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I went with the family to the Q1 building at Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast yesterday evening. We had a very nice dinner on the observation deck (level 77) and took in the 360 degree views of the coast and hinterland. The lift from ground level to level 77 took just 42 seconds! I of course took my camera to make a few images. The gear I took was the D700 with 24-120 and a tripod. Anticipating dirty windows and reflections I also took with me some Windex, a window cleaning cloth and a 'lens skirt' which my dear partner made for me a couple of days earlier.

So as dusk approached I set up the camera on a tripod, cleaned the window through which I chose to shoot and took a series of frames as the sun went down. I would have liked to taken a few different viewpoints but there were quite a few people around and I decided to stay with the one spot. There were lots of people with cameras, most with built in flashes popping off - my guess is that their images would have been quite diassapointing.

This first image presented (the last shot of the evening I took as a reference/comparision image) was taken without the 'lens skirt' and as you can see there are horrendous reflections and also due to the interior lighting, horrible colour casts. The second image is with the 'lens skirt' fitted, the results of which I think speak for themselves. (24mm, 25 sec @ f20, ISO 200)





edit: added another version of the image below as I just noticed the blue colour cast to the line of surf.

Hi Geoff - nice work with the lens skirt - I've heard of these (ones you can buy) - you say your partner made it - care to take a photo of it for us?

Remorhaz wrote:Hi Geoff - nice work with the lens skirt - I've heard of these (ones you can buy) - you say your partner made it - care to take a photo of it for us?

Will do - image to follow later. You can puchase them from a company in the US for $50 + post. Mine cost me $4 for some suction caps, material (fabric) used was offcuts we already had at home.

Lens Skirt details:

Fairly heavy fabric with sewn panels approx 300mm wide reducing to 250mm wide by 200mm deep on two sides and 250mm wide reducing to 200mm wide by 200mm deep on the adjacent sides. The section used to fix to the lens is approx 120mm deep and has a draw string to tighten around lens. A suction cap is sewn into each corner for fixing to the window.

Interesting, and yet another thing to carry?

Great spot is the Q1. We were there (several times) earlier in December. Did you buy the yearly pass for $8 more than the single lift ticket?

I can also thoroughly recommend the fish and chips there too, and the high tea. Great stuff indeed and some nice photos.

Looking good Geoff, just be careful that there is no color cast from the blue fabric. So do you have a female name for your camera wearing a skirt?

'That lens skirt looks good, and the results are stunning! Great stuff!

Lens skirt reminds me of how I used to photograph the images on computer monitors and TV screens way way back before digital photography. Used a similar setup to blackout the screen from reflections using a hood made from black cloth.