60mm f/4.0 1/5s ISO800
I was up at 5am today for a flight to Sydney and spent the afternoon seeing customers at Westmead Children’s Hospital. It’s now almost midnight and I need to go to bed!
After work today, my head was cloudy and I felt like I needed to decompress. The plan was to have dinner with friends at Bondi Beach, so I jumped in the car and drove through an hour of Sydney traffic to Maroubra Beach (where my friends live). I took 45 minutes out for myself, just me and my camera. I wandered in the sunshine taking pictures of the surfers and swimmers at play. It was just the ticket. I had been feeling very melancholy, even a little teary, but the sun, breeze and beachy air sorted me out.
I met my friends and we headed to Bondi Beach for a sneaky cocktail and a scrumptious Italian dinner. After dinner, we walked down to Bondi Beach and went for a stroll. The light was fading fast but I managed to get a couple of shots that I am happy with and I even had a play with out-of-focus shots, I’ve posted the black and white version below.
So, you can see in the earlier shots at Maroubra, there is more available light, so I can use a small aperture (f/22) which means more of the scene should be in focus. I can also use a shorter shutter speed (1/100s) which means there shouldn’t be blur. These were taken at about 5:30pm.
The shots at Bondi were taken at 8:30pm and the sun had set. The shutter speeds are very slow (1/10s) and the aperture is wide open to allow a lot more light in to hit the sensor (f/2.8).
All photos were taken hand-held, I haven’t gotten to the stage of bringing a tripod with me yet! So, they aren’t as sharp as I’d like, but I thought they show the differences in some of the settings.
Check out the other rehab posts at the Photo101 Rehab Clinic. Instructions for joining in are also located at the same link.
x desleyjane
Musings of a Frequent Flying Scientist 
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