Rodney Campbell's Blog

Week 55

Some from North Sydney this week…

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.

I liked these tables and benches and the way the early morning light was hitting them…

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 26 mm, 1/160 sec at f/5, ISO 110

When I first took this shot I was thinking black and white and I liked the way the “infinitely” tall building on the right juxtaposed the green open space on the left with the row of tall trees and the smooth path down the middle – I just waited for an appropriate subject to be in the right position in my frame and snap…

However during post processing I created this colour versions of the image (note – these aren’t the original colours) which I really liked (possibly more than the mono version) – but I’d like to let you the viewer decide – which do you like the best?…

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5, ISO 100

and here’s a monochrome conversion I’ve done

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5, ISO 100

My father is an avid gardener so whilst we were staying at their house I spent a late afternoon wandering in the backyard with my 90mm macro lens.

I also shot with my SB-900 flash shooting through a popout diffusion panel. It was still quite bright out and I was getting decent shutter speeds with a relatively closed aperture but I was trading ISO to do so, using the flash allowed me to lock the ISO at 400 and use a high shutter speed (1/250) to help counteract movement this close (I was shooting hand held) whilst also allowing me aperture freedom to gain depth of field depending on how close I was. None of these were exceptionally close up macro shots but I was more looking to get some nice flower shots.

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.

Warm Heart

NIKON D7000 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/250 sec at f/16, ISO 400

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NIKON D7000 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 400

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NIKON D7000 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/250 sec at f/11, ISO 400

Pink!

NIKON D7000 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 400

This is where my daughter and I were when we should have been at the cemetery first taking some shots when there was still some light in the sky 🙂

We’d planned to come here first and take some shots at sunset and twilight of this church (which is on the corner of the main street of town where we were visiting and staying with the grandparents).

I knew the sun was going to set behind the church so I was expecting to have to wait till it was twilight before I could add light to the front and still get colour in the sky. Earlier when it was still very light I started with the 10 Stop ND filter and then switched to my FaderND variable ND filter to get long exposures (from 1 to 4 minutes) and streaky cloud movement in the sky. In the end however we basically had to wait till near the end of twilight (8:45 to 9PM) before things got dark enough at ground level (ambient) but there was still quite a bit of colour (and some light in the upper) sky on a long (2 to 3 minutes) exposure (no ND required by this stage). I also didn’t need to do any more light painting on the church for these shots since a number of very bright nearby streetlights had come on and lit the front and much of the side of the church in tungsten glow.

First up a mono conversion

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 120 sec at f/11, ISO 100

and then the colour version of the last shot of the day (at least at the church – we then decided to head off to the cemetery to try some umbrella lighting shots which I’ve already posted)

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 180 sec at f/13, ISO 100

Week 54

I finished my 52 week street visions project a few weeks ago at the end of 2011 but I still like going out and shooting some street photography when the mood takes me so I’ll endeavour to continue to post some street images as they come along – albeit at a much less frequent rate 🙂

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.

One from the central station end of the CBD

NIKON D7000 + 17.0-50.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 1/640 sec at f/5, ISO 100

or making Hay with Landscapes…

and a Happy Australia Day to all visitors…

Our family spent a number of days at my parents house in the Shoalhaven on the South Coast of New South Wales. Whilst driving there I noticed this paddock of lush green grass strewn with these round hay bales and since it was close by to where my parents live I figured I’d go back and spend some time composing some images with the bales.

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.

I took some compressed detail images with the tele – a few I liked are below…

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 112 mm, 1/500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

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NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 140 mm, 1/400 sec at f/4.8, ISO 100

It was a very cloudy overcast day but the clouds were moving reasonably quickly and away from me over the mountains – in fact it appeared that the higher cloud was moving from behind me on my right and the lower cloud was moving from behind me on my left and all converging over the mountains in the distance. I put on the Tokina 12-24 ultrawide, got in close to some bales and added the 10 stop ND filter for some really long exposures to capture what I hoped would be streaks of cloud movement converging into the distance.

I got in quite close and low to the ground to emphasize the bale

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 13 mm, 46 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Found a higher viewpoint (I setup the tripod on top of one of the bales :)) but which was still relatively close to another bale

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 13 mm, 60 sec at f/18, ISO 100