My Swag and Hootchie Shelter

Jo-anne bought me for my Christmas present a New Oz Trail Swag the other day for when I go camping. I wanted to add to my gear and was lucky today. I was at the op shop earlier and got three hootchies (Real army ones not copies) and two aluminium snow skiing poles that i cut the handles off and used as really light weight tent poles. The two auscam hootchies are used for the tent the drab green is the floor, canvas swag with oz trail sleeping bag rated to -5 degrees C a wool blanket, pillow, mattress, nylon mattress cover. I had to buy some pegs and I already had 25m of paracord.

The reason for the extra tent coverage over the swag and extra blankets is I go camping in the Alpine High Country, -2c in November up there

I have also got some other gear for camping as listed below.

So price breakdown is as follows...

Oz Trail Wentworth Swag $100 off bought for $149 (NEW)
Oz Trail -5 degree Jumbo Sleeping Bag 50% off $59 (NEW)
3 Genuine Army Hootchies and small ground sheet $10 (OP Shop)
2 Ski Poles(Tent Poles) $6 (OP Shop)
2 x 2m Ocky Straps $5 (NEW)
10 Meters Para-cord $12.50 (NEW)
Heavy Duty Tent Pegs x 10 $7 (NEW)
Doona Cover to cover mattress $5 (OP Shop)
Wool Blanket $5 (OP Shop)
Pillow (FREE) Already Had
Sleeping Bag Liner $2 (OP Shop)
Genuine Trangia Hiking Spirit Stove Set $2.50 (OP Shop) Retails at $125
Camel back Olive Green Hydration Pack $4 (OP Shop)
Extra Mattress for swag (FREE) Already Had
1 liter Aluminium Bottle for Metho for Stove (FREE) from free box at op shop
Camp Cookware $1 (OP Shop)
1 Army issue Angle Torch (Free) from friend
4 Ever Ready Electric Glow Sticks $8 on special at supermarket
Collapsing Table Lightweight $20 (NEW)
Folding Stool $5 (OP Shop)
Cooking Utensils including 100+ year old carbon steel carving knives

I have a friend building a trailer to go behind my motorbike to carry my camping gear so am well on the way to being mobile and the bike can go most places a 4x4 can go so I will be camping off the beaten track

I also need to get a small (12 inch) chainsaw for firewood collection and a few other bits of kit

My Portable Gadget Collection

So what portable gadgets do you have ? I have a smallish collection of gadgets that I use when out and about as well as at home, I do not take all of them out all of the time it just depends what I am doing, so here are my go to gadgets sort of in the order of most use...

Galaxy SIII in pebble blue 16GB with 16GB Memory card

Plantronics Discovery 975 bluetooth headset for phone calls with my Galaxy SIII

Kindle Keyboard WiFi version with 3GB of storage

Yaesu VX-6R VHF/UHF 5watt Handheld HAM radio

Galaxy TAB 10.1 Ver 2 16GB WiFi with 32GB Memory Card

Bluetooth Keyboard/Stand/Cover for Galaxy Tab 10.1

Nokia Stereo Bluetooth Headset for music

Varta V Man 3 USB lithium battery pack to charge phone etc on the go

Pentax K100D DSLR this is in a waterproof tough case with heaps of lenses and  other stuff
including Memory Cards, Batteries, Filters, Remote's, Time lapse controller etc

Goal Zero Nomad 7 Solar panel with AA USB battery pack/charger for
solar charging  of phones and other devices

Drouin Library

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  7 secs 200 ISO No Flash

 18 April 2012

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Arum Lily

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/1000 sec 1600 ISO No Flash

 24 May 2012

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Mortimer

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/180sec 200 ISO No Flash

 17 April 2012

Post Processing: Straight off of Camera  Added watermark

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Dark Stain

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  6sec's 3200 ISO Flash

 19 April 2012

Dark Stain

Post Processing: Cropped and added watermark

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Ranges In The Morning

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/90sec 400 ISO No Flash

 17 April 2012

Ranges In The Morning

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Resting in the Shadows

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/350sec 200 ISO No Flash

 17 April 2012

Resting in the Shadows

Post Processing: Adjusted Histogram to darken slightly and added watermark

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Mellow Yellow

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/250sec 200 ISO No Flash

 26 March 2012

Mellow Yellow 

Post Processing: Cropped and watermark added and background blurred slightly

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Predator

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/500sec 200 ISO Flash

 26 March 2012

Predator
Post Processing: Adjusted histogram to darken background flash was used during the shot so the
 background was very dark anyway, added watermark

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

In a Rush

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/180sec 200 ISO No Flash

 26 March 2012

In a Rush

Post Processing: Cropped added frame, rounded corners, desaturated and added sepia tone,

added grain and adjusted histogram then added watermark

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Purple Posy

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/30sec 200 ISO No Flash

 4 April 2012

Purple Posy

Post Processing: Darkened shadows added watermark

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Blossom in Oil

Pentax K100D with Sigma 28-80mm lens 1/30sec 800 ISO No Flash 

7 April 2012

Blossom in Oil

Post processing: Images was cropped, background was blurred, canvas effect added and oil painting filter applied. Softglow filter was applied to rose. Watermark was added.

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Catch of the Day

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens  1/180sec 200 ISO No Flash

 4 April 2012

Catch of the Day

Post Processing: Cropped and Watermark added.

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Ray of Hope

Pentax K100D with Sigma 28-80mm lens 1/20sec 200 ISO No Flash

17 April 2012

Ray of  Hope

Post Processing: Image was cropped and histogram adjusted to darken the mid-tones and bring out the shaft of sunlight Watermark was added.

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Ice Cold

Pentax K100D Asahi 55mm Manual Prime lens with 30mm Macro Extension Tube 1/125sec 800 ISO No Flash

17 April 2012

Ice Cold

Post Processing: Cropped Desaturated adjusted Histogram to bring out highlights and added my watermark.

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Switch Blade

Pentax K100D Asahi 55mm Manual Prime lens with 30mm Macro Extension Tube 1/4000sec 200 ISO No Flash

17 April 2012

Switch Blade

Post Processing: Cropped and added my watermark.

The depth of field is very shallow about 4mm

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Hanging On

Pentax K100D Asahi 55mm Manual Prime lens with 30mm Macro Extension Tube 1/4000sec 200 ISO No Flash

17 April 2012

Hanging On

Post Processing: Cropped and added my watermark.

The flower is about 1cm in size, I found it while crawling around

in the front yard looking for blades of grass for the photo 'Switch Blade'

It was a single flower growing in amongst the weeds.

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

Wall Flower

Pentax K100D Sigma 28-80mm lens in Macro 1/60sec 200 ISO No Flash

28 February 2012

Wall Flower

Post Processing: Blurred lower left corner of concrete as it was in focus while the rest of the background was out of focus, this was caused by the background sloping relative to the flower, cropped and added my watermark.

This work by Mark Clohesy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License

In A Rush

In A Rush

Well I have had my Pentax Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera (DSLR) for a few weeks now and finally have my work flow down pat... This is the process I take to get from subject to final image...

 1. Photograph the subject in raw mode and usually take three photos of the same subject at different exposures so I can pick the best. One at normal exposure, one 1 stop underexposed and one 1 stop over exposed. This also allows me to create High Dynamic Range images If I want to however for HDR you need to use a tripod so the camera does not move.

When I take the photo I am only shooting at 6.1 Mega-pixels as that is all the K100D does. I take the data in RAW mode not Jpeg and that takes about 22 Megabytes per image so over 60 Meg for the three images. The 6.1 Mega-pixel image from the DSLR is far better in quality and colour reproduction then my AUD $60 14 Mega-pixel cheapish point and shoot. This is mainly due to the real lenses in front of the sensor rather then a small lens. That and the size of the CCD sensor.

 2. Transfer the images to my computer still in RAW mode with photo management software called DigiKam for Linux.

 3. Convert the RAW image to loss less PNG format with no other effects or editing, this means I can edit in PNG and not lose any of the image due to the compression used in Jpeg images. I the delete the RAW images to free up drive space. Each image is now around 8-10 Megabytes instead of 22.

 4. Rename the images so I have sequential numbering of ALL my photos stored on the computer. I have a 320 Gigabyte external drive just for photos.

 5. Create a thumbnail image of the photo say image 0000534.png to a file of 200 pixels wide with a filen ame of _thb_0000534.png. This is for my gallery of Unedited pics I have on my home server so I am not loading the full image from the server unless I need to.

 6. Copy the original image and the thumbnail image to the file server inside the house, I now have 2 copies of the image one on my external hard drive and one on the server as well as the thumbnail.

 7. Edit, crop, adjust colours etc and add my watermark in the Gimp for Linux and save to a directory called final edit and create another thumbnail of the final picture.

 8. Upload the final thumb and photo to the home server in full resolution still around 8 megabytes.

 9. Upload the image to my Flickr account at 1024x768 and post it to my blog or facebook. All of the renaming, RAW to PNG conversion and thumbnail creation is done in batch processing within DigiKam and is fully automatic once it is running so that is pretty easy.

I also do not delete any images as you never know what you will need. I am also working on a long term photography project the requires 1000's of images of flowers but that will take a while although I took nearly 100 photos on this afternoons walk and about 80 of the would have been of flowers so I am getting there... Here is a final image I did for Jo-anne (Blossy)

Digital SLR gives me more exercise then the exercise bke

I actually went for a long walk today. I wanted to take photos and cant really do that unless I am on foot, I walked for about an hour and covered about 2kms just strolling along snapping pics... Worked up a sweat and another 92 photos for the collection, so expect some to turn up on flickr and facebook soon as well as here on the blog

Microwave Beacon Removal GGREC

We went to Frankston today and removed the faulty 1.2GHz and 2.4GHz beacons so that they can be rebuilt