Rodney Campbell's Blog

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.

In part one we visit the lazy coastal town of Austinmer (about an hours drive south of Sydney) for a dawn seascape shoot at their tidal pools. We hadn’t exactly planned out in advance specifically where we were going to go this morning – just roughly somewhere along the coast between Sydney and Wollongong :). A quick decision in route and we arrived at Austinmer in short order (we’d never shot this location before and it had some ocean pools so it was as good as any for a seascape session we figured).

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.

Morning Refresh

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 200

and just on sunrise

Where Dawn Treads

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1/1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The thick bank of clouds right on the horizon meant we didn’t get much in the way of a sunrise per se – but about 15 minutes after sunrise (6:45AM) we got a second chance with the sun breaking through the lower clouds and underlighting the high clouds

Second Chance is Golden

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 24 mm, 1/5 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Later still (about 50 minutes after sunrise – 7:20AM) we got awesome God rays streaming down off the coast through a really interesting pattern of clouds in the sky. I found myself a nice little location on the beach itself with this small rocky area just at the edge of the surf for some epic shots

Gods Hand, Stormy Surge

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 1/13 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Outflow

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1/4 sec at f/16, ISO 100

A spot of light painting to end our day at the second Google Plus Centennial Park PicANiK.

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.

Trapped Within

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 135 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Ana in Hyperspace

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 199 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Captured by the Light

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 214 sec at f/11, ISO 200

The process for each of these was quite similar – below I list the specific technical details and method for the second shot above

First – set an appropriate aperture and ISO for the scene – basically I know we need to do various light painting activities which is going to take some time (a couple of minutes) so I want to expose for ambient (so I don’t just get a black background environment). Based on historical experience I know a couple minutes at f/8 or f/11 at ISO 100 or 200 should be fine (not underexposed and not overexposed) – I chose f/11 because I was up close and wanted a decent depth of field (although with the fish it probably doesn’t matter)

Second – camera in bulb mode and start the trigger and then start painting

Third – here we did the orb first (start spinning it first before turning it on so you aren’t left with weird trails). Spin the orb creator around (basically think of it as a light at the end of a string) so that ideally it passes over the same spot on the ground as you rotate around it in a circle. When done switch it off before you stop spinning. In this case because this orb tool is so bright only one rotation is enough otherwise it overexposes badly. With a less bright tool you might do a couple rotations to really fill in the orb. At this point the orb spinner has to ideally stand relatively still for the rest of the exposure

Fourth – for the ground use EL (electroluminescent) wire (in this case 3m of red and 3m of blue) and drag it over the ground to create that coloured fiery mist look. Every now and then leave it still for a few moments so it burns in a looks like coloured veins in the mist

Fifth – paint the tree using a coloured LED torch – in this case red but my torch has 10 different colours available (neat) – move the light fairly continuously so as to not burn in a spot – light touch is better. Do not let the actual torch LED be visible in the frame otherwise it leaves a bright red streak (so paint from outside the frame or hide the torch from the camera)

Sixth – added the green light swirl around the base of the tree using a childs light wand toy (just hold it down near the ground and walk around the tree – starting and ending out of sight at both ends)

Finally – a burst of straight flash (zoomed or snooted) straight at our model come orb spinner so that they appear within the orb – again shot from outside the scene so the flash itself doesn’t appear in the frame

Really Finally – wait a while till your gut tells you the exposure is long enough for ambient to expose how you want (e.g. to get colour in the sky) – for me it was just over 3 minutes in total – and then trigger to close the shutter

and we’re done…

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

Another location I hadn’t shot before so before the others arrived I took the opportunity to put together this stitched long exposure panorama with no people (or tripods :)) in it.

Note: This panorama looks much better when larger – so click the image below to see a larger version in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer

Composed of nine (9) vertical frames taken with the 16-35/4 @ 35mm, f/9 and approx 30-40 seconds per exposure and spanning just over 180 degrees.

Coogee Dawn

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 31.00 sec at f/9, ISO 200

I was originally thinking of trying to remove that very strong green colour cast left by the sodium vapour spotlights which light the pool at night but I kind of dig that funky lime water look so for the moment I’ve left it as shot.

“The Brickpit” lies within the Sydney Olympic Park precinct.

A very large pond sits in the middle of the Brickpit area and it is home to all manner of wildlife which doesn’t seem to mind the thick layer of bright green “something” which lies on the surface of the pond.

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.

Up first my favourite shot from the morning

Wading in Green

NIKON D600 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 170 mm, 1/400 sec at f/4, ISO 1400

Here some local birds are wading across the surface of the pond leaving interesting trails in their wake

Swimming Upstream

NIKON D600 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 200 mm, 1/400 sec at f/4, ISO 720

I’m not sure what this green stuff is but it has different texture in different areas of the pond and I loved the light and dark swirls, lines and shapes left in the surface

Reflections on Green

NIKON D600 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/160 sec at f/3.2, ISO 200

and all lined up nicely along the waters edge 🙂

Get all your Ducks in a Row

NIKON D600 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 116 mm, 1/250 sec at f/4, ISO 450

From the second Google Plus Centennial Park PicANiK. After the sun went down we had a trio of awesome fire twirlers join us for some fiery fun and light painting.

The fire was really really bright which made crafting exposures difficult – basically you had to expose for the bright flame which left the bulk of the scene in darkness because we don’t have any time to expose for ambient.

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.

Still with some short exposures of less than a second at f/8 we get interesting results

Hula

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 1/2 sec at f/8, ISO 400

Circle of Fire

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 1/2 sec at f/8, ISO 400

With quite a lot of movement (but the dancer herself) around the frame we can lengthen the exposure a little to try and drag in some ambient light

Emblem

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 6.50 sec at f/11, ISO 1000

and finally after a few minutes we worked out that the flame gets quite a bit dimmer before it goes out and we have a window of about 30 to 60 seconds where we can do some much longer exposures and incorporate some light painting into the mix…

Light Orgasm

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 170 sec at f/11, ISO 1000

and our fantastic fire twirler come model extraordinaire

Fire Diva

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 228.00 sec at f/9, ISO 100