Luna Park – Just for Fun – St Kilda beach area
This morning I suddenly remembered that I’d forgotten to post the photos I took of Luna Park on Saturday. Like many beachside suburbs/towns, St Kilda beach and pier (which I often photograph) has a fun fair between the beach, esplanade, the houses and shops.
Not my ‘cup of tea’, but I did take some random photos as I walked along the street to get to the tram stop. I think I might have had the DSLR on the ‘sports’ setting as the photos captured some of the rides & roller coaster in the distance and froze the action (or pretty much froze the action).
You can read about Luna Park at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luna_Park,_Melbourne. It’s based on many other Luna Parks and is quite old. I think it was restored in the late 1990s.
I was standing on the other side of the street and was amazed that you could see the people’s faces as they rode the roller coaster ride – another reason why I love this 18-200mm telephoto lens. I’m probably beginning to sound ‘like a broken record’ in my praise of this lens, but truly, it was worth every cent I paid for it. If you’ve just bought your first DSLR camera and can only afford one lens, then this should be it (in my opinion as an amateur photographer).
And if you live in a country with very bright sun like I do, do buy a polarizing lens and a lens hood for the summer and when you’re near water. It makes all the difference.
The first photo shows where I’m standing on the street and how far away the park rides are. I must have had the polarizing lens turned to its bluest setting. This was not deliberate. I can’t see the difference in the varying shades of blue as one turns the lens to each 90 degree angle outdoors with my distance spectacles on.
I did test the polarizing lens on a white wall at home just after I bought it, and think that for the most vibrant colours, you need the lens with the tiny mark at the top of your camera to get such vivid blue sky, but as I said in the beginning of the post, these were just random shots walking along the street. I didn’t look at the DSLR settings before I took the photos.
This is also another reason why you should take your camera everywhere – you never know what photo subject you will encounter.
And finally, what looks like a Long-billed Corella bird high up in the palm treee next to the amusement park entrance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Corella before. They’re very similar to our cockatoos.
They have a longer beak and are predominantly white with a pink forehead, face and throat.
It’ll be back to nature photos in the next post I think. A visit to the zoo to try and capture an image of the new baby elephant born last week is on the ‘to do’ list.
Love the vibrant colors and the stop action. I always forget to rotate my polarizing filter – good reminder.