Rodney Campbell's Blog

Week 20 – 8mm

I continued my ultra wide theme this week and also the architectural theme which seems to work with this lens.

This first image is my own favourite street image so far with this particular lens – I knew when I was composing and taking the shot that it was going to be good – with the light falling on the building as it was (backlit by the setting sun with some front light reflected from the building behind and to the left of me). Even in colour the image looks great and I was pleased with the monochrome post processing results.

Corner Point

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 560

Skyward

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 110

Towering Gaze

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/200 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 100

Over the weekend White Bay Power Station had some open days including one day set aside for photographers (tripods allowed).

White Bay Power Station at Rozelle, in Sydney’s inner west is a heritage listed former coal-fired power station and was the longest serving of the city’s five metropolitan power stations. Construction began in 1913, and went through a number of expansions before the station was de-commissioned in 1983.

My daughter and some friends and I braved the crowds of other photographers late in the day and we spent about an hour exploring some of the site and taking some images.

I knew before going that the dark interior and gritty machinery and building structure would lend itself perfectly to some HDR treatment so I planned to bracket many of my shots with that in mind.

Even late in the day (3 to 4PM) the softer sunlight streaming in the very high windows created bright highlights up in the vaulted ceiling but didn’t do anything to pierce the darkness at ground level – life was very interesting when shooting with the ultra wide as the dynamic range from absolute white above to absolute darkness below was “challenging”. Where the machinery was in the Boiler House was in near total darkness – the “normal” shot even with my 8mm ultrawide at f/5.6 was 4 seconds or more.

We spent all of our limited time inside and just outside the Boiler House (we didn’t arrive early enough to get in a long queue for the Turbine Hall).

All of the following images start life as a High Dynamic Range (HDR) image created from at least three bracketed images shot at -2, 0 and +2EV (Grey and Gold also included a fourth image at -4EV).

This first is the view straight up on the taller window lit side of the Boiler House

Channel Up

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/3 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

Industrie

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 19 mm, 1.3 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

Grey and Gold

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 2 sec at f / 11, ISO 100

Just outside the boiler house are two huge stacks tethered to the building – the blue sky and moody wispy clouds were crying out for a monochrome treatment

Sky Stack

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/125 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100

Week 19 – 8mm

In aid of my aim to have used every lens in my camera bag with street photography I decided to go for broke and limit myself to using my ultra wide angle 8-16mm lens only for a week or two.

This lens is incredibly wide – at 8mm I get a greater than 120 degree field of view, this also means that to photograph subjects with them being more than just a speck in the image I have to be close – REALLY close – we could be talking inches here…

This first image was shot at 8mm for some very nice wide angle distortion.

Lean over Me

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 280

This next was taken early in the morning with the morning rush heading to the office.

Look Up

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/250 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 100

This next is a revisit of an image from last week – personally I think I prefer the previous version at 17mm rather than this at 8mm but you can make up your own mind.

Sails Redux

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 560

The last is an image I shot essentially towards the setting sun and when I took it I was going for this old worldly look for the image – it’s a pity I couldn’t exclude all the modern vehicles…

Chinatown

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 5.0, ISO 180

I had some time to kill on the weekend whilst my daughter was completing an exam in North Sydney, so with camera in hand I went for a bit of a wander in the area for a couple hours and took some images walking the streets and visiting the markets.

This first image was taken in the heart of North Sydney and shows the tower at the top of the North Sydney Post Office in front of one of the new modern glass skyscrapers behind.

Old and New

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 70 mm, 1/160 sec at f / 8.0, ISO 100

I drive to the city many mornings and as you come down the freeway towards the tunnel and bridge you can see the compressed view of the buildings in North Sydney along with the harbour, the harbour bridge and the city behind and I’ve often thought it would be great to take that photo from this higher vantage. I see this pedestrian overpass which crosses high above the freeway from one side to the other and eyed it off as a potential shooting location. Anyway in my wanderings I found it (at the end of Ridge Street near North Sydney oval) and took the following images (actually from atop a wall just next to the walkway).

Lead me to the Harbour

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 100 mm, 1/400 sec at f / 7.1, ISO 100

I was particularly happy with this last image – I hadn’t pre-visualised this one whilst driving down the freeway since you don’t get to see this view from the road but once I was up there this jumped straight out at me.

Suburban House

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 145 mm, 1/500 sec at f / 7.1, ISO 100

My girls having fun during our recent fall colours trip to the mountains…

Fall Girls

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 29 mm, 1/60 sec at f / 8.0, ISO 160

Raining Red

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/60 sec at f / 8.0, ISO 800 + CPL

Spiral

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/60 sec at f / 9.0, ISO 100