Rodney Campbell's Blog

A friend invited me to take some sunset, twilight and night shots in Olympic Park at Homebush here in Sydney on the weekend and as I’d just bought my new Nikon D7000 it was as they say fortuitous timing. The area is filled with all manner of interesting architectural and other items to photograph and well worth the trip.

I’ll post a mini review of my thoughts on the D7000 in a later post once I’ve actually had some time to use it – but for now I’m very happy with my upgrade from the D90 to the D7000.

I took my eldest daughter with me to the evenings shoot and we met along the main Olympic Boulevard in the centre of the park.

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

This first was taken just on sunset at 7:20PM looking down the boulevard.

Skylight

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/10 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100

Working our way down the boulevard past the stadium and arena towards the fountains and earth pyramid at the end – 7:40PM

Launchpad

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 2 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

Looking back up the row of lights and at Acer Arena on the right – 7:45PM

The Avenue

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 16 mm, 3 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

We moved across the road at the bottom and climbed the earth pyramid. A silhouette of what looks like my daughter walking up the hill with the remnants of sunset/twilight behind (she actually had to stand still for the long exposure :)). You can see here she’s sporting my trusty D90 which she has appeared to have claimed for herself now – 7:50PM

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 34 mm, 4 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100

Finally after having been eaten to death by the plague of mosquitos we worked our way back to the water fountains – 8:10PM. It was interesting how much twilight colour we could still get in the sky with a long exposure.

Arc

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 43 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100

Finally on our way back up the boulevard my daughter wanted this picture looking up the tunnel of trees with the ground and fairy lights – thats her trying to sit very still up there on the left 🙂

The Boulevard of Trees

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 13 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

Week 10

Hidden

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 300 mm, 1/640 sec at f / 5.6, ISO 400

Check

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 95 mm, 1/640 sec at f / 4.5, ISO 400

A Diptych with a happier theme than my first street photography diptych last week – created from some images I took in Sydney’s Pitt St Mall. I watched this couple watching some street dance performers and the young lady was at times acting the part and they were joking, smiling, laughing and generally having a great time 🙂

Smile

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 195 mm, 1/200 sec at f / 5.3, ISO 400

Week 9

Deep in Thought

NIKON D90 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 220 mm, 1/800 sec at f / 5.3, ISO 400

Having been invited to a dawn seascape shoot to Ivo Rowe Pool at Coogee in the eastern suburbs of Sydney I got up around 4AM and eventually made my way over to Coogee for a 5:30AM start. It wasn’t looking good to begin with (it was raining on the way) and after arriving, the other mad photogs and I did a bit of a reconnoitre and the signs weren’t all that promising – the sky was completely filled with cloud (which would mean no colourful sunrise) and it was very windy with lots of seaspray (not good for camera or lens), not to mention the light drizzle.

Just before sunrise we saw some gaps in the sky and the rain had stopped so it was on…

This first image is a pre sunrise long exposure at 6:20AM

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 25 sec at f / 16, ISO 200

There was a nice river of “green stuff” which I attempted to get a good composition of without a great deal of success, here I’ve combined two images into a diptych

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 19 & 25 mm, 6 & 2.5 sec at f / 22, ISO 200

Finally about 10 minutes after sunrise we got some good breaks in the clouds and some colour in the sky – 6:52AM

NIKON D90 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/6 sec at f / 22, ISO 200

About 35 minutes after sunrise @ 7:20AM and moments before my (and my poor D90’s) dunking, after a large wave crashed and splashed over us – I ended up drenched from head to toe, luckily the camera seems to have survived relatively unscathed.

NIKON D90 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 12 mm, 1/13 sec at f / 22, ISO 200