Moomba Fest 7 march 09

Moomba is one of the largest and longest running festivals in Australia, and its held in my own backyard - Melbourne!


I was mostly on the Alexandria Gardens side (since most of the activities occur there). The weather was cloudy and a little cold, so naturally not many people were around on Saturday. It was the 2nd day of Moomba.


Imagine being flung in a capsule up to space. Its not free of course - 30AUD for starters!


There were kids everywhere.


I thought my equipment was pretty heavy ( I brought the 35-100 AND the 50-200), but what this guy brought stopped me in my tracks. I think* its a 400/2.8.The other one is a 70-200/2.8 IS on a 50D. And yes...



All the stalls never seem to run out of toys for display. Its either they're very generous or no one's winning anything!


The water sports were pretty amazing. I was unfortunately frustrated with Kim's slow 5FPS, and the 50-200 could barely keep up with the action!


But I have to admit, when the 50-200 locks in focus, the results are very impressive



more waves



I've never seen a sport where a guy is catapulted 60 meters into mid air while being towed by a speedboat. Only for people with nerves of steel (unlike me), phew!


And as always.. the Slumdog Millionaire hype kicks in.


The audience was invited to participate


and as usual.. Aussies are a pretty enthusiastic lot


I love shooting with the 35-100


@f2, its sharpness and bokeh is amazing!



Around 6, Jon G and I headed to Chinatown to meet the rest for dinner at Wing Loong

This is my table.


and this is the other table

I haven't showcased any food shots for a long while, so here are some:

charsiew pork with roast chicken


calamari in batter


stirfry beef


prawns with fishball and bak choy


and my favourite: spicy chicken ribs!


As there were only 3 guys, you can guess where all the food ended up in :)


YP got stanley a cake for his birthday

After dinner, I rushed to the river to photograph the fireworks.

I tried a shorter shutter speed as I didn't want the fireworks to be overexposed. The smoke still obscured the nice view of the city skyline, unfortunately.




After the fireworks, I headed to the Coca Cola arena to see who's on show.

There was a rock band on show, and though I didn't know any of their songs, the performance was sublime.


The 35-100 once again proved perfect for difficult lighting conditions. clap clap!




On another note, Olympus has finally ended the megapixel race at PMA (phew!) . Akira Watanabe from the Olympus planning department says that they will concentrate on better colour reproduction, dynamic range and high ISO performance.

He also boldly declares "We don't think 20 megapixels is necessary for everybody. If a customer wants more than 20 megapixels, he should go to the full-frame models".

Unfortunately, not everyone understands this.


I don't expect them to, either.