My walk this morning - nothing too exciting, sorry.

Richard G

Richard G

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I have been on long leave recently and the 2km walk I take a few mornings a week is now almost every morning, and often repeated in the late evening. I go early in the morning to avoid any sun exposure, and it is interesting how different the trees along the river look with the very low sunlight getting to the trunks. Every day there is something different. I have had the little Summaron M 28 f5.6 on my M9-P nearly all the time. The camera and lens literally fit the palm of my hand. I don't use the hood as the lens is well recessed. The 28 is ideal for being close up to trees. The specific light fall off with this lens, at both ends of the frame, is particulalry pleasing in many portrait orientation landscape shots (sic).

Bole eucalypt.jpg

Eucalypt.jpg

Beware of snakes.jpg
 
Thanks Steve and Lynn. You are generous both, but also experts I readily concede. Steve has some Hasselblad shots in the forest that must have inspired that middle picture I think.

Even with the sunlight I have to watch the ISO with that very slow lens, and have to really concentrate on holding the camera still. I bracket a lot, just for image stability, and sometimes increase shutter speed when I've noticed (heard, or read) how slow it is. I will sometimes reset ISO from 160 to 640 at the outset, and no more than 640, and more on my evening walks, and lament the compromise, but it's not much of a compromise.

It's important to my walk as exercise, and my comfort with the other walkers, and their comfort with me, that the camera is completely unobtrusive except when in use.
 
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Trees, woods and forests are always a fascinating subject and I'm interested in them, but when I try to photograph them I m rarely satisfied with the results.
I like your daily walking photos and you captured the light very well. I specifically like the play between light and shadows in the second photo.
I have the same small lens, perhaps I should try more!
 
Thanks Robert. There's quite a bit of magic in that little lens, not just its wonderful compactness. I think it is really hard finding compositions in forests. I'm more used to seeing them in the built environment. You can't so easily isolate a subject. And most of what's there is camouflaging the secret gold. And you're usually too close to see it. I wanted that play of light and shadow that isn't available on trunks mid-morning. Occasionally the disposition of branches are the picture, sometimes mostly some detail. Here's another from the same walk also in the morning a few weeks ago.

Eucalypt early by the river.jpg
 
After a hard week at work and family I have come to be in a peaceful way with myself and I have come to this thread, to walk in your way, looking at these trees, with this light, colors, textures... and Richard, it has been a gift.

Each tree of this thread has made me to think in different persons... it has been like it was a metaphore, about different types of people... maybe it's me, but your pictures have been the key to these feelings and thoughts.

Thank you so much for sharing...
 
Thanks Steve, Jeff and Xabier. Once, maybe twice, I’ve seen snow here in Melbourne at 37.8 degrees S. July and August are bitterly cold. The houses are mostly poorly built, especially our timber house. But it is beautiful. With the wind off the Great Southern Ocean, almost, there are Russians who have never been colder than in Melbourne, they say.

We do have deadly snakes. While the Taipan has the deadliest venom, the Brown Snake, found here, is the deadliest for biting more than once and more envenomation. This spot is less than 5km from the General Post Office in the central business district. I can walk along the river in virgin bush for an hour. The middle photograph at the top had me treading in undergrowth for several metres. You look down and consider every step. Having said that, the last time I saw a snake was 1990, courting my European wife on a walk above the sea in another Melbourne suburb. A woman from near here died from a bite in her garden despite raising the alarm with family and getting straight to hospital and receiving antivenene. So yes, adds to the excitement. That sign is less than ten years old. All children are taught to be careful near rivers and undergrowth and to make a bit of noise to alert any snake to slither off. News stories in Australia often feature a snake under a house, or even close by some sleeping child who posed no threat to the snake. It’s surprising the snake that causes the trouble. My habits probably account for me hardly ever seeing one.

Xabier I am not surprised by your love for and thoughts on trees. Thank you. These trees have torn clothes and tired limbs some of them. They have inspired many Australian painters. We have intense blue cloudless skies, exaggerated by this lens, and sometimes there’s an almost blue smoky haze amongst trees like these in the heat of the day. A forest of these will still have a lot of light.
 
More lovely pictures. I continue to be impressed by the way your M9-P faithfully renders the colours of the Australian bush.
 
Thanks Lynn. The M9 sensor has its own following. I'm an adherent. It is now perhaps a primitive digital Leica, but it has stood the test of time, and the limited high ISO capacity, and screen useless for checking focus, soon become immaterial. I've had it more than 12 years and I still remember the miracle of this new full frame digital Leica bringing all my lenses into the 21stC in familiar crop factor. The only slight gripe is the shutter sounds rough compared to my Monochrom, only a year or two younger. Never mind. Like all good Leicas it's a get out of the users way sort of camera. On these walks no-one notices it. And if they come upon me taking the odd shot, they assume, as a young man did this evening, that it's wildlife I'm after - even with this diminutive 28 almost not on the front of the camera.
 
Another thing about this Summaron is that its magic is at f5.6 chiefly and I hardly close it down even a stop. However that bark photo is stopped down, maybe f8, and I was again careless with shutter speed, here 1/60s and I should have shot 1/125s to improve the sharpness. The last shot is 1/250s so much sharper.
 
I had meant to switch to the high contrast Elmarit 28 2.8 ASPH for its uniform sharpness across the field, but I suspect the sharpness will be overshadowed (sorry) by the contrast. Next time, maybe very early the contrast will be welcome.

Re-visting the cruciate tree in #6 and #12, now gleaming beyond digital almost with its bark shed, I nearly walked into this tiny spider's web. A spiderling seems caught up and to the right of him.*

I've photographed along this walk, poorly, various insects with this 28mm lens, including a 'hover fly' recently, which I'd never seen before.


*And we have nice deadly spiders here in Australia too. The worst is the Sydney Funnel Web (which we don't have down here in Melbourne) and bites can be fatal. The Red Back Spider we have here can make you ill, but rarely kills. There's an antivenom but usually not needed. We came home from a summer holiday to see a lot of them in the house. My son, aged 9, was right onto it. He saw the spider on the hearth. Red back he concluded sagely. I told him with authority that it didn't have a red spot on its back. "He's hanging upside down. They build their webs with these sloping anchor strands. It's a Red Back, Dad." Hmm. Rather more authority. I got down low for a better look. Red Back. They were in my daughter's room too. I'm surprised how calmly we all dealt with the visitation. It is thanks to my son of course.

L9007558.jpg
 
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