Rodney Campbell's Blog

Week 59

Had another training course in North Sydney so here are a few more from that location (with the 8mm UWA)… unfortunately I’m not particularly happy with either of these :(…

NIKON D7000 + @ 8 mm, 1/640 sec at f/7.1, ISO 100

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NIKON D7000 + 8.0-16.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 8 mm, 1/160 sec at f/5, ISO 320

Members of the Whirlpool Photography forum had a meetup for a photowalk here in Sydney over the weekend. Kudo’s to Paul for organising and managing the meetup.

Leading up to the day the weather was looking a bit iffy but by midday on the day it was certainly looking promising and about twenty photography nerds descended on Hyde Park in the city by around 2PM for the start of a very long day of walking, talking and shooting.

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.

We started at the southern end of the park at the ANZAC War Memorial, the skateboarders were out in force so some shots were on offer.

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 500

We then headed down the centre of the park towards the Archibald Fountain. It wasn’t long though (we hadn’t even left the northern end of the park) before the heavens opened and a heavy downpour began. A few decided to call it a day and I was tempted to follow suit however a number of us dashed for the cover of the Pitt St mall to wait it out.

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/60 sec at f/4, ISO 1100

Those who waited were soon rewarded with clear blue skies and a rain free remainder of the day.

We headed down through the CBD and through the Botanic Gardens to eventually reach the Opera House where we met the other half of the group.

From there on we pretty much stayed together as a group for the remainder of the day as we headed around Circular Quay and into the Rocks. We wandered through the rocks and up Argyle street across to the other side to the Garrison Church before returning back to George St for some hard earned dinner (Pizza :)) and a chat with the others – this was probably the best part where could chat and learn a little about and from each other.

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 90 mm, 1/80 sec at f/5, ISO 100

NIKON D7000 + @ 12 mm, 6 sec at f/11, ISO 100

After dinner we headed up to the top of Observatory Hill for sunset then headed down towards the harbour and under the bridge for twilight.

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 1/4 sec at f/11, ISO 100

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 58 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Some evening and nighttime shots of the Opera House and Circular Quay along with the giant cruise ship at the overseas passenger terminal caped off the day around 10PM

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 14 mm, 58 sec at f/9, ISO 100

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 42 sec at f/11, ISO 100

A larger gallery of twenty of the images is available at:

http://www.rc.au.net/whirlpool_feb_2012

Week 58

I was having ice cream with my children on George St in the heart of the city one day when this couple were putting on a little show with and near some sculpture on the street just next to where we were sitting.

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 140 mm, 1/60 sec at f/4.8, ISO 140

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NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 95 mm, 1/80 sec at f/4.5, ISO 100

I was asked how I did the bold Black and White processing of the image in Edge and Shadow so I thought as an exercise I’d write it up…

Obviously this happens to work with this image and this exposure so mileage will definitely vary but it may form a reasonable starting point (Preset) to play and work from for other images.

OK I’ll tackle this by going through the panels in order and highlighting the major settings changed – note these relate to Lightroom 3.X

Basic Panel

First the Saturation was reduced to -100 to desaturate the whole image.
Added a little exposure (+0.25) and quite a bit of Fill Light (+35) and brought up the Blacks (from the default 5 to 25).
The Brightness was reduced (from the default 50 down to 25) and the Contrast bumped (from the default of 25 to 60).
Lastly the Clarity was increased (to +60) to add lots of midtone contrast.

Tone Curve

A steep S curve was implemented to really increase contrast (Highlights (+60), Lights (+15), Darks (-50) and Shadows (-20)

Effects

Some Vignetting was added to further darken the corners

Detail

Finally some Sharpening was applied (Amount 50, Radius 1.2, Detail 25 and Masking 50)

I also applied some selective Spot Removal to remove some blemishes on some of the leaves and some Selective Burning to hide some things I didn’t want there 🙂

I attended the school swimming carnival yesterday morning for the school my two youngest daughters attend – my youngest is as yet too young to attend the swimming carnival – next year 🙂

Whilst there I managed 475 photos for the parents and the school and even managed to take a few half decent ones of my own child this time 🙂

It was a glorious day although perhaps too sunny (for the best images) and extremely hot in the open sun. In the shade of the building where the seating was however it was excellent for portraits.

This first was there with my favourite lens for these types of portraits

NIKON D7000 + 50.0 mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm, 1/640 sec at f/2, ISO 200

This second is out on the blazing pool deck

NIKON D7000 + 50.0 mm f/1.4 @ 50 mm, 1/3200 sec at f/2.2, ISO 200