Category Archives: forest

Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary

August 31, 20254X4, Australia, AWC, ferns, forest, Landscape, mosses/lichens, NSW, Plant, river/creeks, Stroud, trees, Waulinbakh, Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuaryadmin

A few days ago The Doc and his friend Steve visited Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary at Stroud New South Wales. Our guides for the day were AWC staff Elly and Josh.

Steve’s main objective was locating live myxos in the field. We had success locating 5 or 6 species. The Doc located the first myxos, but they were of poor quality, but later he spotted a large fallen tree which turned out to be a myxo gold mine. Steve’s find on the rotting tree included a myxo that had only ever been reported in NSW twice before (one of those sightings was by Steve). It was Steve and Josh who did all the heavy myxo lifting.

We met with three other AWC staff that day on site, one of the land managers Matt and two senior staff on visit to the sanctuary.

Steve and The Doc brought along morning tea and lunch, after an early visit to the Buladelah Bakery. Small thank you gifts to the AWC staff were also given.

We stayed at the Lady Jane Motel in Buladelah for two nights as part of the trip, run by a hard working family. They are in the process of renovating the motel. The room The Doc had was great, but the newly refurbished rooms were amazing. It was a great stay.

The myxos found are still being photographed by Steve. Steve has a self published a book of myxos here.

A big thank to Australian Wildlife Conservancy and the owners for allowing us to visit. Here are some images from the visit. The Sony P&S camera struggled in the low light conditions.

Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary this week

August 24, 20254X4, Australia, AWC, forest, Landscape, mountains, Plant, trees, Waulinbakh, Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuaryadmin

The Doc gets a guided tour of Waulinbakh Wildlife Sanctuary this week, provided the rain holds off. Mate Steve Young wil be looking for myxos in the field. Waulinbakh is privately owned but some conservation efforts are undertaken by AWC.

Piccaninny Plains revisited

July 31, 2025Australia, AWC, Cape York, forest, lakes, landscape, Landscape, Piccaninny Plains, plains, Qld, river/creeks, Uncategorisedadmin

AWC Supporter events are about to start at Piccaninny Plains on Cape York. The Doc visited back in 2014, and did a flyover in 2015 on Day 4 of the Cape York helicopter trip. It is a fantastic place and very different to others parts of Australia he has visited.

The Doc needed a break from the ongoing rehab and reprocessed some of his old images, using his new post processing techniques. They turned out great.

Most of the images were taken on the helicopter. Enjoy. Click on the first image to see a full size slideshow.

Woof, woof, woof, more barks!

June 10, 20214X4, Australia, bark, forest, Landscape, macro, moss & lichen, NSW, Plant, Textures, treesadmin

The Doc has been busy over the past couple of weeks processing bark images from Lismore Botanic Gardens plus some from the archives, over 300 images. A small sample from the colourful Corymbia family. Click on images to see them at at full size.

The Northern Kimberley

January 25, 20214X4, Australia, coastal, forest, Kimberley, Landscape, landscape, mountains, ocean, river/creeks, Uncategorised, WA, WAadmin

While staying at Drysdale River Station The Doc took a plane flight into the Northern Kimberly. Initially through Prince Regent National Park, then up to Mitchell Falls and back again.

Sorry about the funny colour cast and soft images, it was caused by the window on the plane. The best flight in that area without the high price tag of the helicopter flights at Mitchell Falls itself.

Textures – barks again

November 26, 2018Australia, bark, forest, Landscape, moss & lichen, NSW, Plant, Textures, treesadmin

Previously The Doc missed some shots but today everything went as expected, confirming he now has good in field technique when using the Post Focus feature on the Panasonic G9, even the hand-held shots worked today. The images are between 30 and 75 frames stacked into one image. Click on the images to see full size.

Textures: focus stacking in the field

November 20, 2018Australia, bark, forest, Landscape, macro, NSW, Plant, Textures, treesadmin

The Doc has been working on a new way to image stack in the field. He is using the Post focus feature on a Panasonic G9. Here are some of the sample images from recent field testing. Most images have somewhere between 17 and 50 images stacked together. The images are so sharp, that they look fake. The Doc is trying to soften the images in post-processing to make them look more realistic. Click on the images to see full size.

Goulburn River, Warrumbungles and the Pilliga

October 14, 2018Australia, AWC, bark, forest, Landscape, landscape, mountains, NSW, Piligia, Plant, Textures, trees, Warrumbungles NPadmin

The Doc’s last trip visited Central NSW and Outback Queensland to visit an AWC Sanctuary and visit collections of dinosaur fossils.

Part 1 concerns NSW, the Report is here.

mghother@internode.on.net

Focus stacking in the field

October 10, 2018Australia, bark, forest, Landscape, macro, NSW, Plant, Textures, treesadmin

It is been a while since The Doc’s last update, the to-do list was fairly long after the last trip. Sometimes blogging must wait.

One thing The Doc been working on is a quicker way to create focus stacked images in the field. This is primarily aimed at textures like bark, leaves, flowers, etc. The Doc is now using the Post Focus feature in a Panasonic Lumix G9 camera using an Olympus 30mm or 60mm macro lens.

The Post Focus feature can be used for focus stacking. Post Focus is a two-stage process. After placing the camera in Post Focus mode and pressing the shutter release the camera finds all the focus points in the image and then takes a 6K video of all those focus points. The process takes about 2 seconds after pressing the shutter release. The lens must be in autofocus mode.

You can stack images in-camera using the G9’s touch screen or use a program like Helicon Focus. I created some images from a recent visit to Mount Annan Botanic Gardens, The Doc used Helicon Focus in post processing (Helicon imports the 6K video then creates a super sharp focus stack). It was a windy that day limiting my subjects to barks from the Corymbia family. Below are a few images (click on image to see full size). This is a link to a 3D video of the one of the stacks, here.