We're back-sort of!

 

It's been a lengthy absence for the blog because I've been moving house, and most inconveniently, my problem with my right knee has turned out to more serious than I'd hoped.

Firstly moving house was stressful but that's normal. We've moved from our townhouse in a quiet street in the heart of Terrigal to an apartment a little further from the heart of the town but with views over the Haven and the ocean.

We were very lucky to sell the townhouse as the local property market has almost ground to a halt in the last few months. We moved because the two sets of stairs in the townhouse were steep and so was the driveway. The apartment is flat and has lift from the basement car park. 

It was just as well we moved when we did as the diagnosis on the serious pain in my knee is that the knee was totally worn out and needs replacing. No ifs and no buts. The operation is scheduled for 29th July so two months of pain to endure.

Photography has been off the agenda for the past two months but I picked up the Q3 43 this morning for the picture of Smudge sunning herself-a study in monochrome of a black and white cat on a white chair.

Up close

 We are moving in 10 days.The house is full of boxes and crates and much has been discarded-to the charity shops and to the tip -with more to come.

There has been no time for photography. In fact most of my cameras have been crated up although this afternoon I felt my shutter finger itching and pulled out the SL2 with the Summicron 50mm and took this close up of Smudge half asleep/half awake on Rosie's lap.

That close focus on a black cat at F2 was difficult but after 10 attempts I nailed this one at 1/100th sec 2500 ISO.

SOLD!

 After a 15 weeks of trying in a very soft property market my townhouse was sold on Friday. The sale was to a buyer who had sold his own property and who had to move by the 5th May. After a few weeks of procrastination he bit on the bullet on Friday morning and I had the signed sale contract in my hand at 1.30pm. Now it's full speed ahead to move on 5th May. 

Two panoramas

 

 

I have a superb 16mm to 35mm Lumix Pro lens for my SL2 camera. However I rarely use it. The problem is that for me the SL2 body with a lens is just too heavy to be a travel camera and invairably the best panoramas I see are when travelling.

Here are two faux panoramas which were taken with firstly (top) my X1 with its 35mm (equivalent) focal length Elmarit lens. It was a stunning morning and we were out early driving into the mountains from Salzburg in Austria when I saw this chocolate box view of the lakeside village of St Gillgen.

The second view was again taken early in the morning, this time in Istanbul, as I was walking across the Galata Bridge. I used my Q2 with its 28mm Summilux lens.

Wet day in Hanoi

An oldie which popped up whilst I was looking for another photo. A wet day in Hanoi.Taken on film back in 2004 with my Leica M6 using an Elmar 28mm lens.
 

Catching the Sydney light rail

 

Another rainy day shot taken a few weeks ago in Sydney. 

Seventy years ago Sydney had one of the biggest tram networks of any city in the world.Then in a spectacular own goal it was all ripped up. Not a single line was left. Melbourne on the other hand retained its huge network and expanded it. Now it has the biggest tram network of any city in the world.

Sydney has realised the error of its ways and is building a light rail system but construction is very costly, very disruptive and slow. The good news is that it proving very popular. A case of better late than never.

Keeping cool

 

We are only 10 days from when the clocks go back for the end of Summer Time but it's still very warm and humid and summery here.

It's been a very hot and long summer and Holly with her thick fur coat will be very glad when it is cooler again. She likes to go into the spare bedroom and lie on her back under the ceiling fan with her tummy exposed to sleep-as she was doing this morning when I took the photo.

The man in black

 A previously unseen photo from my Lightroom library. Taken late June in Paris with my Leica X1.

The EXIF data says it was taken at 3.39pm but that seems very unlikely as no Parisien cafe would be that empty at that time. More likely the time in the camera was still set on Sydney time so the time in Paris would be 7.39 am  but as it was a Thursday I have no explanation as to why the cafe was so empty with just the man in black enjoying his cafe.

F1 Flashback

 I've been a follower of F1 since I was 12 years of age.That's a very long time. I am very fortunate in that I've seen nearly all of the great drivers of the modern era race. Moss, Stewart, Clark, Brabham, Senna, Schumacher etc,etc. 

In the early years I was a very committed fan and I have been a reader/subscriber to the British magazine, Motor Sport, for over 60 years. 

My enthusiasm diminished over the years but has been rekindled in the last 8 years primarily due the Drive to Survive-the Netflix series. 

I loved the early years of F1 but much to my surprise I am really interested in the current F1 scene and in particular the technology of the current 2026 cars.

I know that the whole F1 scene is not like the old days but change is inevitable and I find the current cars and drivers extraordinary. I am also amazed at the huge following F1 is now enjoying across the world. Seeing the packed stands at qualifying for the Chinese GP yesterday really makes the point.

Here are two photos from my library. Compare them with today.

 

Firstly Pedro Rodriguez in a BRM P163 at the 1968 British GP at Brands Hatch. He qualified 13th and retired due to a crash on lap 58. Not a good day for him. No sponsorship allowed back then although given their lack of form I doubt if BRM would have attracted many sponsors back then even if it had been allowed.

The photo was taken at Kidney Bend with my Leica 3A and just a 50mm Elmar lens. My brother and I and friends were standing against the paling fence-no Armco then-and I lent over and shot the cars. It's a crop but not that big a crop. I don't have any other technical details. 

The second photo is a favourite of mine.Taken during practice for the 1981 Italian F1 GP on a very hot Saturday afternoon at Monza. Quite how I was lucky enough to be strolling down the pit lane that afternoon is a story in itself. I had my Olympus OM2 and just one 36 exposure cassette of Kodachrome. 

The photo shows the cars of the Talbot-Ligier team, sponsored by Gitanes cigarettes, being worked on outside their pit. What a total contrast to today's scene. It really could not be more different.The car nearest the camera was driven by Patrick Tambay who qualified 15th and retired on the 22nd lap with a puncture.

 

From a train

 

On the train returning from my trip to Sydney -see story below- I took this photo through the train window. At the time the train was running beside Brisbane Water and I shot it with Q3 43 on the macro setting with the aperture at f16 for maximum depth of field and at 1/4000sec to the freeze the speed.

This photo made me wish that I had taken more photos from trains. With so many amazing train journeys I have missed so many great shots because I feared that reflections off the window glass would ruin them.

 Back in 2010 I was on a wonderful rural train in Italy and I did take just one shot out of the window. I never really looked at it because of the reflections. I discarded it as junk but forgot to delete it. Now it lives- using Lightroom's new AI reflections removal tool where with just one click the reflections are gone. Very impressive. All those shots I did not take could have been saved but here's the one that has been -thanks to AI.

 Taken with a Canon G9 at 1/800th sec f4.0 ISO 80

 

 

Rainy Day

 I went down to Sydney yesterday to have lunch with a friend. He'd made a reservation at a harbourside restaurant near Circular Quay. A pretty safe bet after weeks of sunshine and heat and humidity. Well as it happened not a safe bet at all. A massive mass of moist air-related to the monsoon- had made its way south dumping rain across inland Australia and also the east coast of Victoria and New South Wales.

 It was a shocker. A long drenching downpour .The restaurant reservation was hastily changed to an indoor restaurant and I took a rain jacket and some stout shoes.

I decided to take a camera and take some rainy day photos- a real change from brilliant sunshine and blue skies.

The Leica  Q3 43 is weatherproof and I decided to try taking monochrome using the monochrome preset in the Leica Fotos setting on the camera. Below are is a selection of the photos from my short visit. I am really surprised by their quality.The preset only works on the jpeg setting-the DNG files are still colour-but the jpegs are pretty good. There is a high contrast monochrome preset and next rainy day I will try that.