Jan 21, 2017 | Photography |
Quick video of Olympus Live Composition
My wife calls it a photo drive. Basically I chuck the camera in the car and head off somewhere to take photos. I might be gone for a couple of hours, or all day.
I went for a photo drive a couple of weeks ago and headed west. My first stop was Stawell, the last was Wycheproof, with lots small towns in-between. All up I was gone for 23 hours – yes, it was a long day! My only regret was that I did this on the Friday before going back to work after the Christmas break, and I haven’t had much time since then to process most of the pictures taken on the day. The exception was the night time long exposure shots from Wycheproof.
Live Composition is a mode in Olympus OM-D cameras that allows you to stack multiple long exposures in camera to create stunning star and light trail photos. I was excited to process the Live Composition shots from Wycheproof, where the railway runs along the middle of the main street. I featured a couple of those Live Composition shots on my Vic Pics blog, and they also got a good reaction on Flickr.
I thought I would share a quick video from my phone taken during one of the hour long Live Composition shots, which shows the multiple exposures stacking and composing the end shot on the camera’s rear screen.
I really like these long exposure composition shots, which bring out amazing star trails. I’ve got a few ideas for possible locations, so when the skies are clear, I’ll be off on another photo drive for some Live Composition photography.
Jan 26, 2016 | Photography |
In June 2011 my photography moved from point and shoot to DSLR when we purchased a Nikon D5100 dual lens kit. Today I’ve sold the Nikon gear to complete my transition to the Olympus OM-D mirrorless system.
I had planned to put the Nikon, 4 lenses and various accessories on eBay, but thought I’d post a picture of all the gear to Facebook asking if anyone would like to make an offer. Within an hour the gear was sold to an ex-neighbor who I’d forgotten had an interest in photography. Back in 2007 we tried to photograph Comet McNaught together, she had her film camera and I had the little point and shoot. Now she’s finally bought her first DSLR from me, so I’m happy the Nikon gear is going to a good home.

Nikon D5100 with lenses for sale
As a post-script, when I posted the above photo of my Nikon gear to my Flickr account, it quickly became popular, racking up over 8000 views and 100 faves.
I shouldn’t be surprised though, some of my highest view counts on Flickr have actually been photos of my camera.
Nov 5, 2015 | Photography |

Olympus OM-D EM10 Mk2
After four years of photographing with my Nikon D5100, I’ve now migrated to Olympus and their OM-D E-M10 Mk2. You could say it’s an “upgrade” in photography gear, others might say going from a DSLR to mirrorless micro-four-thirds is a “down-grade”. For me, it was the ability to imbed GPS data from my phone, (which is great for when I’m walking around towns shooting for www.vic.pics) that got Olympus over the line ahead of other brands. I was a little worried about picture quality, because the camera sensor and lenses are smaller, but early indications are that it’s working well.
I’ll post a review on my new camera once I’ve had a good chance to play with it’s features and take heaps of photos.
Jan 6, 2015 | Photography, Tech |
I own a Nikon D5100 DSLR camera, I’ve had it for three and a half years and it still serves me well (especially now I’m publishing my photography on vic.pics and pictures.melbourne websites).
At the time I did a lot of research to decide which make and model DSLR would be the best for what I wanted to do. Even though my photography has changed considerably since then, I’m still very happy with my D5100, but Nikon have since superseded that model with the D5200, D5300 and today Nikon have announced the D5500.
I’m not sure why “D5400” was skipped in the model designation, but the Nikon D5500 certainly looks like a great new camera with features I don’t currently have like built in GPS, and touch screen.
My Wish-List has now been updated!

Screenshot of the new Nikon D5500
UPDATE:It turns out this new model no longer has in-built GPS tagging.