The Traveling Nifty Fifty

I’ve been updating the blog with photos taken from all over the world with the traveling nifty fifty and it was finally time for the lens to visit me.  I was of course a little nervous about it because everyone only has a few days to take photos with the lens before shipping it to the next destination.  What if it rained all weekend like forecasted?  What if I didn’t find anything inspired to take a photo of?  I chose to travel deep within Taiwan’s mountains while continuing my neverending quest to visit all of Taiwan’s waterfalls.  Overall the weekend went great and I at least matched the high bar that had been set by previous nifty fifty photographers.  For more photos of the trip visit the two photoblogs on my website.  Hwy 16 and Shuanglong Waterfall and Shuiliandong (Water Curtain Cave) Waterfall

Dili is a small aboriginal village located along Hwy 16.  When I got out of my car to take statue pictures a grandmother working on her farm started waving me away.  I waved back and then I realized that she didn’t want me to take pictures of her.

Despite Taiwan’s close proximity the Chinese didn’t start settling the island until the 17th century.  Taiwan had been known to the Chinese for several hundred years but the Chinese were largely isolated during their history and lacked a navy or boats to settle and control Taiwan.  Instead Taiwan’s original inhabitants can be traced back to the Austronesian peoples that settled Polynesia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Oceania.  For thousands of years they lived without any interference from the Japanese or Chinese.  The Chinese began settling Taiwan in the 17th century and the aborigines now mostly live in remote mountain regions and make up only 2% of Taiwan’s population.

After a slightly unsuccessful waterfall adventure near Dili I drove 20-30 kms southwest where I found an excellent hiking trail and waterfall.

This was the view when looking down from the red bridge.  The waterfall is just around the corner of the gorge.

Shuiliandong waterfall.  I might not have considered or taken this photo if I wasn’t making a special effort to take a waterfall photo with the traveling nifty fifty.  I might have bumped the focus a little but I really like this photo.

My last destination was the very popular Sun Moon Lake since it was nearby.  I was unimpressed since the waters are usually a bright blue-green on sunny days but this is a really nice photo in a different kind of way.

Many people are not very familiar with South Africa and this project showed off some of the great sights in South Africa.  Noel did a lot of hard work coordinating the all of the people that used the lens and it’s only fitting that he was the final photographer.  One unfamiliar sight is spring arriving in October.  Not only does this feel strange to many northerners but it feels really strange to me since I’ve lived in southern Taiwan for 3 years and we barely have seasons here.

A Spring Iris showing off the versatility of the lens.

Ducklings look ready for a swim

Zoo Lake is a popular recreational spot in Johannesburg and affords some relief from the hustle and bustle of city life, and it is a wonderful spot to relax.

The remaining shots are from the Carlton Centre, at one stage the tallest building in Africa, some 50 stories high, it has views north, south, east and west.

Johannesburg Looking Southwest

Chuckie showed some of Johannesburg and Golden Gate National Park.

Here’s a panorama of 4 pictures of Golden Gate stiched using Microsoft ICE

Here is a picture of the Brandwag, a famous stone outcrop in the Golden Gate National Park neat the hotel there. I was hoping for a more spectacular sunset against the mountain, but not oranges and reds on that day.

This photo was taken of the snow on the Mountains in the Golden Gate National Park.

Welcome to Johannesburg, the city of gold during an early morning ruch hour.

I had fun one evening driving past downtown Johaneesburg on the M2 freeway. I kept on stopping next to the side of the road and a Metro police officer was getting worried that I was lost. I dont think he believed me when I said I was just taking photographs

Vanderbijlpark Hard at Work.  I took this photo one morning on the way in to work. The light reflected off the smoke from the stacks looked good.

Roel picked up the traveling nifty fifty just before a trip to the USA.  In just a couple of weeks the nifty has gone from Johannesburg to Denver to Chicago to Wisconsin and back to Johannesburg.

The surroundings in the arty Newtown area, Johannesburg have been brightened by this graffiti under the M1 motorway.

Early morning in Johannesburg, South Africa – the old Victorian buildings of Fordsburg contrast sharply with the modern downtown.

The propeller hub of a 1939 Tiger Moth presents a distinctly feminine form in this hanger in Krugersdorp, South Africa

Born at the same time and under similar circumstances to Johannesburg, 9000 ft high Cripple Creek in Colorado, USA has been preserved as a casino town.

The interior of the Double Eagle Casino in Cripple Creek, Colorado, is an assault on the senses. Here it is reflected in the mirrors next to the stairway.

Buildings in downtown Chicago, Illinois combine in a multiplicity of reflections, light and texture.

The waters of Lake Michigan bring welcome relief from a heatwave in Chicago, USA

Another great photoset from mslicat in Hopetown.

A view across the Old Hopetown bridge

A plant along the R369. I liked the way the light was catching this dried up pod.

From Abacus – A great landscape reflected in the horse’s eye.  You can even see the 6 bladed aperture in the sunstar.

A dead Springhare. One normally sees these at night so it was nice to see what one actually looks like even though it had died from what appeared to be natural causes

Sunset on the Platteland / Northern Cape

From Graham (Gray)

The Table Mountain massif dominates the city of Cape Town, it’s life and layout.

Cape Town is the cosmopolitan home to about 4 million people, situated at the south-western tip of Africa amongst some of the most breathtaking scenery in the world. The city, my home, is know as the “Mother City” of South Africa because it is the country’s oldest. Founded in 1652 by Dutch colonists as a refreshment station for their ships plying commercial trade between Holland and the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia), it was for centuries the European gateway to Africa. Immigrants looking for a new life, slaves imported from Java in the 18th century, fortune-seekers hunting wealth in the gold and diamond fields of South Africa in the 19th century, explorers, missionaries, soldiers have all passed through Cape Town on their way north.

These images of Table Mountain and Cape Town were taken in early June 2012 using the “Travelling Nifty 50” Pentax A-50/1.7 lens and a Pentax K-5 camera. The lens, although 30 years old, is more than up to the challenge of capturing the beauty of what Sir Francis Drake called this “fairest cape in the circumference of the World.”

The road south – 35 km to Cape Town: Table Mountain at sunset seen from the main highway connecting Cape Town and Namibia, 600 km behind us to the north.

A winter’s Saturday morning in June at the Milnerton flea market, Cape Town. The market is held every Saturday and Sunday, depending on the weather of course. Older classic Pentax lenses and cameras can often be found for sale at the stalls: search carefully and you may just find a gem like the SMC Pentax-A 50mm f/1.7 that was used to take this photograph.

Cape Town, the “Mother City” of South Africa, nestled at the foot of Table Mountain and at the south-western tip of the African continent, looking north.

With tough and leathery leaves designed to withstand the Cape’s long hot, dry summers, here is a typical but plain example of a plant that is a member of the Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest of the six floral kingdoms of the world. Cape Town’s CBD and harbour are in the background.

Winter Moonrise over the Swartland, 3 June 2012.  The Swartland is a large fertile wheat-growing area north of Cape Town.

Things have slowed with the lens and I have been really distracted posting the photos here. In Stellenbosch we saw a little of everything from mountains to vineyards and architecture.

View to Franschoeck

The vineyards

Hawthorne Berries

Table Mountain

Rustic surrounds in the centre of town

Cape Dutch architecture

Church Bells of Old

It took awhile but we are going to be introduced to South Africa during the next month or two.

The photos where all taken in the vicinity of Ellisras (now called Lephalale), a small town in the northern part of South Africa, not far from the Botswana border in the west with the Zimbabwean (formerly Rhodesia) border a little furter away towards the north. Ellisras is part of a region that is also known as the Bushveld. The Bushveld can be very hot in summer (up to 40 deg. Celcius) with mild, but long, dry winters.

There is a small rural dirt road known by the local farmers as the “Berg pad” or Mountain Road. It runs through a game farming area with numerous little farm roads turning out of this road. I often go ride there with my mountain bike and so most of the photos were taken somewhere along this road, the others were shot on a farm close to the start of this road.

Autumn in the Bushveld.

The water runs out of the mountain and is clean enough to drink.

This hill is actually a small mountain seen edge-on.

The trees made a nice natural frame for this farm road.

Pastel Colours at Sunset. This photo was taken late in the afternoon looking away from the sun towards the east.

So far everyone has been bringing their A game with the lens.  Jeff made excellent use of the morning light in the Appalachian Mountains.  And then he found time to do some artistic light painting.

This guy stuck his head through the fence repeatedly begging for attention, so curious and majestic at the same time.

This outdoor church is atop a mountain and is nothing more than an open grassy area overlooking the Appalachian Mountains. I love the colors of the morning sun as it splashed across the mountains.

I love the colors and the morning sun as it peeked over the mountains to the east.

My son after he got done using colored bubbles to paint the driveway…. gotta love boys!

This light painting was done by my wife and I near an arts district, this lonely chair sat with a pile of discarded furniture and shoes.

Most of the time the nifty fifty only has time to take one style of photographs but Spenz was able to do a little of everything in one night. Neon lights, concerts, dinner, architecture, abstract and long exposures. I’ve used my nifty fifty for concerts and it is outstanding if you are close enough.

This was the start of our night out. Dinner at Pier 66 in Seattle. Very low light situation so I thought I would put the Nifty Fifty to an early test at F1.7 and 3200 ISO. The prawns were good too.

The Smith Building in Seattle illuminated by the setting sun and with the First United Methodist Church in the foreground. This was an in-camera, handheld HDR shot just to test the capabilities of the K-5. The picture was cropped & sharpened a little in post but no other adjustments for exposure, color, etc.

The classic shot of the Pike Place neon sign. The most-visited tourist trap in Seattle with 10 million plus passing through each year.

Pike Place Market was empty and pretty much everyone was gone except for some maintenance people. Not even sure how we got past a couple doors that probably should have been locked but the neon really catches your eye.

The “Presidents of the United States of America” (aka PUSA) played at the Showbox in Seattle Feb 18, 2012. Great show and the Nifty Fifty worked as great, low-light concert lens.

The “Presidents of the United States of America” (aka PUSA) played at the Showbox in Seattle Feb 18, 2012. Great show and the Nifty Fifty worked as great, low-light concert lens.

I liked the abstract nature of the ceiling light just over where we were standing in the club.

The camera was on the railing of a pier as I didn’t have the luxury of a tripod that night. It took a few tries and I had to let go of my K5 while it balanced 30 ft over the ocean.

Accidental shutter press while still set at 20 seconds so I had a little fun with it.