Panorama from Highland Park showing Main Beach through to Broadbeach on the right

Another beautiful day coming to a close. We’ve now had about 9 days of unbroken sunshine which is more typical than what we have been having of late.

The Pee Wees will now leave the building

After months of torment the relocator caught the Pee Wees and will now relocate them to the Brisbane area.

One down, one to go

Now we can have our deck back!!

Breakfast in bed for Mothers Day

That’s my Mummy in bed with us, isn’t she lucky!

Dimi at the Marriott Surfers Paradise goods entrance

Dimi was one of the models at the Joe McNally Through the Lens workshop at the Surfers Paradise Marriott hotel today. It was a workshop about lighting, especially using small flashes, though this one included a studio strobe on battery lighting the subject and a Speedlight fired through a metal gridded gate to create the shadow pattern on a plain wall in the background.

There's the metal gate from Dimi's shot

Joe saw what we were trying to do and decided to do his last full group demo at the same location, with a variation on the lighting that we had employed.

Our morning model, Khadi, with Chris from Kayell holding the tri-grip diffuser and speedlite gelled with 1/2 CTO and camera on Tungsten white balance.

Early morning fly past

Another chance to quickly test the new 1.4 extender. Again impressed with the responsiveness and sharpness on a beautiful morning looking South West from my back deck towards Springbrook National Park

I’m off to the Marriott Hotel this morning for the beginning of the Joe McNally Through the Lens Tour visit to the Gold Coast. This is great to have one of the world’s leading lighting experts on our doorstep. I am really looking forward to it and hopefully will post an image tomorrow from the full day workshop that I am attending.

The Rental Team from the local Real Estate Agency

The girls came for their marketing photo update today. This one was just for fun on the Charlie’s Angels theme.

The pest of all pests

This bird and its partner have claimed our back deck and its furniture as their toilet. We are at our wits end trying to get rid of them and have resorted to calling in the experts to hopefully capture them and take them to the back of beyond.

It was however an excuse to try out the Canon EF 1.4 Extender III which I have just received. Attached to my 70-200L f2.8  IS Mk II on the 1DMkIV gives me 364mm. I have deliberately shot wide open at f4.0 to do some pixel peeping. It is sharp as recommended to me. I have the original extender with my older 70-200L. It worked but was slower to focus and performed better at f4.5 or better still, f5.0 than wide open.

Apparently the new MkIII version has a microprocessor built in to help with the focussing and exposure calculations. So far, I’m impressed. It also sports extra weather and dust sealing which is a good thing. It maintains the IS when attached to 2.8′s too.

Pirate Day at School

The much awaited Pirate Day has arrived and all trusty crew donned their clobber for a day of treasure huntin’ n plank walkin, with lots of land lubbers and shiver me timbers to boot. Blackbeard was livin up to his fearsome reputation with his mighty cutlass and scary t-shirt.

For sale items

We spent today, Labour Day in Queensland, doing home jobs, one of which was to photograph some items to put up on Gumtree or Ebay, like this baby cool sling.

The Perigree or Super Moon

The full moon this evening at Sunset is called the Perigre Moon, or commonly the Super Moon. This is because the Moon is at it’s closest point to earth on its orbital path and appears about 15% larger and 30% brighter. Taken at Main Beach.