Summer Holidays on the Gold Coast

Livnius

Top Veteran
Location
Melbourne. Australia
Name
Joe
I've posted a handfull of these up already in various threads, done and dusted with the post processing of the whole set so here they are.

Spent the summer holidays on the Gold Coast with family and friends, Coolangatta to be precise and it was my first time back since 2005 when I spent almost 2 years living and working up there before returning home to Melbourne, so in many ways this holiday felt like a bit of a homecoming too. To be honest I didn't shoot as much as I'd hoped, but then again, with these beaches and surf its not so surprising is it?. Still, I think I got some decent shots out of it. My kit for the trip was the Panasonic GX7 and a maiden outing with my new to me LX100...a camera which I'm really digging. Regarding the GX7, although I had a bunch of lenses I used it mostly as a digital back for my telephoto lenses to capture some surfing action, a job it and the lenses did well. This was my first attempt at Surf Photography and I have to say, it's an incredibly fun thing to do....holidays by beautiful beaches taking photos....what's not to like? even if admittedly it was difficult at times resisting the temptation to get in there myself, the ocean is a magical place, simply just being in its waters feels almost life giving. These surf shots were all taken at a place called "Snapper Rocks"....its my understanding that before the government stopped the dredging of the adjacent Tweed River shipping channel the waves would form into what locals call a 'superbank' creating neat sets of waves that could be riden all the way from Snapper Rocks to Kirra Beach 3 kilometres away. Snapper Rocks surf spot is a very photographer friendly location as its long rock formation protrudes into the surf allowing the shooter to get in nice and close to the action...the Panasonic 100-300mm hardly got pushed out further than 200-250mm.


Can't wait to go back....so much so in fact that we've already rebooked for next summer :)




1. (LX100)
View attachment 106330
Summer Holidays Snapper Rocks-1
by Livnius, on Flickr




2.(LX100)
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Summer Holidays Snapper Rocks-2
by Livnius, on Flickr




3. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Snapper Surf 2
by Livnius, on Flickr




4. (GX7)
16333934846_1c18e07c81_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Snapper Surf 1
by Livnius, on Flickr




5. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Snapper Surf 3
by Livnius, on Flickr




6. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Snapper Rocks Surf 10
by Livnius, on Flickr




7. (GX7)
16359855485_d93bfce087_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Snapper Rocks Surf 9
by Livnius, on Flickr




8. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Snapper Rocks Surf 11
by Livnius, on Flickr




9. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Snapper Surf 8
by Livnius, on Flickr




10. (GX7)
View attachment 106339
Summer Holidays - Snapper Surf 4
by Livnius, on Flickr




11. (GX7)
15737421794_3d45362e67_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Snapper Surf 5
by Livnius, on Flickr




12. (GX7)
16359858775_454b5f2081_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Snapper Rocks Surf 6
by Livnius, on Flickr



13. (GX7)
16359856925_389b91ba1b_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Snapper Rocks Surf 7
by Livnius, on Flickr








14. (LX100)
Out 'local' beach for the 2 weeks we were there, the southern tip of Greenmount Bay.
16358993432_b74ecf6c0b_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Greenmount Bay Headland
by Livnius, on Flickr




15. (LX100)
16333921946_ceb4cf05a7_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Poolside Spider
by Livnius, on Flickr




16. (LX100)
View attachment 106345
Summer Holidays - Dragon
by Livnius, on Flickr




17. (LX100)
15737447004_36d3d24a62_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Kirra Beach
by Livnius, on Flickr




18. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Kirra to Surfers Paradise
by Livnius, on Flickr




19. (GX7)
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Summer Holidays - Surfers Paradise
by Livnius, on Flickr




20 (GX7)
View attachment 106349
Summer Holidays - Rainbow Bay Photographer
by Livnius, on Flickr




21. (LX100)
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Summer Holidays - Rainbow Bay
by Livnius, on Flickr




22. (GX7)
View attachment 106351
Summer Holidays - Greenmount Bay to Kirra
by Livnius, on Flickr






23. (GX7)
Watching the sun set over Greenmount Bay and the Gold Coast hinterland.
16173664179_09f49fd6ca_h.jpg

Summer Holidays - Greenmount Bay Sunset
by Livnius, on Flickr




24. (LX100)
View attachment 106353
Summer Holidays Snapper Rocks-4
by Livnius, on Flickr




25. (LX100)
16173653489_46a1192a43_h.jpg

Summer Holidays Snapper Rocks-5
by Livnius, on Flickr
 
That's a wonderful set Joe. I've been admiring various of these shots in other threads and liking them all. The surf shots, as I've noted elsewhere (maybe on Flickr?) are wonderful - I've tried a bit of surf shooting but never with a long enough lens or getting close enough myself to come remotely close to the results you're getting here. Out of curiosity, were you just using single shot AF or continuous - one shot at a time or burst mode? I find this sort of thing easy to do with the Df, but I'll never carry the kind of reach with that camera that I did with m43 and that you had available for this shooting. I never found tracking AF worth a damn with m43, but times have changed, so maybe it's better... For some types of sports action with m43 I could pre-focus on a specific spot (like home plate in baseball) and then shoot bursts to get the right moment, but trying to focus while tracking a moving subject was nearly impossible.

As for the LX100 shots, they're beautiful. There are a couple of missing features plus the limited focal length at the long end that were deal breakers for me, but with just a couple more features I'd have probably ended up buying one anyway - I just love the look and the depth of the files I'm seeing with it - these are very strong examples. I have a G7X, which is great for my needs, but the larger sensor of the LX100 just gives it something extra and I really like...

I assume the city in the background of some of these shots is Brisbane???

-Ray
 
Thanks guys.

@Ray....the city in the background is Surfers Paradise, central hub of the Gold Coast....Brisbane though, the states capital, is about an hour further north. Up the coast.

A couple of months back someone posted on the sister site a link to a 5 minute YouTube tutorial where a sports photographer described his method for shooting sports with a Panasonic body, I'm not too well versed in all the AF-tracking-continuous on-sensor type focusing jargon (it's all Greek to me)....but this guy showed step by step how to set up a GH4 and/or a GX7 for a back-button AF-C type arrangement.....as long as you keep the subject in the central area of the EVF and keep holding down the back-button you should be good, especially with a sport where the movement of the action follows a consistent and predictable path. Worked really well I think as I had only a very small number of OOF throwaways. Yeah, I had the camera set to burst mode too which I think for this kind of stuff is probably a must. One thing I really do like about the panasonic cameras is that there are 3 available positions on the top mode dial which makes it super easy to go from my regular A mode with single shot centre point focus, centre weighted metering etc....to something like this custom setup which I had saved to the mode dial position C1. I find this arrangement hurts my brain less than the Olympus 'Mysets'. I imagine that a full blown DSLR will outshine any m43 camera with regards to AF tracking and sports photography in general, but given that I don't do too much sports stuff I found the GX7 solution worked well enough In this case.

I think the LX100 held up really well, I had the opportunity to read up plenty of reviews before my pre-order arrived so I was well aware of what to expect.....and sure enough my assessment is pretty much in line with what the interwebs have been saying......it's not brilliant at any one thing, merely really good at several things. For some, that may not be enough, for me however it is... image quality I feel is close enough m43 quality for it to not be an issue, insanely good video specs too, I like the manual controls and EVF a lot as well ....with trips planned to the Gold Coast over the summer and a snowboarding trip to Japan (with a few days in Tokyo) in March, I didn't dare dream of a better 'quality compact' to suite my own individual needs, so for me it was a no brainer. With a much dwelled upon move away from m43 to a D610 setup more than likely (and sooner rather than later) I think the LX100 will serve me well as the full frame kits small yet capable little side-kick.





That's a wonderful set Joe. I've been admiring various of these shots in other threads and liking them all. The surf shots, as I've noted elsewhere (maybe on Flickr?) are wonderful - I've tried a bit of surf shooting but never with a long enough lens or getting close enough myself to come remotely close to the results you're getting here. Out of curiosity, were you just using single shot AF or continuous - one shot at a time or burst mode? I find this sort of thing easy to do with the Df, but I'll never carry the kind of reach with that camera that I did with m43 and that you had available for this shooting. I never found tracking AF worth a damn with m43, but times have changed, so maybe it's better... For some types of sports action with m43 I could pre-focus on a specific spot (like home plate in baseball) and then shoot bursts to get the right moment, but trying to focus while tracking a moving subject was nearly impossible.

As for the LX100 shots, they're beautiful. There are a couple of missing features plus the limited focal length at the long end that were deal breakers for me, but with just a couple more features I'd have probably ended up buying one anyway - I just love the look and the depth of the files I'm seeing with it - these are very strong examples. I have a G7X, which is great for my needs, but the larger sensor of the LX100 just gives it something extra and I really like...

I assume the city in the background of some of these shots is Brisbane???

-Ray
 
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