Hello,
We recently had a few days at the
Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort on
Moreton Island. MI is the 2nd largest sand island in the World, Fraser Island being the biggest.
The night scene (with my wife posing with binoculars), was taken in “The Desert”, a stunning, picturesque sand blow some 2 km inland from the resort. We made the 4km round trip (on foot) to arrive around 10:30pm, just as the last quarter Moon was rising. The exposure was 30 secs at 800ASA using the Canon 17-40mm and 40D. I really wanted to take a more ground level shot but gusty winds were blowing along the surface of the sand, generating small sand storms, so I kept the tripod at full height to prevent the camera and optics from being sand blasted!
The bird in flight shots were all taken with the Canon 70-200mm F4L on auto mode as the birds surprised me and I didn’t have the time to use more optimal manual settings. The pelican was panned and I was lucky enough to keep the bird mostly in focus whilst the background shows movement blur from the panning action.
The daylight sand blow shot was taken on a previous visit in June this year and shows the region from where we took the night shot.
Oh, and we got to feed the wild dolphins too! Thanks for looking.
Cheers
Dennis