Rodney Campbell's Blog

Week 44

This first is a simple seen image – taken looking down Albion Pl off George St in the city.

Crossing Paths

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 1/160 sec at f/5, ISO 250

I couldn’t really decide between the next two so I’ve included both – I’d been meaning to visit these for some time since I’d heard they were back (my wife actually told me). My goal was to shoot some images on an overcast day with clouds moving quickly overhead and use the ten stop ND to have streaky skies. I hadn’t actually been there so didn’t realise it was such a narrow canyon which might not have suited my idea anyway. As it was it ended up being a clear blue sky day with intense light shining down this narrow corridor – didn’t use the tripod or ND. This is Angel Pl sort of between George and Pitt streets in the city towards Circular Quay just past Martin Place.

Birdsong

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 14 mm, 1/200 sec at f/8, ISO 100

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NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 13 mm, 1/160 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Whilst on our three day school trip to Canberra we visited the Australian War Memorial. A solemn reminder of humanities tragedies and the sacrifices of the many who gave us our freedom. The Roll of Honour was literally bathed in small red poppies.

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.

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/60 sec at f/7.1, ISO 360

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NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/60 sec at f/7.1, ISO 360

Week 43

Some interesting shopfront architecture this week… my girls and I had some fun trying different compositions here…

Looking In

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/60 sec at f/5, ISO 1600

Dalek Dreams

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/60 sec at f/5, ISO 1250

Every now and then you get crazy interesting skies – the confluence of really interesting and varied clouds along with great lighting (usually at sunrise or sunset). This was one of those days – it was a saturday evening around 6PM and the setting sun put on a show in the sky.

These were taken handheld at sunset – the first from my house and the second from the school just up the road.

This is when you wish you were at a great landscape/seascape location so you could include something interesting to go with the sky 🙂

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.

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm, 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/60 sec at f/4, ISO 280

I recently travelled to Canberra for three days with 70+ children on a school camp with my daughter.

I of course took many photos whilst I we were there and it was a great opportunity to test out my newly acquired Nikon 70-200/2.8 (just over 400 images (about 50% of the total) with this lens). This is one of my early efforts which I unfortunately shot wide open at f/2.8 and since I didn’t nail the focus properly and didn’t get enough depth of field and as such fail (on the eyes) 🙁

Over the course of a couple days I did take a number of better portraits with the lens, however as murphy’s law would have it they are all of other children… anyway I’m still pretty happy with this shot of my daughter…

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 150 mm, 1/800 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

We had absolutely fantastic conditions for candid portraits outdoors for the first two days – very overcast skies resulting in the sky acting as a giant softbox with soft, smooth even lighting – I didn’t have to worry too much about shadows or harsh light and could shoot from just about anywhere, all I had to worry about was the backgrounds… and of course the children and their expressions 🙂