New Backyard, New Visitors Last year I posted about a pretty cool visitor to my backyard (check it out here) and when I had to move from Whenuapai I was a little bit disappointed that living closer to the city I might not get as many opportunities to see New Zealand bird life quite as close up.  My first day in the new house brought with it some beautiful Kingfishers flying about outside the kitchen window. I was busy unpacking however, so just took it as a good sign of things to come.  So the bad news first. Having an (incredibly small) portion of bush area behind your house isn't To View More >>

An experiment with time In my spare time I've been experimenting with time-lapse photography. Specifically, with alternative methods to motion time-lapse that don't require the very expensive sliders, motors and rigs that are currently available on the market.  Through my friend Andy I was able to pick up a rail and bearings block set thingy (technical terms!) which I have made some minor modifications to. This enabled me to make some very smooth panning videos, and now I'm trialing it for motion time-lapse.  I've still got some issues to iron out but so far so good.  To View More >>

I picked up a linear bearing rail system through my friend Andy to trial for video and time-lapse photography. My first test was just around the house. The bonus to this over traditional sliders is these glide rather than roll or slide, which gives a very smooth movement.  I had an acrylic base plate made to mount a ball head on to the bearings block and picked up a Benro BH-1 with quick release from Apix Photographic Supplies to mount my camera. Will post separately about putting the rail together. Above is the small demo clip put together from the test. Quite happy so far with To View More >>