Category Archives: Pentax DA 18-55 AL II

HDR, Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Sunrise at Lake Moogerah

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Sunrise at Lake Moogerah, originally uploaded by jezza323.

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Here is a very old shot. I took this on my Lake Moogerah camping trip, early morning, mist rising off the lake, a few clouds about…

What more could you ask for?

This is quite harsh HDR processing, it has brought out a bit of noise, and makes the clouds seem a bit dark and threatening. Normally I don’t go for this more extreme processing, but it just seemed to work best for this image.

The shot was blended from 3 exposures taken at +/- 2.0 EV using my Pentax K200D and the old kit lens Pentax DA 18-55mm AL II (I sold this lens a while back now). The blending was done using Photomatix, tone mapping was done using the Details Enhancer method and final editing was done in Lightroom.

Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Tree with Trails

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Tree with Trails
Originally uploaded by jezza323

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A short startrail with a nice foreground tree. This is a single exposure, with long exposure noise reduction switched on in the camera. I was quite lucky that there was almost no wind, the tree seems very sharp considering the length of the exposure.

I took this on my Moogerah camping trip

Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

More Main Range Waterfalls

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More Main Range Waterfalls
Originally uploaded by jezza323

I can’t remember the name of this waterfall. There is a lookout to view it on the downhill run from Queen Mary Falls to Kilarney.

This is just a CPL filter shot this time, but closed the aperture right down, turned Shake Reduction (IS/VR/OS whatever your manufacturer of choice calls it) and snapped away about 7 handheld shots at 0.5s exposure. This was the sharpest, and i think its pretty damn good!

Taken with Pentax K200D, Pentax SMC DA 18-55 AL II lens and Kenko CPL filter.

Processed in Lightroom 2.5, minor adjustments only.

Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Queen Mary Falls

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Queen Mary Falls
Originally uploaded by jezza323

This is Queen Mary Falls itself, in the Main Range National Park (at the very southern end).

Its a 2km loop walk to the bottom of the falls from the carpark and back, little steep at the beginning going down, but not too bad. I wandered down with my camera gear and tripod.

This is the very first shot i ever took with the Hoya NDX400 filter (once I had worked out the exposure). I have found with my body I need to set exposure compensation to +2.0 just to get the correct exposure when using the NDX400 filter. This isnt a real problem as generally I will be wanting to use exposures longer than 30 secs anyway, which means ill be into bulb mode territory.

This was shot using the Pentax K200D, Pentax SMC DA 18-55 AL II kit lens, Hoya NDX400 filter and Slik 500DX Pro tripod. It was processed in Lightroom 2.5 but I can’t quite remember what I did with it…

Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Hillside Sunset

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Hillside Sunset
Originally uploaded by jezza323

This is the 2nd shot processed from my camping weekend. It is a Hoya R72 infrared shot on my K200D body, with the kit 18-55 lens.

I took this from our campsite, looking over the neighbouring paddock as the sun set. I first took a couple of shots with a 30 sec shutter speed to get the exposure correct. I then adjusted the aperture and calculated the shutter speed that would be required to maintain the same exposure level, set the camera on bulb and took the shot.

This shot was a 134 sec exposure time, i was aiming for around 2 mins, but i lost count near the end, but it still came out fine. It was shot at f13.0, ISO 100.

It was processed in Lightroom 2.5, cropped to 16×9 and straightened slightly (i used the trees as a guide for where up is), white balance adjustment, converted to greyscale and had a contrast adjustment.

Landscapes, Pentax DA 18-55 AL II, Pentax K200D

Condamine River Head Waters

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Condamine River Head Waters
Originally uploaded by jezza323

This is the head waters of the Condamine River, from here its nearly 3000 km journey to the sea, which it flows into near Adelaide in South Australia.

Taken with Pentax K200D, Pentax SMC DA 18-55 AL II, Hoya NDX400 filter and Slik 500DX Pro tripod. The shot was taken under a slightly cloudy sky around 10am, so it was not all that dark, with the NDX400 filter, ISO 100 and using an aperture of f-9.0 I was able to use a shutter speed of 30 secs to get a nice exposure. It took me a few goes to get the exposure spot on.

Processed in Lightroom 2.5, cropped, minor adjustments to levels.

I hope someone is noticing my obsession with 16×9 crops atm, loving them!