Rodney Campbell's Blog

We headed out for our first full day trip to see the sights of Bali. This trip looped around the more northern parts of Bali and started with a very long (approx two and a half hours) drive from Seminyak up to Git Git falls near the northern coast.

After a shortish walk along slippery paths we made our way to the falls where we could swim in the very cool waters and I even gave it a try directly under the waterfall itself (water is very heavy – who knew :))

I wasn’t sure the Olympus E-PL1 was going to handle this scene very well – you could easily see these rays of backlight with the naked eye with the light beams filtering through the trees hitting the water spray from the falls – but it did an admirable job and produced this result I was looking for when I setup the shot with my eldest daughter with a kiss of fill flash from the onboard flash on the Pen. I suspect it would probably look good in mono as well.

Rays at Git Git

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 14 mm, 1/60 sec at f/3.5, ISO 250

No trip to Bali is complete without being totally ripped off with a dinner on the beach at Jimbaran Bay 🙂

Basically the drivers bring loads of tourists here so you can sit at dodgy tables out on the beach (which was very nice) and watch the sunset (we mostly lucked out here) and pay astronomically exorbitant fees to select and eat “freshly” cooked (totally overcooked grilled to death) seafood. Yes it’s very expensive and yes you’re getting pwned by your driver who’s guaranteed to be getting kickbacks from the restaurant but you’re paying for the view and the experience of having a musical act come and play at your table (which you have to pay for mind you :)) and eating out on the beach near the water.

If you’re not up for wasting one million (Rupiah) on overpriced seafood on the experience then stay away otherwise just go with the flow 🙂 The girls had a very good time and they don’t really care so much about the food 🙂 – and if anything the guys selling freshly cooked corn on the beach for 10,000RP (about $1) were a much tastier item

Jimbaran Dinner

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 27 mm, 1/60 sec at f/5.6, ISO 320

Jimbaran Jump

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 22 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4.2, ISO 320

We succumbed to having a driver take us on a half day trip to a few touristy places… We headed out to Uluwatu (Pura Luhur Uluwatu) to see the temple at the tip of the coastline and to be accosted by the monkeys :). The main temple is perched majestically on the edge of a steep cliff that towers above the sea. Ideally if the weather was any good (and it wasn’t) you’d stay here for a magic sunset and then maybe a Kecak dance in the grounds of the temple.

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 was also my first day without my trusty D-SLR (destroyed on rocks the previous day) and instead from here on out I’d be using a totally foreign camera – my eldest daughters Olympus Pen E-PL1 with the Olympus 14-42mm kit lens she had brought. Once I’d figured a little bit of how to use it (like not shooting everything at ISO 3200 for the first hour or so :() – it actually did a pretty reasonable job – still no viewfinder (optical or otherwise) was a real pain/shock 🙂

Uluwatu Coast

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 14 mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

3 Steps

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 14 mm, 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250

Uluwatu Point

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 19 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

It’s all smiles with the monkey here but soon after this was taken one of the monkeys stole my youngest daughters thong right off her foot and ate some chunks right out of it before we could get it back 🙂

Monkey Madness

E-PL1 + OLYMPUS M.14-42mm F3.5-5.6 L @ 17 mm, 1/60 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

I’d arranged with my very understanding family to spend two dedicated days doing photography whilst on our family holiday in Bali. I’d be free to leave them to their own devices whilst I went off at insane times of the morning (3 or 4AM) and coming home well into the night – going to specific photographic locations at the best times of day (early morning sunrises and evening sunsets and so on).

Finally my day had come and I was looking forward to spending some serious time making some images in Bali. The day started off in a foreboding way with lots of overnight rain and even on the 1 hour drive from where we were staying in Seminyak to my first morning shoot location we had completely overcast skies and intermittent patches of heavy rain. However by the time I’d arrived the rain had miraculously stopped and from the looks of the sky I could see some stars and the clouds looked to be blowing past behind me with an opening out towards the horizon.

The morning shoot went very well with good foreground interest and much better clouds and colour than I’d anticipated… it was a stark contrast to the disappointing end of the session which can only be described as a day of destruction… For this was the morning where I accidentally fell, dropping and destroying my Nikon D600, my Nikon 16-35/4 lens, a Lee grad filter and broke my new remote wireless receiver unit and damaged my tripod 🙁

Thankfully the memory cards were undamaged so I had my images from the shoot but my two days of dedicated photography had come to a very early and abrupt end and my camera was toast…

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.

Just before sunrise the clouds parted and let the light and colour flow – a twilight long exposure…

Gianyar Dreams

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 36.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Sunrise over the Treetops

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 11 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Fire in the Sky

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 6 sec at f/16, ISO 100

and whilst this isn’t a particularly great image (didn’t even rate a star in Lightroom) – this is the very last shot I took with my camera before it’s untimely demise two minutes later.

I was taking some shots of the amazing colour and clouds looking away from the now risen sun (this is looking west now). Behind me however the sun was doing some interesting things behind the clouds on the horizon so I packed my tripod up, turned around and had walked about 10m behind this spot when I slipped and fell and the gear went tumbling over rocks similar to the ones you can see here

and so it ends…

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Photographic subjects abound in the grounds of the beautiful Maya Ubud Resort in Bali – even the elegant trees which grace the sides of the gorge make for interesting subjects

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.

Elegant Trees

NIKON D600 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 180 mm, 1/320 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

NIKON D600 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 220 mm, 1/250 sec at f/6.3, ISO 220

and you never know what you’ll find hiding away in the distant forest

Tree House

NIKON D600 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 200 mm, 1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 220