Taking my shiny new camera for another walk -- this time to Punchbowl Lookout, which is an easy hike, a kilometer in, same out on the same trail, albeit uphill ... and I could have wished for beautiful weather to road-test the aforementioned camera. The conditions at Onkaparinga Gorge were so dark, the camera popped the auto-flash, in broad daylight, at ten o'clock in the morning! Not only that, it was chilly and blustery. February?!
(Fair enough ... we'll be back up to 30C+ in a few days, with some modest heat for about 72 hours before we dip back into the 20s; but this ain't February weather, folks. Not even close. Back in November, when the heat began, the long-range forecasters warned about a long, super-hot summer. We got colossal temperatures in January (and the fires I woll never forget as long as I live). Then this. And although I have to say I'm completely relieved to not have to contend with 40 degree heat for week after week, I also have to note that this February weather is atypical. Abnormal. Not right. Something is ... wrong. Weather reports from Antarctica last week recorded 20C temperatures one day. It was as warm there as here. Say, what now???)
Anyway -- Punchbowl Lookout, in dismal conditions:
The awful conditions at least gave me a chance to work hard with the camera, make it produce images that could be "rescued" in the computer later. These have all been heavily tweaked to make it look as if the sun came out; but if you look at any shot on which the sky shows, you'll see that Mister Blue was well and truly in hiding. Took a lot of work in the computer to get these images up to speed, and I must go back to Punchbowl with the Lumix, when the sun is shining.
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