Rodney Campbell's Blog

Having shot the sunrise at Surfers Paradise up close and personal with the ultrawide I figured I’d give sunset a try but this time from a distance with a telephoto to compress the city scape along the shoreline for a hopefully completely different look.

I’d brought my 70-300 to the Gold Coast so that was the available option – I’d originally intended on heading down to Burleigh Head (because it stuck out to sea and would allow a more angled view along the coastline) and shoot north along the coast but I wanted to make dinner with the family and it was going to take me about an hour to drive through traffic there and back from where we were staying near Main Beach. So instead I drove 5 mins north to the end of the peninsula of land to where there’s a long jetty reaching way out to sea (or so Google Maps indicated :)).

The Gold Coast Sand Pumping Jetty was better than expected – large and sturdy (needed for a nice sharp long exposure with the tele) concrete and steel structure which also reached out well off the shore allowing a good angle down the coast to include a good stretch of skyscrapers along the coastline.

This was also the happening place – there were ballerina’s on the beach (literally – someone was doing a shoot with about a dozen girls in tutu’s), surfers we’re carving up the waves with some photographers shooting them from the jetty, the jetty itself was awash with perhaps a hundred fishermen with their lines cast to each side of the jetty and there were whales frolicking in the waters just out to sea.

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.

Just before sunset the lights along the jetty came on and I was able to take a shot looking back down the jetty towards the shore and the setting sun – this one is pretty much straight out of camera, no tripod, no filters… sometimes the photo gods just smile…

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 70 mm, 1/160 sec at f/9, ISO 100

and one I took a little earlier from further out on the jetty

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 70 mm, 1/1250 sec at f/11, ISO 320

It was then time to setup for twilight with my camera bag hanging off the tripod centre for some additional weight, the camera locked down as best I could and with the 70-300 and my Lee filter holder on the front (with a 2 stop ND grad and the CPL). There was quite a lot of gusty wind so I had to shield the camera as best I could for the long exposures.

Here is one at 6:07PM (about 20 mins after sunset)

Surfers Twilight Blue

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 110 mm, 61 sec at f/9, ISO 100

and this last at 6:20PM – towards the end of twilight before the dark night sky took over

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 125 mm, 120 sec at f/9, ISO 200

… and I was only a ‘little’ late for dinner 🙂

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