Category Archives: Photography

Kayaking, New Zealand, Photography, Travel Planning

5. Ohakune

Sunday, February 15: Cold overnight due to clear skies, and clear and sunny during the day, with some clouds in the distance

Sue and Simon’s

Just after 6:00 I felt awake enough that no more sleep seemed possible but with a little relaxation I managed to fall into a lucid dream until just after 8:00.

Simon was the maitre de petit déjèuner and I had some muesli with milk, coffee and a couple of scrambled eggs with toasted ciabatta which Simon had baked himself. It was really worth eating, though I haven’t been up to much in the last couple of days. Then I had to make the mother of all lists for today, the mother of all technical days. Read more…

GPS Tracks, Kayaking, New Zealand, Photography, Topo Map, Tramping, Youtube Videos

3. Auckland, St Heliers: Rangitoto Sea Kayaking

Friday, February 13: Cloudy at first, clearing to light cloud with a bit of a southerly breeze

Chinara’s

Kayaking: 10.0 km
Tramping: 5.2 km

There wasn’t much sound from above, so at around 8:00 I went upstairs and the two were sleeping in. Couldn’t quite stomach breakfast and only had a coffee. Pretty soon the courier with my emergency equipment arrived which was audible because the guy had his radio playing loudly and I was able to intercept him before he had to search far. Eventually I. made an appearance and then Chinara, who busily telephoned around to organise the remainder of her day. Read more…

Kayaking, New Zealand, Photography, Travel Planning

Countdown

It’s time for the preparations to draw to a close, after ten months. Of course, there’ll be stuff that still has to be bought because it was forgotten back at the ranch. I’m still wrangling with the car hirer about whether a larger suitcase than the current one will fit into the boot of the car I’m hiring, and that may continue for several days. I’ll at least try to pack the existing case, but I suspect that, with all the camping gear, too much will be left for the pack. Read more…

Photography, Youtube Videos

CHDK continued

After discovering this wonderful way of turning inexpensive digital cameras into exquisite photographic instruments of many times the price, I have continued to develop my use of CHDK, and CHDK has continued to develop itself, with the releases of versions 1.2 and 1.3. This means that I have been back to their wiki every now and then to make some improvements to the writing (although never as much as I hoped I could do), and, occasionally, discovering something new.

This trip will feature time lapses as a major project. I have detailed the problems of getting long time lapse sequences to stay focussed throughout the whole sequence. This done, there remained the question of initialising the camera for the time lapse shoot. Unfortunately some of the kayaking sequences shot last autumn turned out to be of limited use because either the camera had been accidentally turned off, or the settings were not suitable for the shoot (e.g. ISO set too high). Read more…

Photography, Youtube Videos

The Dark Room

Pictures were stacking up, and now some solution had to be found to process them further into films, and to remove as much of the extraneous motion as possible.

Up until now I had been using FFmpeg to assemble image sequences into films. Documentation is very poor, but something can be made to work at times without pixellating the whole result. Read more…

Kayaking, Photography, Travel Planning

On Kayaks and Cameras

After getting the kayaking under control, the next question that arose was, “How to photograph it?” I felt reminded a little of what Matt from Christchurch had said about horse riding and how it enhances viewing the countryside because you are no longer forced to look at the ground for most of the time. The horse is taking care of that. Now kayaking offers a very different landscape than most hiking because of the lack of obstacles. Nor do you really have to care where to place the paddle, and the view is mostly directed forward to the goal. True, sitting on a river means that you are at the lowest point on the landscape and much of the lower view is obstructed by the bank. But even banks can be pleasant to look at. Read more…

Photography, Skeptics, Tramping, Travel Planning

Off to New Horizons

Cathedral Rock, Waimangu.
Cathedral Rock, Waimangu. Static. For the last time?

Nau mai, haere mai!

Time to start the blog up again.

Journey to Te Ika-a-Māui is the next project, a trip to the North Island of New Zealand, arriving on February 11 in the wee minutes of the morning and leaving on April 7, 2015. There is still a lot to see and do.

First and foremost on the programme are the remaining Great Walks of the North Island, the Whanganui River Journey and the Tongariro Northern Circuit. Twice on previous visits have I tried to go over the Tongariro Crossing, but to no avail. Having more time this time around and a better season for mountain climbing, this should be doable at some point. Read more…