friendly contact with other photographic enthusiasts, might I suggest to those of you who have been thinking of leaving, that you stay around and help make the site all the great things it could be. I've just logged on after some days offline, found the good news, and am delighted to say that my "Club" membership has now been renewed.

Copying my slides and negatives

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Sun, 03 Jan 2016 05:05:06 +0000

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No doubt most of us from pre-digital days have collections of slides and/or negatives, waiting to receive a new digital rendering. I have been asked what process I use to copy these slides and negatives: here's a short summary of what I do and why I do things this way.

Over the years I have owned a couple of dedicated slide/film scanners and, frankly, I was never totally satisfied with the results from them. One of the characteristics of the old slide film, particularly Kodak, was that it was fairly contrasty and high in saturation. The typical consumer-level scanner, in my experience, has real problems handling those darker more saturated areas because of a lack of dynamic range. The result is either "soot and whitewash with some colour" or electronic noise. I tried using specialised third party software and, although it helped, I still was less than satisfied with the results.

Finally the penny dropped for me. The commercial scanners rely on a sensor chip in the same way as our cameras, but the camera sensors are far more capable in terms of pixels and dynamic range. On that basis, why not use the camera to do the copying? Even more so when I already had a perfectly good macro lens. Using the camera also allowed the slide/film to be copied as a RAW file, with far greater scope for adjustment than would ever be possible with the JPG from a scanner.

I make no pretenses, my setup is quite crude and could easily be built with more refinement and quality. But that would take more time to build and needs to be appropriate to the volume of material for copying. The main thing is that, even at this rudimentary level of construction , the system works. Care to have a try?

First of all, mount the macro lens (I have a 100mm) on the camera. I have a bellows outfit that I mounted between, as it gives a base for mounting - a tripod alongside a table would be equally suitable. I also fitted my remote flash drive to the camera.

Next, mount an external flash on a small tripod with the remote flash receiver.

Finally, and this is the only time-consuming stage, make up a scanning box. I used an old cardboard shoe box. First of all, line it with white paper. Now measure the 35mm slide dimensions and cut a matching hole in the end of the box. Next find something the thickness of the slide (or carrier) and cut a couple of strips (I used thick cardboard). These are glued above and below the hole at a the right spacing to allow the slide/carrier to pass between. Finally, add some more card overlapping the cardboard strips, as a facing lip above and below the hole: and there's a holder frame.

With my original version I used the slides singly in the holder frame. Then I realised that I had some film and slide carrier frames left from one of the scanners I had owned - maybe you have something similar. If so, size the holder frame to carry that.

From here it's fairly easy. Set the camera up in line with the slide/film hole. Given the sophistication of my setup, I added books and magazines beneath the box and camera to raise both to the right relative height. Place the flash close to the box, facing over the top. I found that it was useful to place something above the slide (I use a heavy paper folder) to stop any sidelight reflections. Now just take macros of the slides/films, adjusting either the camera or flash output as necessary.

I have found it useful to have a small LED torch inside the box, facing toward the slide/negative to provide back lighting to check for centring and focus with the camera. This need not be turned off when copying, as the light from the flash comfortably overwhelms it.

Finally, from experience, the most frustrating part of the process is to find grit on the output images when the copying is done. The processing time to remove these marks from just one image can easily take longer than it does to copy quite a few images - you will save an awful lot of cursing and time by cleaning the originals with a blower brush (though some grit always seems to remain).

I hope this proves interesting and helpful, I'll be interested to hear how you go should you try this approach.

@#&% !!! Plumbing

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Tue, 13 Jan 2015 12:08:33 +0000

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I'd planned a relaxing day with some time for photographic pursuits. After going walking with our dog I wandered off for a brief look at ipernity. Not more than half an hour later, I wandered back through the house and found myself standing in water - warm water!

A quick investigation of the source led me to the hot water plumbing connection under the handbasin in the bathroom. It had failed in a big way, with water blasting out. I turned off the hot water system and mains water and commenced the clean-up while waiting for the plumber to arrive to fix the pipe.

I asked the plumber about the coupling that had given way and flooded much of the house. He told me that although all plumbing once was solid pipe, in recent years it has been found cheaper and faster to end the plumbing near the fittings, then add these flexible connectors. As I've shown, they are a rubber inner with stainless steel mesh surrounding. Apparently (in Australia at least) they have a design warranty of ten years and, although they may last four or five years longer, they will eventually fail - as I found out. And this is the point of this article: if you have flexible couplings as part of your plumbing system, at the very least check them for corrosion. If they have been in place for a lengthy but unknown time, it may be prudent to replace them.

I'd like to say that was the end of the story: but much of our house was full of water though we'd found the leak quickly, then cut the flow and begun the bailing out process. The man sent by the insurance company to review the carpets promptly wrote them off because of the damage. He cut out and removed the sections which had been wet and installed four large drying fans which continue to roar in the distance as I write this. They will do so for a few more days. When the concrete floor is dry, a builder will assess for other damage - then the repair and re-carpeting process can begin.

Needless to say, there has had to be considerable movement of furniture and fittings, a time consuming process resulting in total chaos in the rest of the house. And all that, my friends, is my excuse for being less involved here than usual for a while. But do check your plumbing connections for any of these "designed to fail" devices!

Buying a back-up camera (updated)

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 05:01:56 +0000

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I'll say right at the start that I love my DSLRs and all the gear that goes with them: lenses, filters, flashes, tripods and so forth. But, to be honest, even just the DSLR with a lens attached can be more bulk around my neck than I'd wish if I'm not heading out specifically to take photos. And, of course, it's a rather conspicuous item if you don't wish to draw attention.

So, several years ago, I purchased a little pocket camera. Although it claimed to have some controllability, that proved to be limited and in reality it was a "Point & Shoot". It was very nicely made, with a robust and very compact metal body but there it stopped. Images always had blown out areas; the colour balance was poor particularly for skin tones; the usable ISO range was limited; and the lens was softer than I'd have preferred. You can guess the result: it usually stayed at home!

Over the past year or so, in idle moments I have found myself looking at camera review pages and magazines, progressively more impressed by many new offerings and wondering if any might be suitable for my needs. So I made up a general list of what I wanted (not all in priority order):

1: pocketability (a must)

2: a viewfinder

3: good ISO capabilities

4: a good lens

5: control over settings

6: image quality

7: water resistance (least important)

With much of the 'non enthusiast' camera market now taken by smartphones (just hold it at arm's length and point it in the general direction, the little gnomes called apps will do all the messy photographic stuff) the camera makers have been working furiously to meet photographers' needs. Strangely though, including viewfinders seems to have been a low priority: maybe because it seems the 'home' Japanese market are happy to take 'arm's length' photos. If, like me, you're "chronologically gifted" and need to wear bifocals, this arm's length approach is unworkable. Yes, I hear you cry, some makers do include viewfinders - but I'm talking about pocketable cameras, not the "electronic viewfinder with interchangeable lenses" (EVIL) cameras; all very nice but approximately as large as the DSLRs against which they compete.

Finally, I found a mention of a camera that met all my requirements, other than water resistance. It was released about a year ago, but seems to have had very little attention from the camera media. It is the Panasonic Lumix LF1 and is also released as a Leica model. Mine arrived in the mail this week and, so far, has exceeded my expectations though I have not tested all the functions by any means (and some, such as the WiFi/NFC capabilities, I shall have to ask my grandchildren about).

The EVF has a diopter adjustment, for those of us needing optical assistance, and I am fully able to use it wearing my spectacles. Despite some negative comments about the eye level viewfinder in one review, I find it excellent and it has twice as many pixels, at approx 200,000 as did my old 2005 vintage Lumix FZ20, which did (still does) a great job for me: the important thing is that I can see it!

Most of all though, the LF1 does indeed fit in my jeans pocket and it does take excellent quality images up to 800 ISO. And that will do me nicely! It won't be replacing my DSLR, but I'm sure it will complement it well, and already is making it easy to have a camera handy when otherwise I'd have been saying "I wish I had my camera here!" You can expect to see images from it in my stream, the first is already up (and in Explore).

UPDATE: In Use

With a little experience using the LF1, I feel I now can give some positives and negatives. I'm not about to do a full review, but there are links to those below.

If you've only time to read a few words, the quick answer is yes, I'm happy with it. The more detailed answer is that it's not perfect (is there such a thing?) but it meets my needs and expectations very nicely in most circumstances. The further details are below as positives and negatives.

Positives

It is good and, importantly, pleasant to use. It fully meets my requirement for 'pocketability'. The ergonomics are generally good and the systems are reasonably straightforward with just a little experience.

The controls and screen displays are very useful, as shown by these two shots of the rear display (the viewfinder shows the same and is easily activated with a button). They indicate:

1/ the range of settings for a correct exposure in manual, with the (optional) composition grid and green line camera level indicator.

2/ the depth of field available (yellow arc) at the aperture and focus setting.

The image quality is generally very good, as I think some of my recent postings have illustrated. The focus is fast and accurate, the AWB also is reliable except in extreme conditions, such as some artificial lighting.

Negatives

I don't wish to overplay these points, but they should be made:

1. The lens is prone to light flare (and sometimes sky burn-out) as shown above. I have also found purple fringing in a shot of tree branches against the sky (which is a fairly tough test for many lenses and cameras)

2. The battery life could be better, so it would be useful to have a spare battery handy if going for a full day's shooting.

3. The position and style of the on/off switch can result in the camera being accidentally turned on (I'm learning to be more careful). As the lens extends, in a pair of jeans this can be a problem. Who knows, it could lead to the following variation on the Mae West line "Is that a Lumix in your pocket or are you glad to see me?" :)

Taken overall though, it meets my needs well and I am indeed very pleased with it. I'd be happy to recommend it for anyone with similar requirements.

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In case anyone wishes to read full reviews on the LF1, you might care to look at these links.

"Inspired Eye review" tinyurl.com/m548yqq (detailed and highly recommended) "Sydney Morning Herald" tinyurl.com/kmdc7ku (clear, concise and positive)

"Camera Labs" tinyurl.com/m5nypzu (detailed, mostly positive, rates at 86%).

Were the Portuguese first to explore the Australian coast?

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Thu, 25 Jul 2013 08:11:32 +0000

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The replica caravel "Notorious" at Batemans Bay, NSW, July 2013

The arrival of a replica 15th century Portuguese caravel in our little port stirred memories of earlier readings about the first Europeans to visit Australia, so I thought it worth passing a wet and windy winter's day by preparing this article.

Officially, the Dutch ship Duyfken was the first arrival of Europeans, reaching the western side of Cape York in 1606. It had come from the Dutch East Indies Company base at Batavia in Java, and was followed by other Dutch ships in the 1600s. But the Dutch were relative newcomers to the region: the Portuguese had almost a century's start on them.

Duyfken replica at Coffs Harbour, 2006.

The Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498, leading to the spice trade, the driving force for European exploration. The Portuguese then proceeded to set up a chain of trading ports from Goa in India, to Malaysia, China and as far as Nagasaki in Japan. One, near Australia in Timor, remained in Portuguese hands for some 450 years until the late 20th century. So, given the adventurous nature of these sailors and their endless quest for new riches, it seems barely credible that they did not also explore the nearby coasts of Australia. Yet because there is no “official record”, academic historians discount the suggestion of Portuguese exploration of Australia. The problem, of course, is that if a ship sails uneventfully along a coast, it leaves little to show its progress....

In 1522, the Portuguese explorer Cristóvão de Mendonça went on a voyage from the fort at Malacca with three (some sources say four) caravels, seeking Marco Polo's “Island of Gold” to the south of Java. Eighteen months later, two returned. But there are no known records of where he went, or what he found or reported. The Portuguese were very secretive about their travels and kept all records under tight security in their records office in Lisbon. Unfortunately, in 1755, a major earthquake and tsunami destroyed much of Lisbon, including the records office and its contents.

There are tantalising hints in Australia of early visitors. On Stradbroke Island near Brisbane, a mystery shipwreck of a “galleon” was recorded in the 1800s and last seen in 1934 when it had been vandalised for metals and largely destroyed by bush fires. Equally as well recorded was another mystery wreck of an ancient “Mahogany Ship” on the Victorian coast, found in the early 1800s and seen by many people, but now also missing, believed destroyed.

Then there are such pieces of evidence as the “Vallard” and ”Dieppe” maps, produced by French cartographers in the mid-1500s and believed to have been copied from stolen Portuguese and Spanish maps (the French had an excellent espionage network in those times). Although the maps may look unusual, when a little interpretation is done they do indeed resemble the coastline of eastern Australia, with several features being identifiable. On this subject, I would recommend spending a few minutes watching this youtube video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSPGgesQ8h8

Vallard map, part rotated as described by Peter Trickett in his book

(Map from Wikipedia commons)

Finally, as circumstantial evidence, we can look at the travels of known explorers. In 1606 Luis Váez de Torres with two Spanish ships came across the Pacific, tracked along the south coast of New Guinea and, like homing pigeons, travelled directly through the strait at the north of Australia that now bears his name: four months after the voyage of the Duyfken. It is generally accepted that information on Torres' voyage through the Strait was available to Captain Cook in the Endeavour in 1770.

What is more surprising is that, when Cook's ship was badly damaged by hitting a reef on its voyage north along the Australian coast, Cook did not return to any part of the coast he had passed. Instead, he pushed directly onwards to the supposedly “unknown” Endeavour River, where he proceeded to repair his ship! It is hard to imagine he would have done this without some prior knowledge that such a refuge existed: given that his ship was sinking, returning to any “known” place would have seemed more rational. Was he privy to existing Portuguese maps? (He had previously chosen to land at Botany Bay, which appears to be identified on the “Dieppe” map).

So, is there proof positive that the Portuguese first explored the eastern coast of Australia? No, but I rather believe an impartial jury would have to conclude that it is not at all beyond reasonable doubt. Should you be interested in reading more, I would recommend spending a few minutes looking at this web page which gives details of the "Stradbroke Island Galleon" tinyurl.com/mujcc3bw .

One thing is certain however. The replica Portuguese caravel ”Notorious” that sailed into view of my camera is very real indeed, and I am happy to share the following photos with you (several are to be found in my photo stream on Ipernity).

Waiting to visit the ship.

Toward the bows.

The poop deck - steering is by the rod and rope system at centre.

The interior - just look at those beams!

Finally, I must record my appreciation to Graeme and Felicite, the proud owners of the Caravel, who undertook a massive labour of love to design and build it over a ten year period, and who were very generous with their assistance. Their portraits are in my main photo stream.

Notorious departing from Batemans Bay, very probably the first time such a ship has travelled this coast in about 500 years!

My Ipernity friend Janet Brien has researched the internet about the "Notorious" and recommends the following links, for those wishing more detail on the ship:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notorious_(ship)

www.naroomanewsonline.com.au/story/1623860/historic-replica-caravel-notorious-at-bermagui . (Unfortunately, this page is no longer accessible).

If anyone wishes to do more reading about the probable Portuguese exploration of Australia, I would highly recommend the book "Beyond Capricorn" by Peter Trickett: even though the "official historians" downplay his work. Personally, I find it entirely credible.

[UPDATE - Links checked and updated 3/7/2022]

Waterspouts at 'The Bay'

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 13:11:51 +0000

tiabunna has posted an article:

WATERSPOUTS

Waterspouts are not nearly as rare as most people might imagine, though many people never see one. The simple reason is that most are out at sea, and there is far more ocean than land. I had memories of a small one, seen many years ago off Australia's Gold Coast, but was suitably amazed in early 2012 to see one off Batemans Bay while driving the car.

This waterspout (actually, what you see is essentially cloud condensing in the vortex due to reduced atmospheric pressure) lasted long enough that I was able to continue home, retrieve my camera and change the lens, then take several photos as below. This one formed on a warm summer's day, probably due to atmospheric instability and wind shear associated with a cold front moving north up the coast at the time. It collapsed as I watched, but the remnants of the main vortex can still be seen up to cloud level in the later shots.

If I thought that was suitably amazing (and one of my photos was on the front page of the local paper), it was nothing compared to the waterspout that arrived in November of the same year.

Again, this was in an unstable air mass ahead of a front moving up the coast. I had been outside taking photos and noticed an unusual formation in a developing cumuliform cloud. I took some shots of it then, mistakenly, went inside.

The sounds of shouting outside, shortly later, led me to look out the door: I was astonished to see an enormous waterspout. Needless to say, there was an absolute rush to get the camera, fit the old Vivitar 70-210 zoom, and get outdoors for some photographs.

I wanted a shot showing the foot of the spout if possible, so I ran across the street to get the following slightly wider shot. I would estimate that, at this stage, it was several hundred metres across and about two km distant (and fortunately moving away).

Finally I dashed down to the beach, where a small crowd had gathered, just in time to see it reach landfall in a nearby National Park and dissipate. Needless to say, I'll be on "permanent lookout" from now on!

New group "Prime lenses (fixed focal length)"

nobody@ipernity.com (tiabunna) — Sun, 02 Jun 2013 10:53:57 +0000

tiabunna has posted an article:

Since joining ipernity, I've been searching unsuccessfully for a group on prime lenses. At this stage, I believe it likely that there hasn't been one until now.

There are quite a few who share with me the problem of LBA ("lens buyer's addiction" for those not familiar with the term) and are driven to buy old lenses from time to time when they appear for sale. Equally, I know quite a few of my online friends also have new modern primes. So why not have a group for photographs taken with prime lenses? A place where maybe even some discussion might develop along the way.

After some online chat with member Dynamo today, we've started such a group and we're both delighted to invite you to join. That's the title in the header: and could we ask you to share this with any of your friends who have the same interest?

The rules? Be nice to each other, keep it "family friendly", max two shots per day, and please include somewhere the information on the lens used.

Hope to see you there.