We are well into autumn, and this is clearly evident in the colour of the leaves on deciduous trees. I love the variety of bright colours in autumn leaves, and took some shots of the Chinese Tallowtree in our back yard yesterday.

Canon EOS 50D, 24-70mm f/2.8L @68mm, 1/1000 sec, f/3.5, ISO100

To a landscape photographer, knowing the time of sunrise and sunset is very important, as well as knowing the location of the sun on the horizon (it varies throughout the seasons). For many other photographers, knowning the location of the sun in the sky at any particular moment can be important, as it will determine the sunlight direction and shadows.

There are numerous applications available that can help photographers with this information, and I have provided a list of some of them below.
While there are many applications that will provide the sunrise and sunset times, I have restricted this list to applications that can also show the sun direction and elevation.

Website:	http://photoephemeris.com (for iPhone and iPad) http://stephentrainor.com/tools (for Desktop)
Platform:	Windows/Mac/Linux and iPhone
Cost:	for Desktop: free for iPhone and iPad: $9.49
Description:	This is map-centric sun and moon calculator, showing time and direction of sunrise and sunset, moonrise, moonset, phases of the mooon, as well as elevation above sea-level. It also allows you to see the direction of the sun and moon at any time during the day, all overlayed over Google Maps, and allows you to save multiple locations.
Images:	The Photographer's Ephemeris for Desktop

While gardening in the back yard recently, I grabbed some photos of my 6 year old son's dirty hands.

pulling weeds back yard at home, Western Australia Canon EOS 50D, 100mm f/2.8 macro @100mm, 1/250 sec, f/2.8, ISO320

don't let the weeds get away! back yard at home, Western Australia Canon EOS 50D, 100mm f/2.8 macro @100mm, 1/100 sec, f/4.5, ISO320

dirty hand

back yard at home, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 100mm f/2.8 macro @100mm, 1/250 sec, f/3.2, ISO250

This is one of my favourite images from my first photowalk, taken in the John Forrest National Park back in 2006. I had only recently bought my my first DSLR, a Canon 350D, and was experimenting with short DOF.

into the distance

John Forrest National Park, Western Australia
Canon EOS 350D, 17-85mm IS @17mm, 1/800 sec, f/4, ISO100

It was a photowalk with a few guys from the OCAU photography forum, and as I lay down on the ground to capture this shot, one of the other guys took a photo of me lying down, and another guy took a photo of the guy taking a photo of me taking the above photo...

Getting a camera up in the air can provide for some interesting photography and video opportunities. Here's a few examples of aerial camera platforms that I've come across recently.



Eric Austin, from Texas, is a videographer who uses a Canon 7D attached to a remote-controlled helicopter to capture video from an aerial perspective.

Here's a video demonstrating the results he gets.

Aerial video with helivideo.com Our legacy video. from Heli Video Productions LLC on Vimeo.

You would want to make sure you're competent at flying an RC helicopter before trusting it to carry an expensive DSLR!



While Eric's rig is custom-built, another option is an off-the-shelf UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) from Dragan Fly.
They have a variety of UAV models, such as the cool 6-rotor DraganFlyer X6, which can take a variety of cameras, supports remote video links, and has various on-board sensors for its electronic flight stability.

These UAVs are not cheap, but they apparently are very easy to fly. It would be a lot of fun to have a UAV such as these, providing a very flexible platform for aerial photography or aerial HD video.

Check out the Dragan Fly website for more info.