Another walk in the Lamington nation park

Border track near Binna Burra, Lamington national park. Fuji X-E1 & XF18-55mm

Another walk at the Lamington national park. I went to Binna Burra last Sunday, and did the Coomera circuit. It was misty, and the place got some rains in previous days. It was wet and muddy, but leaches appeared only after the Coomera falls. The famous Blue Lamington crayfish  walked in grass along the creeks. Notable change happen on the track: the park rangers cleared a new lookout at the edge of the Coomera gorge, with nice view towards Yarrabilgong falls.

Surprisingly, I got bitten by a tick, a very rare event for this track. Another unexpected and unpleasant finding: a small patch of Creeping Gloxinia, Lophospermum erubescens, growing somewhere in the middle of the rainforest. I saw the same species growing upstream of Elabana falls at Green Mountains / O'Reilly's section, but it seems Creeping Gloxinia is common across the park.

Any alternative to flickr?

I don't like the latest flickr layout. It just killed my social interactions. The latest layout is designed for touch screens and tablets but does not work for me on laptop or desktop. I am very flexible with computers: I work under both OS and Windows, and use Unix shell. Maybe I should embrace the new touch world and get a tablet, just to see how it would handle the current flickr layout.

The alternative solution would be migration to another photo hosting site. The major obstacle to such migration is the established communities on flickr. I don't know any other photo hosting site with groups interested in (Australian) vegetation. There are several such groups on flickr, and this is the main reason why I still keep my flickr account.

My problems: I  cannot figure out if it is possible to get the old style view for other photostreams, the same as "Edit" view on my photostream. The same for individual photographs. 

I may go back to RedBubble, but it is artistic. Photobucket has too much  ads.

Gold Coast, Australia

Walk near the Ocean. Gold Coast, SE Queensland

Pandanus trees, casuarinas, blue sky, serf, yellow shelters of lifesavers, tourists with cameras - it is Gold Coast. The place is extremely popular as a holiday destination for anyone enjoying a mass socializing or shopping.

Fuji X-E1 & XF18-55mm. Shot as JPEG, with minor tweaking in GIMP. More hi-res pictures on my fickr pag.

Hotel at Gold Coast

Where is the XF10-24mm?

November 20 is over, and there was no announcement of XF10-24mm f4.0 from Fuji. The lens is still listed for the release in 2013 on the X Mount Lens Roadmap (September 2013 version of the roadmap). It seems that some people might get a nice present for Christmas :)

On slightly different topic: Fuji X100S is selected for "gear of the year" review by DPReview, and this revived my gear acquisition syndrome. While I have not tried the "S" version, the previous model was extremely comfortable to handle, and the viewfinder was just amazing.

Olympus did it again

Olympus OM-D E-M1 is among the most popular mirrorless cameras on Amazon. Not surprising, considering that this model is positioned as a successor of 4/3 DSLR cameras. Unfortunately, it was not available a year ago when I shopped for a mirrorless camera.

Fuji XF10-24mm in less than two weeks

The announcement of wide-angle zoom Fujinon XF10-24mm F4.0 R OIS is rumored for November 20 (through the Mirrorless rumors site). I am very curious about this lens. All XF lenses produced so far are very good, and wide-angle zoom is a very attractive option for people interested in nature-oriented photography. There are places where zoom by legs is not recommended :)

Sony Alpha day in Brisbane

Several very interesting cameras were released in last few months. Sony continues to amaze me. Their RX10 is a dream camera: 1'' sensor, 24-200mm (eqv) F2.8 lens, tilting screen, very good OLED EVF, build-in flash. The dream comes with a hefty price tag. The introductory price here is Brisbane is just slightly under 1,400AUD. It is a bit heavy, over 800g (not surprising considering the lens). 

While RX10 is not on my shopping list now, I am very curious about this camera. It seems that I may have an opportunity to try it this Saturday here in Brisbane: Digital Camera Warehouse will host(? have?) an ALPHA day on November 9 (10am -3pm). The full-frame mirrorless cameras A7 and A7R will be shown, too.

I've bought a couple things from this shop, and have very pleasant experience with their stuff.