Rodney Campbell's Blog

Took a lunchtime trip to Sydneys Royal Botanic Gardens with Frances Gorrez for a lazy hour of shooting. I took just the camera and the new Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens for company.

Note: These photographs (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 like limiting the choices sometimes when I really don’t know what I’m planning to shoot – sure I could have taken the tripod, the macro or a whole bag of gear with me but when I have no specific photographic goal in mind for a shoot sometimes just having one choice (in this case a wide fast prime) can spur you to make shots you wouldn’t otherwise have tried.

This flower for instance – shooting it at a very shallow f/2.0 gives it just enough depth of field to have a few sharp petal edges and leaves you in no doubt what it is but it allows a rich golden warmth floating in a sea of softness – it’s marvellous how this lens allows such a quick falloff

Serene

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/1250 sec at f/2, ISO 100

even this image shot at f/4 gives enough depth of field for the flower but the falloff is quick after than and allows the flower to pop off the glassy surface of the water

Emerging from the Glass

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/100 sec at f/4, ISO 100

We also visited the fernery

Delicate Tree

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/125 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Part three of our epic day out found us back along the coast road between Wollongong and Sydney for a sunset shoot at the Sea Cliff Bridge. This is a spectacular 665 metre long structure hugging the coastline with the bridge curving it’s way out over the water between the high battlements of the Illawarra escarpment and the Tasman sea.

Gerry decided we needed to take the quick (but very precarious) almost direct route down from the end of the Sea Cliff bridge to the area beneath the base of the bridge instead of the very long windy route through the undergrowth along the length of the bridge. I thought this was a good call – others may have disagreed 🙂

It must be said that sunset at this location really wasn’t the ideal time to be shooting here – made worse by the fact that we were at the southern end of the bridge looking north but all the clouds and colour in the sky was out to the south east 🙁

Still you make the best of what you’re dealt and I was happy with a couple of the images to come from this short session

Note: These photographs (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.

Here I just had to wait and wait till I got just the right white tipped waves coming in from the sea to meet the waves washing back out…

Sea Swept Coast

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 24 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

and after the sun had set I could do some long exposure work (without needing the BigStopper) during twilight. This image just with the Heliopan Circular Polariser and converted to monochrome because the “blue” version looked a little out of place

Twilight Dreamin’

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 161 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Joined three friends for an epic day of photography. Our gourmet feast of photographic delights included a 3:30AM start, a sunrise seascape session, a day shooting at an air show, a sunset seascape session, a light painting session in an abandoned railway tunnel and a post midnight finish.

Part two saw us head to Albion Park for the Wings Over Illawarra Air Show. I’d never been to or shot at an air show before and didn’t really know what to expect so I packed my BigMos – the Sigma 50-500mm lens to accomodate my expected need for a long focal length along with some focal length flexibility in case I needed it (which I did). I also packed my Sigma 15mm fisheye which I was planning to use up close to or inside any aircraft for some distorted perspective images but I hadn’t quite anticipated the enormous crowds around every publicly accesible aircraft and the sheer number of people going inside any of those which were on show so I didn’t even take it out.

It was a warm day with mostly blue skies with a touch of random clouds which was pretty much ideal for capturing aircraft in flight – a little more light cloud covering the sun to diffuse the light a little and a bit less haze would probably have helped but you can’t have everything 🙂

The trick was to work towards a shutter speed slow enough not to freeze the propellor blades (in planes that have them) so there’s a sense of motion; whilst being fast enough to freeze the aircraft in the sky (especially when some of them are moving quite quickly relative to your position).

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.

Up first were some trick aircraft and the Roulettes which put on a good stomach churning show

Inverted

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 500 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 720

Four

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 210 mm, 1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Full Spread

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 380 mm, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Then it was time for the old warbirds to put on a show. In this first I’ve gone for a really slow shutter 1/40 sec to capture the blur of the full rotation of the propellor. To do this I had to stop right down and I had the lens on a monopod for stability.

P-51

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 420 mm, 1/40 sec at f/16, ISO 110

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NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 460 mm, 1/500 sec at f/8, ISO 100

P-51 Mono

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 78 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5, ISO 100

and a couple more images to finish off the day

Army

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 500 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 900

Flybyes

NIKON D600 + 50.0-500.0 mm f/4.5-6.3 @ 500 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/6.3, ISO 400

An early morning start (5:15AM) to join the FOCUS group for a sunrise shoot at the Ross Jones Memorial Pool at Coogee.

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 after arriving at the location – a two minute very pre dawn 5:25AM long exposure

Lemon & Lime

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 120 sec at f/11, ISO 100

6AM and it’s about 20 minutes before sunrise

Coogee Blue

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 17 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Moments before sunrise

Blockade

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 27 mm, 1.30 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Just before sunrise a film crew arrived with a family with a young girl to film some footage for a commercial. Since the crew basically took over portions of the pool and weren’t at all interested in being considerate of other people’s compositions – in the end I had to try incorporating some shots with the young girl in it. At this stage one of the guys shooting for the commercial is actually underwater here shooting up at the girl with her hand in the water. I guess I’ll have to wait for the commercial to come out before trying to understand why 🙂

Testing the Waters

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 1/3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Once the sun had risen at Austinmer it was time to continue some BigStopper long exposures. I tried some on the concrete path leading through the centre of the pools but alas none worked out well enough to publish.

Note: These photographs (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.

However these taken out on the left of the pools worked very well – except I was so close to the surfs edge for these shots that a few large waves came in and swamped me (not enough to get to my camera but enough so that the largest swell came up to my knees and thus saturated my jeans and boots :)). With two to three minute exposures running away wasn’t really an option either 🙁

Dreamin’ of Austinmer

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 97 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Mystical Blue

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 180 sec at f/8, ISO 100