The Year In Pictures 2013

[Who's Wee Dug]

Nice photo shots everyone.

[ShadowNinjaCat]

As above.

[Catch-up]

Nice pictures Jack!

[Batty]

I do love pictures of snow. Everything looks so pretty and deceptive! ... Not a hint of the hidden dangers lurking underneath the White Blanket of Doom!!

This is the holly tree by the front gate.

[Penfold]

That looks very pretty Batty, and not a little bit slippery.

Over the past couple of days I've popped in and out of the garden to snap off a few pics.

Here are a couple of HDR attempts, which I still haven't quite got the hang of yet;





And some more 'regular' style photos, mostly with the use of my macro lens;



















If the snow sticks around tomorrow, I'll try and get some better shots.

[Who's Wee Dug]

The yellow leaf's ones stand out, does the HDR stand for high defination resolution Penners.

[Penfold]

Sorry, it stands for High Dynamic Range. Basically, you take two or more photos at different exposure levels and blend them together to provide a wider range of tones and contrast. It's very tricky to get it to look right, for instance, while the one of the garden looks about right for realism, there is a fairly obvious halo between the trees and the sky. I'm still trying to work on it because when it does work correctly, the effort becomes well worth while.

[Who's Wee Dug]

If you had not told me that I would not have noticed it.

[Penfold]

[Tonyblack]

Very nice!

Did I mention it's 72 F here?

[Who's Wee Dug]

You said that with a big dollop of suntan oil Tony.

[Sister Jennifer]

Excellent pictures as always. I love that picture of your backyard Penfold, it looks postcard beautiful.

Never thought about what might lurk beneath the snow before. Has anyone got a picture of a snowflake close-up?

Some more holiday pics.
You see Goanna's quite a bit around National Parks picnic area's. That was as close as I was game to get.

Out of focus, but a noisy cicada.

Lovely rainforest trees.

[Del]

LOOOOOOOOOOOVING the pics.

You do know hey Jenn that if you stand still around a goanna they run up your leg! Uh-huh.

Mind you if you jump up and down and scream and yell, they panic and rush at you and bite.

I had a mate called "Goanna" up north years ago. He used to get drunk and climb a tree and then go to sleep up there.

[Ghost]

[Penfold]

Looks like you had a lovely holiday Sister. Are the goannas aggressive at all, or do they leave you alone?

I regret not being able to take a photo of a snowflake since the ones falling here were not really large enough although I have been reading up on it and may try again next time if I can brave the cold long enough. However, the moon did poke its face out from the clouds long enough for me to get this;


For those interested, it was photographed hand held with a 400mm lens (200mm with a 2x converter attached), aperture of f/5.6, shutter speed 1/1000 sec, ISO 200. Then it was cropped and sharpened up afterwards in Photoshop.