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Well I went out today at about 1.30pm (might of been later as I was charging batteries), with sort of a rough idea of where I wanted to go. Had planned to go to Banyule Flats but when I looked on the Melways I noticed it was quite near and decided this could probably be done on Monday early in the morning before I drop off the rental car. Instead I decided to head off North of the city in the direction of Kyneton. Once I got up the Calder Fwy though I decided maybe I shouldn't as it was about 2pm when I was on the Fwy. At this stage I was thinking about going to the You Yangs and turned off down the Ring Road. Then once down the Ring Road I changed mind again and head back up Sunshine / Sunbury Ave or something like that back onto the Calder Fwy. I ended up getting upto Malmsbury at about 3pm, the destination I originally planned. When I was up heading to Muldon 6 months ago I spotted going through Malmsbury a nice stone arched railway bridge and decided to head back there to check it out. I'm glad I did now. First stop was Malmsbury Reservoir which was quite nice. Probably would be very pretty at sunrise/sunset and with the Reservoir at a higher capacity than it was. I took a few photos at there of various structures, didn't have time to walk around it. Save that for another time. Then I headed back into town to go to the Botanical Garden. Was very nice gardens, lots of ducks and geese. Which were very very tame. I think Arthur would of loved it. You could pratically pat them I went through the gardens and onto the river that passes through the town. Took some shots of the bridge and decided to head back to the car. I was going to go back to this spot near Kyneton where there was a winding river and an old road bridge to take some shots but I ended up getting lost on some country road. Almost ended up out in Woop Woop but navigated my way back onto the Calder and headed back towards Melbourne.

Next stop Melbourne Airport. Managed to get back to this destination at about 4.30pm just before sunset. Sat at the North end of the airport at Uniting Lane near a church. Apparently this is the best spot if you want to take photos of 747s coming into land. I sat there with my flask of coffee for about 2 hours hoping to see one come into land. Not one bloody Jumbo came into land. These things should be put on the endangered species list. This is the second time I've been out at the airport at this time and haven't seen one land. I'm not sure if they were landing from the south, I would of thought they would of only did that if the wind was coming from the north. However there was practically no wind today so I would of thought they would of landed from the North. Anyway I managed to catch a lovely bird of prey that started hovering down the road from my car and proceeded to fly up right in front of me so I wipped out the 70-200VR and took some happy snaps of it in full flight. I gave up waiting for the 747s at about 6.30pm and moved upto the runway where the domestics come in. Caught a few coming into land. I really need to know how you capture planes at night with some sort of body detail. If you crank the aperture wide open and the shutter down to expose the body with the lights blown you end up with less than sharp images (metering for the body). If you do the opposite and meter for the lights you end up with just a black frame with a few lights in the frame. Be nice to be able to sit out in the middle of the runway with a camera Anyway after a few shots I decided to head home. Will post some shots later on.

Kipper, Just a hint that may help next time;

planes always land and take off facing into the wind.

They may have been using the other runway,but even so you should have seen or heard them.

Yogi.

As I stated in the post, they usually land from the North unless there is a wind from the North. Today there was practically no wind - checked trees and the field for any signs of wind, couldn't see any. So going by that you'd assume they'd land from the North. I know they're doing upgrades at Melbourne airport I think for the new Airbus 380 or whatever it's called. Wouldn't have thought they would of closed the runway though.

I'll up the photo details later. Probably should of gone a higher ISO so that I could of gone a higher shutter speed. Kind of a rushed shot as I spotted the bird down the road. The next minute I know he's in front of me so I dived for the camera without checking settings. Although I just checked shutter speed was 1/320. Should of probably cranked ISO upto 400 and gone about 1/500.




Can somebody ID this bird for me. Can't be bothered looking it up

That's just lazy! It's a black-shouldered kite. You can tell it's a kite if it hovers like that. I saw one today at Braeside but it didn't come close enough. Looks like nice light.

Heheh.....sorry, posted the photo before the movie started. Yeah the light was great. Shame I didn't have a bigger lens and a faster shutter speed. The light was great, the sun was close to the horizon.

Oh just outside of Mt Macedon I saw a lovely set of old cars, was a wedding onterage. The bride looked very lovely. Almost tried to pull a Darb while driving but decided to give it a miss. Was tempted to drop back and follow them to get some shots of them turning upto the church.

Kipper a great shot considering the description of how you captured it more or less on the run. Question: there seems to be a tremendous amount of USM applied judging by the halation and and solid blocks of colour - is this correct?

There is some halanation that I've just noticed around the beak and legs. Let me see if I can fix it. The USM applied was 65%, perhaps it was a bit too much. I know I've read on here some people have applied this amount of USM before. Wasn't necessarily my final shot of this image. Was more a quick upload, hence why there is no border or anything.