Rodney Campbell's Blog

Week 46

A little back towards more traditional street this week… two different views at the same location…

Blooms in Red

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 640

Thorns

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 220

I returned to Bondi to join my regular photography crew for some creative light painting of the sculptures by the sea. Instead of trying to photograph many sculptures we spent a lot of time composing, light painting and photographing just a few. If there’s anything you particularly like I’d be keen to know…

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 slideshow gallery viewer.

First up is a twilight image of the stag and sunset before the others arrived – no light painting here – just a 0.9 Grad ND to hold down the sky

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 4 sec at f/16, ISO 100 + 0.9GND

Followed by one 30 minutes later where we’ve lightpainted the stag during a long exposure (90 seconds)

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 92 sec at f/8, ISO 100

This sculpture with metal flames in a campfire of stones was my favourite composition of the night and with the very long exposure, the moving clouds, the moonlight and our lightpainting I felt we’ve given this scene a very otherworldly feel – here are my two takes on it, first up a vertical composition – very close from down very low with the ultra wide angle lens

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 105 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

and then a horizontal including the moon behind the clouds in the shot

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 101 sec at f/7.1, ISO 100

What else do you do with a giant tap by the sea but give it a red river flow :). This one is pretty close to as shot

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 15 mm, 60 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Last up one with a metal tree and a crazy coloured full moon – it really was quite yellow/orange when it was low down near the horizon

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 44 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Week 45

I’m unsure which of the following two I like best – the one with or without my daughter included (probably without) – I’m not sure yet whether she adds or detracts from the overall image

Lines

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 4

Trapped?

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 4

Saw this row of peaked roofs and knew I had to take a shot

All in a Row

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/200 sec at f/9, ISO 100

The UNSW Regiment Band is celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year and to help mark the occasion it put on a dazzling afternoon of entertainment showcasing the Australian Army Reserve’s premier entertainment unit.

The concert was held on the campus where I attended university all those many years ago (The Sir John Clancy Auditorium at the University of New South Wales Kensington Campus) and as a friend was a member of the band we attended and I took my camera and 70-200 to see if I could capture some images for them.

It was great to be able to get decent images in fairly low lighting conditions and shooting telephoto at f/2.8 and still getting nice sharp images was very liberating.

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/125 sec at f/2.8, ISO 1400

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NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/160 sec at f/2.8, ISO 900

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NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 1800

I visited Sculpture by the Sea at Bondi one recent evening around sunset with a couple of other photog’s.

I hadn’t actually been to this before so I didn’t really know what to expect – I took lots of gear with the intention of trying lots of different things with lots of different focal lengths and compositions – even light paint some sculpture at night.

As it turned out it was very busy down there along the coastline with many hundreds of other visitors. The light was very nice but dropping to darkness pretty quickly, although we did also have a rising full moon just as it got dark. We were stopping when it got dark and heading off to dinner so I ended up sticking with the one lens – the 70-200mm (fast telephoto) – no time to muck around :), and I had no idea there would be this many sculptures – 100 spread across the coastline from Bondi beach to Tamarama. Some of the sculptures were pretty interesting but it was hard to create an image that wasn’t just a straight tourist capture of a sculpture and there were so many sculptures it was hard to choose a few.

Late news: I visited again last night with my regular crew and we shot after sunset and painted with light – I havn’t looked at any of those images yet but I have a feeling there’s a few there I’ll be happier with than this set :).

I’ve also created a gallery of 22 of my selects from the evening if you’d like to take a look:

http://www.rc.au.net/bondi_sculptures_2011

Who can resist Zebra’s 🙂

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 75 mm, 1/800 sec at f/4, ISO 100

I said at the end of shooting that I expected my best photo was taken in the first 5 – I do like this one grabbed right at the start when I saw these girls sitting (ahem) inside the sculpture posing for a mothers photo 🙂

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 175 mm, 1/60 sec at f/4, ISO 125

Spinning metal things are always good…

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/640 sec at f/4, ISO 100

As are oversized taps from Sydney Water – made for a silhoutette this late in the day…

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 75 mm, 1/4000 sec at f/4, ISO 200

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NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 80 mm, 1/1600 sec at f/4, ISO 400

Not a sculpture but this caught the eye of two of us – perhaps it was the orange on greeny blue…

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 400