Last weekend I had the opportunity to play the 'tourist', when my stepfather invited the family along on a tour of the Stockton Open Cast Mine. I was excited not only by the prospect of seeing the mine in operation, but also of taking the X10 out on its first big adventure, to see how it would perform.
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| Stockton Aerial Coal Bins. |
We started the day at the end of the process, at the Stockton Incline where the coal is delivered off the plateau in coal bins. These bins run 24/7, delivering coal down to the township where it is then sent by train off to Lyttleton for export.
I kept the X10 in 'A' (Aperture) mode for most of the day, shooting at a safe 5.6 to f8 aperture, on my standard RAW + Jpeg at DR400. I also very quickly settled in to 'tourist' mode, composing in live view from the back of the camera (much to my surprise).
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| Work gear drying after a shift. |
We started up at the Stockton Mine itself by getting a quick tour of the facilities - starting at the drying sheds. These are large areas where the workers hose down their clothes and leave them to dry until their next shift. Very hot, but lots of potential for interesting close-ups (although the above was
not taken in macro mode).
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| Tourist viewing the Mine Site - Stockton Plateau |
On any tour, you run the risk of getting overwhelmed with your camera by the sheer scale of it all - wanting to capture everything that moves - especially if it's a 'once-in-a-lifetime' trip. But sometimes the simple, detail images can speak volumes about an experience, and above is one of my favorite shots from the day. It's simple, yet effective, and takes me right back to the experience without showing me 'everything'. I was capturing a 'vista' at the time (more on that in my next post), and just happened to look up at the men standing on the ridge above me. Took one quick snap and then the moment was gone.
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| Family photo opportunity, just to prove that we were there! |
Now this is more like it! The old 'stand-in-front-of-the-bus-as-a-family' shot that's obligatory on any tour :-) Hey, why not? Make sure you get them, because you
were there, and you'll want to remember that as well in the years to come. My step-sister (Sheryl) and her family also came on the trip with us, and she took this photo of my wife Joanna, son Joshua and Me in front of the 'Unimog' we travelled in for the day.
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| World's biggest Bulldozer! Oh-yeah! |
We all know why guys would want to go on a tour of an open cast mine - the machines! Stockton is the largest coal producing mine in New Zealand, averaging 5000 tonnes per 24-hour shift. So they need the machinery to make that happen. Above is the world's largest bulldozer, and if you take a look at the extreme left of the image, behind it is an 'ordinary' sized bulldozer. But as big and impressive as the bulldozer was, the coal trucks are even bigger!
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| Now that's some big trucks... |
As you can tell from the images, it was a beautiful, clear, sunny day - which was great in that it meant the tour could go ahead (50% of the tours are cancelled due to bad weather conditions), but not great when it comes to photography - right? Lots of brightly coloured trucks, with black coal and deep, dark shadows does not make for an easy photo. But with the Fuji X10 set to DR400 (Dynamic Range at 400%), and the occasional tweak on the exposure compensation dial, getting detail out of the shadows later on simply wasn't a problem. In fact the detail that Lightroom pulled out of the shadows in the above truck shot is pretty impressive. I wasn't even recording that much detail on the day with the naked eye, so I'm staggered by how much dynamic range the Fuji X10 can capture on its relatively small sensor.
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| Me, Josh and Machinery... Man heaven. |
I wanted to end with another 'we-were-there' type shot, but again it's a shot worth taking, and means a lot to me - and will hopefully one day mean a lot to my son. As photographers we don't often end up 'in' the photos themselves, but it's so important that we remember to hand over the camera occasionally. I know that often we don't like our pictures taken and are more than happy to be the one behind the lens, but in the future, that will come back to haunt us (and our families). Josh has a photo of him and his dad (yes, that would be me), that he will keep and show his grandkids long after I'm gone. And in the end, isn't that what photography is all about?
I enjoyed the tour of the Stockton Mine, I enjoyed spending the time with my family, and I enjoyed taking the Fuji X10 to document the experience. As a small, light, yet fully capable go-anywhere camera, this is exactly why I've gone for the X10 over my DSLR gear - and so far I'm not regretting the decision at all.
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