Rodney Campbell's Blog

Having recently received my new Sirui N2204 carbon fibre tripod and K20x arca swiss ballhead I took it into the office for some of my work colleagues to have a sticky beak.

I brought my camera and 8-16mm ultra wide angle lens in to work as well with the intention of visiting the nearby St Andrew’s Cathedral at lunchtime and take some bracketed panorama shots on the tripod. I was aiming to create some panorama HDR images of the inside of the church (which I do still want to do sometime).

As luck would have it when I arrived at the door I was told that the church was closed that day 🙁

St Andrew’s Cathedral happens to be right next door to Sydney’s Town Hall. I have previously tried to go inside the Town Hall to take photos (through the front entrance) but wasn’t allowed to do so but this time I noticed a crowd of what looked to be older students (university or late high school) waiting near the side entrance so I went inside in front of them.

The place was basically empty so I was free to roam the very interesting empty hallways on both levels, out to the back stage area and up to the upper deck overlooking the very impressive main concert hall. The architecture inside this old building is really interesting with lots of details and angles, it’s a spectacular setting and I’d hoped it would provide great source material for some appealing images.

With tripod and camera in hand I took a number of bracketed shots (0, -2 and +2EV) of the main hall, various hallways and the staircase which I’ve then processed as HDR (high dynamic range) images some of which I’ve then converted to monochrome.

The following is a selection of some of my favourite images from my visit.

The main Centennial Hall was spectacular and the students were filing in and onto the stage by the time I was up at the upper levels at the back of the hall. I would have loved to have seen the place empty and without all the lighting structure hanging down over the stage and in front of the Grand Organ for what was obviously preparation and practice for a concert. If I was to shoot this again with more time in hand I would have taken more images to retain more details in the very overexposed areas in the windows and ideally a duller overcast day would have been even better.

Centennial Hall

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8.5 mm, 2 sec at f/8, ISO 100

The following is probably my favourite image from the set

Take me to Wonderland

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

Light Halls

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 0.8 sec at f/8, ISO 100

It’s probably not everyone’s cup of tea but I also really like the following image if the stairway

Grand Stairs

NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1.3 sec at f/8, ISO 100

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