ApertureZone

Photo of the Month - June

Hutch — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 22:00:34 +0000

“They didn’t seem to mind my presence and were unfazed as I crouched down to get some shots”

Photo for the month of June - Pelicans at Hervey Bay, QLD

This shot was taken while walking along the Beach at Hervey bay in Queensland. The sun was just beginning to disappear below the horizon, spilling a brilliant orange glow over the beach. I found this group of Pelicans basking in the warm light and immediately went for my camera. The group didn’t seem to mind my presence and were unfazed as I crouched down to get some shots. I zoomed in close so the pelican group filled the fame and took my metering from the bright sunlit chest of the centre bird. I then composed to include a little foreground, centred the group in the fame to add some impact and released the shutter. I particularly love this shot as I was able to capture the attention of the pelican group and the warm soft light from the setting sun creates such a relaxing feel about the image.

Location	Hervey Bay in Queensland
Equipment	Canon 400D with EF-S 17-85 IS Lens
Focal Length	81mm
Shutter	1/90 seconds
Aperture	f5.6
White Balance	Auto

Hutch @ AZ

Crystal Creek, Townsville

Hutch — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 22:00:29 +0000

"Very pleasing and relaxing day trip and some great shots to go with it… can’t ask for much more than that"

Big Crystal Creek waterhole offers great swimming, camping, hiking, picnicking and of course photography.

These shots were taken at Big Crystal Creek waterhole in January of this year. Crystal Creek is part of the Paluma Ranges and located about 60mins north of Townsville city. Paluma is a mountain top village surrounded by rainforest offering a quiet and relaxing natural escape.

View Larger Map

Along the Paluma Range highway you will come across Big and Little Crystal Creeks, both waterholes are great for swimming, picnicking, camping (with permit), hiking and of course photography. Little Crystal Creek is located about half way up Mt Speck under a magnificent, old Roman arch bridge built in the 1930s. Big Crystal Creek and the camping grounds are at the bottom of the mountain, about 15-20mins north of the Paluma turn off.

I spent my day exploring, swimming and photographing the Big Crystal Creek water hole. The water flows from the top of Paluma Ranges, down Crystal Creek and forms a large swimming hole at the bottom, aka Big Crystal Creek. As the area had received a reasonable amount of rain over the previous week, the flow of water was quite fast. I wanted to focus on the rapid flowing stream, blur the movement of the water and capture the beauty of the area. I stopped down my aperture to about f22 so I could slow the shutter speed to 1/8th of a second. This allowed me to hand hold the camera but still burr the waters motion. I probably should have taken and used my tri-pod to eliminate camera shake, however with steady hands and some help from the river rocks, I was able to survive without it for the day.

The sun was very bright and I found it difficult to get any shots of the rocks due to the high contrast. The best time to shoot was when the sun finally went behind the clouds and diffused the light better. I also metered off the rocks and dialled in a ½ stop under-exposure to ensure I didn’t blow out the highlights and still retain detail in the shadows. Very pleasing and relaxing day trip and some great shot to go with it… can’t ask for much more than that.

Hutch @ AZ

“The Dish” at Parkes, NSW

Hutch — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:00:19 +0000

"…pass on to the Parkes people that their labor was not in vain, they’ve given us the best TV yet."

NASA’s Network Officer, Ernie Randall, during the Apollo 11 TV transmission

Parkes Radio Telescope, key to the TV broadcast of the 1969 moon-landing and at the forefront of modern astronomical science in Australia.

The Parkes Observatory, home to a 64 meter Radio Telescope which was made famous for its part in the 1969 moon walk, is located about 20km north of Parkes on the Newell Highway. It is a major part of CSIRO’s Australian Telescope National Facility (ANTF) and although it began service in 1961, it is still at the forefront of astronomical discovery and science due to regular upgrades.

The Telescope was featured in the 2000 Australian film, The Dish. The movie tells the story of how Parkes Observatory was used to relay live video of the first steps on the moon during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission. NASA used Parkes extensively throughout the Apollo 11 project to receive signals in the southern hemisphere along with NASA’s Honeysuckle Creek tracking station near Canberra.

It was one giant leap for mankind, taken at 12:56pm AEST on 21st of July 1969 with 600 million people watching. Three tracking stations were receiving the broadcast simultaneously, Parkes, Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra and NASA’s Goldstone in California. During the first few minutes of the broadcast, NASA alternated between the signals from its two tracking stations at Honeysuckle Creek and Goldstone searching for the best quality images. When they switched to Parkes, the pictures where such a superior quality that NASA remained with the Parkes TV pictures for the remainder of the 2 and a half hour telecast. However, it may not have been the case. When the astronauts landed on the moon at 6:19am AEST it was still some 7 hours before the moon would be high enough to be seen by Parkes. The plan was for the astronauts to rest before the moon walk however Neil Armstrong decided to go ahead immediately. It seemed like the moon walk would be finished before the moon

was high enough for Parkes to receive any signals. However it took the astronauts so long to fit their space suits and depressurise the lunar lander that the moon was now beginning to rise at Parkes. While fully tipped over, waiting for the moon to rise, the Parkes dish was hit by 110khr wind gusts causing the control room to shudder and threatening the structural integrity of the whole telescope. Fortunately the operators remained cool and the winds eased. When Buzz Aldrin activated the TV camera the moon was just beginning to rise and the signals were indeed received by the Parkes dish. The weather remained bad at Parkes and the dish was subjected to high winds and was operating well outside its safety limits. Even so, the images from Parkes were of such a high quality that they were used by NASA for the whole moonwalk.

On Eagles Wings: The story of Parkes Apollo 11 support . Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, June 2001.

With a diameter of 64 meters, the Parkes facility is the largest single dish telescope used for astronomy in the southern hemisphere. Although the telescope is mainly used for astronomical discoveries it has also been used for tracking and receiving data from many space missions. The most notable is of course the Apollo 11 mission however the Parkes facility also played a key role in the Galileo space probe to Jupiter and various Mars missions in early 2004.

The observatory operates 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The visitor centre, which is virtually built in the shadow of the 64 meter dish, offers great views and heaps of information about the telescope, its current and past projects and astronomy in general. Visit Parkes Radio Telescope.

Due to the sensitivity of the dish, it is ideal for detecting pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutrons about the size of small cities. Of the 1800 known pulsars, about two thirds were discovered using this telescope; including the only known binary pulsar system. The dish can observe frequencies between 0.3 to 43 gigahertz. One current project is the Pulsar Timing Array, which may detect gravitational waves from colliding super massive black holes. The 13 multi-beam receiver, designed and built by CSIRO’s ANTF for the Parkes dish in 1997, is a revolutionary instrument that provides unprecedented efficiency for large scale radio surveys of the sky. Recent surveys by the Parkes dish have found 2500 new galaxies in our local region.

CSIRO, Parkes Radio Telescope

While in the area I just had to stop in at Parkes and check it out. I was a big fan of the movie, The Dish, and as a kid I loved anything to with space and space exploration. I still find it fascinating that the quiet town of Parkes and this amazing telescope played such a vital role in viewing the first steps on the moon in 1969.

Hutch @ AZ

Day out on the Beach

Hutch — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 04:39:41 +0000

"Its Composition was fundamentally wrong yet so right"

On the Beach at Cape Pallerenda Conservation Park

I was out at Cape Pallarenda, walking along the sand, marvelling at the sun and fresh sea breeze, when I noticed this log being washed around by the waves. It steamed like such a normal occurrence on the beach yet I still couldn’t resist the urge of taking a few shots. So I wiped out the camera, zoomed in close so I didn’t get the gear wet and snapped away. I wanted to try and get as low as possible and catch the moment the waves crashed into the drifting log. The bright mid morning sun highlighted the white wash of the waves which made correctly exposing the dark log a little tricky. I waited until a wave was just moments away from the log and fired off a set of 3 shots hoping to capture the impact as the wave swallowed the floating wood. I did the same thing from a couple of different view points trying to capture the action.

The best shot of the day, as seen at the start of this post, was actually quite a treat. It was a fairly unorthodox shot as I held the camera away from my body just above the ground. I guessed and largely hoped I had the framing correct and squeezed the shutter. The result was stunning. My framing was spot on and although the camera was tilted making the horizon fall away to the right, I had managed to include a nearby shipping buoy in the process. Everything worked well together, even with its slightly unusual composition. I liked how I had captured the wave and log perfectly but also included some background interest. The whole scene really draws the eye in to the shot and the surprising composition which is fundamentally wrong yet so right, adds heaps of interest.

Very impressed with the log shot I decided to capture a few of the smaller things on the beach and include the white wash foam and bubbles. These couple of shots where taken from above just as the wave and foam began to withdraw. Cape Pallarenda Conservation Park is about 10km north-east of Townsville and during World War II was home to a quarantine and strategic defence station. Historic buildings, gun emplacements and searchlights towers can still be seen today. For more information about the site and what you can do there visit the EPA website

Hutch @ AZ

Welcome to the first post!!!

Hutch — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 10:03:57 +0000

"Discover, Marvel and Share Australia’s Treasures"

Howdy and welcome to my photo-blog: ApertureZone.

My name is Hutch, I am a very keen budding photographer who pretty much likes to shoot just about anything and everything. However my favourite subject is the natural world and all those things, both great and small, that make it so special. The aim of this site is to share my photography and experiences with those who share my interest and passion. Not only in the taking of photos but also the enjoyment of great shots and our country. The focus of this site will be Australia, as that is where I am located, in the future I hope to travel overseas and discover what the rest of the world has to offer. Australia is a great and diverse country with many environmental and man-made wonders. I hope I can eventually photograph and share them all.

To start off with I thought what better way to kick off this blog than with a Sunrise picture. A sunrise symbolises the dawning of a new day, in this case it’s a new blog. This collection of shots was taken in January from Castle Hill in Townsville earlier year. I really like the colours in the clouds as the sun peaks its way through. I also love the brilliant orange glow on the bare rock as you look out over the waking city. You can also see a lookout hut that was used during World War II to spot ships out at sea.

Please feel free to leave any comments, both good and bad. I have only been actively keen in photography for a couple of years now and would greatly appreciate any advice. There is a world of knowledge out there and I intend on learning as much as I can.

Happy Shooting

Hutch @ AZ