Endless summer

It's my birthday. I am turning 32. I know 32 is not a big number but somehow i just feel that much older.  I spent the whole morning cleaning the house. It has been a mess for a long time and i was so busy "unwinding" from all the exam stress i couldn't be bothered doing house chores until now. I vacuumed the carpet, threw out all my study notes and did some laundry. Went out to the mall and grabbed a copy of the New Zealand D-Photo magazine, Dec/Jan 2011 issue. I brought it to a nearby homestead/cafe by a park, sat on the sunny veranda and read it while i drank a glass of hot sugarless soy latte with a perfect layer of foam on top. In this issue of D-Photo, they did a side by side review of Canon 60D, Nikon D3100 and Sony A55 SLT. The Canon scored 92%, Sony 90% and Nikon 88%. I was quite surprised that Nikon lost the show down to Sony. Then again lets not forget Nikon gets all their sensors from Sony. I thought it was a bit unfair to throw the 60D into the game sine 60D is a much bigger and serious camera weighing 200g more than the other two in this comparo and costs almost $700 more than the A55 and D3100.  The D3100 was let down by the poor performance of its kit lens.

I must say the Sony A55 is a very interesting gear with a bag full of fancy features. Sweep panorama mode and GPS geotagging are two of the most useful features. I have to constantly fight the urge to buy this little piece of art. One day i may cave.

There is a photography gear fest in Auckland tomorrow. I will TRY to go if i can wake up. It will be a struggle i tell you.
Took a walk in my neighbourhood in the afternoon and got excited when i saw the evening sun shining through the clouds in the slightly overcast sky. Got my camera out and took a few shots and here's what i got.

The first photo is my favourite.  How did i do it....  Everything can be done with photoshop. First i adjusted the levels to make the shadows darker and the midtone also darker.  I thought the clouds weren't standing out enough, so i applied a gradient filter on them. Then i played with the colour balance.

Some Hydrangeas, flowering gloriously under the summer sun.

Treated a few friends to dinner at one of the top ten japanese restaurants in Auckland, Sakebar on Manukau road, Epsom.  I love the atmosphere there. Very authentic japanese, very cosy. Their food is great too.