This evening I got together with some fellow photography enthusiasts, and had some fun with steel wool spinning on the beach right next to the abandoned power station in South Fremantle.

We started spinning with the old power station in the background.

South Fremantle, Western Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @13mm, 20 sec, f/9, ISO100

We then turned in the opposite direction, to make the most of the sunset colours in the sky.

While walking back up the mountain from a visit to the bottom of Wentworth Falls last month, we stopped at Queen's Cascades. Here, the Jamison Creek provides a fairly wide cascade over the rocks, as it falls into a pool, with a small sandy beach on the right hand side.

Queen's Cascades

Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @15mm, 8/10 sec, f/16, ISO100

Canon have announced a new prime lens - the Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM pancake lens. I believe it's Canon's first pancake lens, and it'll work on full-frame and crop DSLR bodies.

Canon EF 40mm f/2.8 STM lens

With 7 aperture blades, the bokeh should be a nicer than that of the 5-bladed Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II lens and the 5-bladed Canon EF 35mm f/2.0 lens.
At about USD$199, it seems to be well priced, and is now available for pre-order from B&H.



GoPro's much anticipated Wifi BacPac is now available, with various people reporting that they have received theirs.
The Wifi BacPac is available by itself, requiring the use of an app on your iPhone or Android phone or tablet to connect and control it. The Wifi BacPac is also available with a wifi remote control that is capable of controlling up to 50 remote GoPro cameras equipped with the Wifi BacPac.

The BacPac provides remote wireless connectivity and control over a GoPro Hero camera. Note that you need to update the firmware in your GoPro cameras before they will work with the BacPac. I have heard a few people complain that the firmware upgrade procedure is painful, so be sure to read all the information available on GoPro's website before attempting to upgrade your firmware.
B&H don't have any in stock yet, but are taking pre-orders.

According to GoPro's website, the Wifi BacPac cannot be shipped to Australia yet, as final certification has not yet been achieved.



There seems to be an on-going memory card price war, as various vendors regularly provide good discounts. B&H are once again running some specials on selected SanDisk memory cards.



The D-Photo Inspiration Fix regularly post a set of photos from different photographers, with some great photos being posted.
Some of my recent favourite sets they have posted recently include:

• Creative photography by Christopher Wesser
• Creative photography by Kevin van der Leek
• Documentary & people photography by Khalid Aziz
• Beautiful child & family photography by Angela Lumsden
• Beautiful landscape photography by Michael Breitung
• Amazing urban photography by Niki Feijen
• Amazing landscape photography by Andreas Wonisch
• Landscape photography inspiration from Tomas Suarez
• Landscape photography inspiration from Kenneth Barker

Note that some of the other sets linked by the D-Photo are NSFW.

I thought I'd also share some great collections of triptychs and diptychs that I've come across on flickr in recent months.


This is a collection of triptychs of strangers, titled, not surprisingly, "Triptychs of Strangers". The three frames of the triptych covering the stranger's head, hands and their feet.


An interesting collection of diptychs titled "Persona", with the first frame showing the person, and the second frame showing what they are carrying in their bag and pockets.

Some time ago I posted some photos showing myself and kids levitating in the back yard.
Due to the interest generated by those photos, I decided to create this tutorial to describe how you can achieve similar results using Photoshop.

Note that this tutorial assumes the use of Photoshop CS4. Some steps may be slightly different in other versions of Photoshop.
Similar results can also be achieved using most other image editing packages.

Last month, I spent two weeks working in Sydney. On the weekend, one of my colleagues, also a keen photographer, took me out to Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains, to take some photos of Wentworth Falls.

Wentworth Falls is located in the Blue Mountains National Park, a few kilometres east of the township of Katoomba. The total height of the falls is 187 metres, and the falls consist of several drops.

bottom of the Middle Falls, Wentworth Falls

Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia
Canon EOS 50D, 10-22mm @13mm, 6/10 sec, f/9, ISO200

The walking trail down to the middle falls consists of 173 steps cut into the stone, down a 90 metre cliff face. Apparently it is the longest outdoor staircase in Australia!
The stone steps are creatively named the "Grand Stairway", and walking back up the many steps is definitely harder than walking down.

Below are a couple of photos (taken with my phone) showing the Grand Stairway.