Saturday, February 25, 2012

First week in my new home...Australia

I've been in Australia for a week now, and I've managed to try out my Sigma 120-300 on some of the local wildlife. I spent one morning driving around looking for kangaroos and ended up finding them in the front yards of some houses! I managed to shoot a lot of photos, but I've only posted a few. Another day I went down to the local lake and photographed a group of pelicans and sea gulls. They were hanging around a sandbank perhaps 20-30m from land. I am so far very impressed with the sharpness and contrast of the images delivered by the Sigma 120-300. The posted photos have been slightly sharpened and the contrast has been increased somewhat, but I haven't needed to do nearly as much post-processing as I am used to.








Thursday, February 2, 2012

My first post and a new start...

I created this blog page perhaps three years ago now, but have, unfortunately, not found the time to post anything yet. I am now seven days away from the defence of my PhD, and 12 days from my permanent migrating from Norway to Australia with my fiancée. As I am turning a new leaf in many other aspects, I thought this a great opportunity to start posting on my blog.

I started photographing perhaps ten years ago now using an Olympus compact camera, and advanced to a Fujifilm superzoom a few years after. Through my PhD studies I gained access to a Canon 550D which I've been using up until now. After a long time saving I recently purchased, as a graduation gift to myself, a Canon 7D and two Sigma lenses (17-55 f/2.8 and 120-300 f/2.8 OS). I have not had too much time trying them out yet as I am busy preparing for my defence, but I am so far very pleased with the results. As others before me have noted, I have noticed a slight softness of the 7D compared to the 550D, but nothing that can't be sorted out either in camera or postprocessing. I tested the Sigma 120-300 photographing local birds feeding outside my parents house yesterday (see photos added below). I am very excited to get more time using the equipment, and will spend a lot of time in the Australian bush photographing wildlife and landscapes. I will post more text and photos as I get to experience nature down under.

Red robin (Erithacus rubecula)
Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)

Blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)