Hamish smokes outside at Mt Victoria. Photo: Luke Appleby

The photo shows two moments in time. Or maybe one – I’m not sure which. I love the motion and the extra colours you get from slow-sync photos, even if the colour balance in the flash image is a little bit blue.

I used my Canon 7D with a Speedlite 580 EX II  on aperture priority mode at f/2.8. I was using a Canon 15mm fisheye I borrowed from work, which I liked a lot, even on my crop-sensor camera.

This is a snap of Chris Skelton, photographer extraordinaire and all-around top bloke, photographing a woman having a cataract cut from her eye at Wellington Hospital.

Chris Skelton photographing cataract surgery. Photo: Luke Appleby/Fairfax NZ

Yes – he got shots of the most disturbing nature – we are talking scalpel to eye-ball stuff. Not a job for the squeamish.

I also shot this video and reporter Kate Newton voiced it. I was still learning the ropes with DSLR video, so I apologise if it’s a bit shaky in parts.

You can see all of the photos Chris took during our excursion to Wellington Hospital here.

I found that the trick was to find somewhere with nice natural light – but not too much. It was a sunny day so I set up the tripod to point at a window and diffused the sunlight with a plastic bag.

Here are a few photos I took on my iPhone to show the setup – and one of me obviously quite pleased with myself.

The rig - Velbon Carmagne carbon fibre tripod with centre shaft inverted, Canon 7D and Sigma 16-250mm @ 250mm.

As you may have already guessed, this is the set which I made my nifty new blog header from.

The green lights under the wharf near Circa Theatre and the Macs bar.

Circa Theatre looking towards Taranaki St

Click here to see the more of the whole set: (or ignore if you are already in the post)

Civic square from a ledge on the stairs.

The NZX building with Jervois Quay underneath.

Jervois Quay at night.

Overlooking Civic Square, the Majestic Centre and the RWC sculpture.

The bridge across the entrance to Frank Kitts lagoon.

Frank Kitts Lagoon reflects the shine of the city lights.

The bridge, Wharewaka and newly-placed festival signpost.

Looking along the waterfront towards the TSB Arena and the docks.

Frank Kitts lagoon as slight rain sets in.

The Wharewaka next to the lagoon and the NZX building.

Frank Kitts lagoon as the tide slips away.

Unfortunately, this was a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing, so I didn’t have a tripod on me. Ledges and seats had to do.

I’m quite fond of the HDR technique, even though some criticise it for being too unrealistic. I agree it’s not really photography in the strictest sense of the word, more like digital art captured using a camera.

From left, Michelle, myself and Hamish.

You know how some photos just look better in black and white? This is one of them. The lighting in the place was heavily coloured, patchy and difficult to balance, so it seemed like a good option.

It’s a bit grainy because the ISO crept up, but I think it adds to the film look. I also put a slight vignette over top to add to the vintage feel.

It was a dark shot, so I used my trusty Sigma 30mm f/1.4 – it’s so fast and awesome for night-time social shots without the intrusive – and irritating – flash.

I also managed to snap this gem, much to Hamish’s disdain:

Hamish does not approve.

Hauling the tripod up there was definitely worth the effort. I also got a chance to practice some panning shots on planes coming into the airport.

Crowds gathered on the street to watch – it was one hell of a fire. Rival news agencies edged closer and closer, with some of our own guys perhaps getting a little too close, as they suffered what looked like mild sunburn.

These photos were shot from the fifth floor of the Dominion Post Building on Boulcott St.

Also, after seeing a TV crew filming from a nearby roof, I couldn’t help but put this together:

"Correct TV News Fire Reporting Procedure"

Judging from the vast amount of hits I have received on this topic, I thought I would put all the information I can find together, in one place.

This post contains information about the encryption levels, the possibility of hacking the encrypted messages and laws relating to this area.

As you may have heard, the New Zealand police have indeed started to go digital with their radio communications. This is in direct response to the increasing use of radio scanners to monitor police activites for criminal or otherwise dodgy activity.

They are slowly changing over, but as there are thousands of cars and handheld units to upgrade, this will take a while. When I turned on my scanner today (October 4 2009), I could still pick up units around Wellington. The changeover is expected to happen by the end of 2010 in Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch. Other districts will be added afterwards.

Specialist groups such as the Armed Offenders Squad have been using digital radio for some time.

If you are looking for a way to listen to encrypted radio, I’m afraid I have some bad news:

The government awarded the tender for equipment to Tait Electronics in 2007. Tait uses P25 Encryption (info here from their site and also a definition from Wikipedia here).

P25 uses not only a DES 56 bit algorithm, but also a whopping 256-bit AES algorithm which is extremely secure.

To give you an idea of how secure this algorithm is, most banks in New Zealand use a 128-bit algorithm to encrypt their internet banking services.

Here is some more background on DES (Data Encryption Standard) and AES (Advanced Encyption Standard) from Wikipedia. Interestingly, Wikipedia states that DES is no longer considered secure due to the small 56-bit block size, and is vulnerable to a ‘brute force attack’.

The bottom line is that your hand-held, car-mounted or AC powered ‘legacy’ equipment will no longer be able to pick up police communications once they switch over. End of story. That’s why they changed over.

I’m not saying that no-one will ever find a way to crack the encryption digitally, they probably thought 56-bit was un-crackable when it was created, and with the exponential rise of technology and the power of hardware ever-increasing, I’m sure it won’t be long before a ‘brute-force attack’ will be feasible to break the 256-bit. But at the moment, the computing power required for such an attack is unavailable, unless you have a spare 1000 super-computers and a couple of hundred years.

In the mean-time, if you are listening to analogue police communications, you’ll need some knowledge of the police callsign codes etc. to understand what they are saying.  Click HERE to download a .doc file containing most of the codes you will need for reference.

If you are looking for New Zealand services’ radio frequencies, I advise you have a look at Radio Wiki.

As for the law in New Zealand in this area, under the Radiocommunications Act 1989 Section 133A (1) subsection (a) it is illegal to act on any information you hear over a scanner if it was not intended for you:

“Every person commits an offence against this Act who receives a radiocommunication and who, knowing that the radiocommunication was not intended for that person,

“(a) makes use of the radiocommunication or any information derived from that radiocommunication,

“(b) reproduces or causes or permits to be reproduced the radiocommunication or information derived from that radiocommunication,”

“(c) discloses the existence of the radiocommunication.“

In terms of infringement fees, the Act stipulates in Section 134:

“(1) The Governor-General may from time to time, by Order in Council, make regulations for all or any of the following purposes:

“(jb) prescribing the infringement fee (not exceeding $2,000) for each infringement offence:

“(1A) Different fees and different forms may be prescribed for different infringement offences.”

So basically, the maximum fine is $2000, but if you do something seriously dodgy the governor general can basically name thier price.