Rodney Campbell's Blog

Attended the Sydney Google Plus 2 Year Anniversary PhotoWalk – it was a very wet and wild morning in Sydney and I arrived quite late. I missed the 6AM start and only managed to arrive around 8:30AM to meet the remaining walkers at the Jeffrey St wharf.

By the time I got my camera and the rain cover out to shoot, the rain was heading in to full swing and I managed just 4 shots this morning. Still this first composition was pretty much what I’d envisaged taking when I was driving there and I was pretty happy with the result – plus the rain proved useful for something :).

Five

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 24 mm, 1/15 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Took some sets of images to stitch into panoramas during our early morning session at Long Reef at Collaroy on Sydney’s Northern beaches.

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.

This one taken using the Nikon 16-35 f/4 – 7 vertical frames at 35mm

Stepping Stones – Panorama

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 1.30 sec at f/11, ISO 100

This one taken using the landscapers tool (the Sigma 85 f/1.4 :)) – 17 vertical frames at 85mm, 1/40 sec @ f/11 and ISO 100

A view west from the top of the headland above the reef looking over the Long Reef Golf course…

Longy

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 1/40 sec at f/11, ISO 100

During our macro day at the Royal Botanic Gardens I found this interesting set of flower heads atop this plant (a Canna Lily I think) and decided to use off camera light to turn day into night. I shot stopped down (f/16) at my camera’s sync speed (1/200th) and used my LED macro ring light and my SB-900 flash handheld to provide the lighting

Fruit

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 100

and this one where I tried controlling the spill of light to keep it off the background (closer and more angled) which I’ve converted to monochrome. Unfortunately in the process of keeping the light off the background leaves it’s also made the light very flat on the pods and well….

Forbidden Fruit

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 100

During our visit to photograph the Oberon Museum we were all eyeing off the very interesting looking trains and carriages in The Oberon Tarana Heritage Railway right next door but separated from us by a tall barbed wire fence :(. I was keen on the photographic possibilities and I don’t want to be too specific but it’s possible I “accidentally” found myself in the old Oberon railway station and shunting grounds and was able to take some images 🙂

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.

7321

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/125 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Carriages

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/60 sec at f/8, ISO 100

What a difference a few seconds can make to a seascape composition…

I’ve created a quadriptych of four shots taken in the minutes leading up to sunset to highlight how changing a few variables through intelligent use of camera settings and tools along with appropriate timing of when to start the capture can dramatically alter the final result for the same exact scene.

The images all have the exact same location, framing and composition; same focal length and were taken within minutes of each other – the difference is in waiting for and timing of the moment to take the photo based on the movement of the water and predicting where it will go during the exposure interval and adjusting other camera functions (mostly related to the length of time for the exposure – in this case the exposures range from half a second through to 240 seconds at the extremes) to get four very different looks.

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.

Seconds Count

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 15/6/240/0.5 sec, ISO 100/400

The first a medium fifteen (15) second exposure timed for when there was minimal water movement and the water has run out (the ambient scene is darker overall because all the dark rocks are all exposed, no waves are coming in and we don’t have a wash of white water across the bottom – so I added 2/3rd of a stop of exposure compensation) – the effect of the shutter time is a softer dreamy look to the clouds and sky and what water is moving slowly turns to glass (where the polariser cuts through) or the faster moving stuff in the distance to milk

The second is a shorter exposure (but still six (6) seconds) timed for when there was maximum water movement with a large body of water moving through the scene and across the rocks. The shorter shutter time also results in less time for motion of the sky and water so that the moving components have a more stringy textured look where we can actually see the path of motion rather than it turning to a misty blur

The third a very very long exposure created using the Lee BigStopper (a ten stop neutral density filter). It was very overcast and dull anyway so even the “normal” exposures were relatively long even though it was still fifteen minutes till sunset. I pumped the ISO a bit and opened the aperture a little so I didn’t have to wait for an insanely long exposure to complete in the dropping light. This resulted in a four minute exposure (using the Lee 0.6 Hard Grad ND, Heliopan CPL and the Lee BigStopper) for a really dreamy seaside look where all moving texture is gone and we have sharply defined static objects sitting in a sea of soft tonal blur from the moving components

The last at the other end of the spectrum is a relatively short exposure (half a second) designed to really highlight the texture of the moving water and is timed for maximum impact (after most of the wave has crashed over the stones and we’re just seeing the curving rippling water flow and backwash)