Happy Birthday Luka!

My baby puppy Luka turned one today...

I can't believe that he's one year old already! Here's a few baby puppy photos of Luka....isn't he just soooo cute?!

Anyways, there was still a little light left when I got home from work so we whisked off to the beach so Luka could have a fun birthday beach walk and play fetch (which he looooooves!) and I could have a play with my camera.

I had heaps of fun having a play and mucking around trying out different things so I ended up with a lot of misfocused shots and getting a decent exposure was tricky with it getting darker every second! Bring on daylight savings! Anyway, I had a great time (and so did Luka and Molly!) and I even tried out continuous burst shooting which was pretty cool....I really love my camera!

I love my new camera!

After visiting Clara earlier this month and talking photo stuff with her I became really keen to get myself a DSLR camera....I found learning about all the camera stuff so fascinating...shutter speed, aperture, iso - it all makes sense to me now! :-)

After pestering Clara with a million questions the end result is that I am the very proud owner of a Canon EOS 50D and a Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L IS USM lens! (a month ago all those letters and numbers would have just been gibberish to me! lol...)

I'm already entranced by how fast it shoots and the quality of photos that can be achieved...and I don't even know what I'm doing yet! I can't wait until I know how to use it properly and (hopefully) my photos will get better!

The weather has been absolutely miserable here over the last few days so they are mostly indoor photos...the first five were taken last night - I'm impressed by how a high iso can really compensate the fact that they were all taken in very dim corners of the house (except for the one of Luka which was him in the kitchen with a decent fluoro light).

All inside photos were taken with a 50mm 1.8 (an awesome lens that Clara gave me - it's very cool!)..

The last six photos were taken in the backyard with my 70-200mm in a brief break in the weather (seriously half an hour later it was bucketing down again!)

So here they are....

Elephants!

Here's a couple of videos I took of the elephants at Taronga Zoo.

Taronga Zoo.

I love animals so it goes without saying that I loved Taronga Zoo...We spent all day there but still didn't see it all.
I think you'll be able to tell what my favourite animals were from the photos. :-)

Oh and please appreciate the elephant photos! In order to get those photos I had to kneel on top of a pillar of bricks in this little pagoda thing to get an unobstructed view. That wasn't so bad in itself but I was also getting hit in the head by (heavy!) golden medallions attached to some decorative scarves that were hanging from the ceiling of the pagoda! Not fun! Worth it now I look at the photos but really not fun at the time! So please...enjoy!

Quay

Quay was the last restaurant we visited in Sydney and upon reviewing all three restaurants I think it was my favourite. Everything was outstanding at Quay. The food, the atmosphere and the service. It was all just wonderful! I'm not at all surprised at Quay being awarded Restaurant of the Year by the SMH Good Food Guide and Australian Gourmet Traveller. The other wonderful thing about Quay was that we felt quite comfortable there (we felt a little out of place at Bilson's and Tetsuya's) but Quay seemed relaxed but friendly and still provided excellent service and food.

All in all a wonderful restaurant and dining experience. :-) I would love to go there again one day...

Tetsuya's Restaurant

What can I say about Tetsuya's Restaurant...it was truly an amazing experience. I will admit not all the food was exactly to my taste since I'm not really a huge sashimi fan - but Mike thought that everything was fantastic. The whole experience of a twelve course degustation menu was something I will never forget. The staff were all super attentive which I found a little disconcerting but we certainly were never left wanting for anything! In fact when Mike went to find the men's room and he approached one of the waiters he got as far as 'Can you -' before the waiter said 'Right this way' and showed him the way! Downright intuitive! :-)

Apologies for the blurry photos but taking good photos with only intimate restaurant lighting available is a bit too hard for me and my camera! If only I had Clara's 5D Mark II with its super high ISO! :-P

Bilson's Restaurant in Sydney

I went on holiday with my husband Michael to see my sister Clara, her husband Phan and my gorgeous 2 year old niece Elizabeth in Brisbane. We stayed with them for a week and had a fantastic time...I miss them all heaps already! After spending a week with them we spent a few days in Sydney before coming home.

Since this blog is currently mostly for the benefit of Clara and she was obviously there for all the fun in Brissie I thought I'd skip to the part of my holiday she wasn't there for.

The restaurants we went to in Sydney were definitely the highlight of our trip (although I really loved Taronga Zoo as well). But I haven't had time to sort through all my zoo pics yet so just cos I know Clara has been hanging out for foodie pics here are my photos from Bilson's Restaurant in Sydney.

For Clara...

This blog has come into being because of my sister Clara. In my desperate attempt to stay off Facebook we compromised and I said I would start up a blog instead. :-)

In truth I've actually been toying with the idea of starting a blog for a while but in my usual procrastinating style it just never came about.

So, here is my first post on my new blog just for Clara...more interesting stuff coming soon I promise!