Rodney Campbell's Blog

I went to Sydney’s legendary Bondi beach to join some Google+ friends for a meetup at The Festival of the Winds kite flying festival. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the start – in fact I arrived very very late (basically only minutes before the end and after many had already left :().

Still I did get there and chatted with a few friends before they headed off home – I’d always intended on staying to shoot sunset from the northern end of the beach and thankfully Stephen Godfrey was willing to join me for a sunset session followed by some Sushi 🙂

When we got around to the northern end of the beach we noticed the tide was well out and some lovely rocks covered in those squishy water spraying aquatic things and vibrant green seaweed was on display in the shallows so I setup my gear and went to work. The clouds were pretty thick over the horizon so I wasn’t expecting a lot of colour but there was some scattered wispy stuff up high so there was some hope

5:10PM and it’s about 15 minutes to sunset

Bondi Setter

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 1/5 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Just minutes to sunset and I’ve found myself a nice possie just by this rock barely sticking out of the water. I had the camera setup very low just barely above this rock – which made things interesting when the larger surges of water came :). Still the lovely swirls of water from the smaller waves was fantastic just slowly swishing the green weed and with the right timing and the right amount of shutter you can capture the motion of the white water layered with green weed

Swirling in the Weed

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

Surrounded by Green

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1.30 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Then it was time to try a new composition in a slightly different spot with a rock further out in the water and some more exposed weed

Whisps and Flows

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

The Festival of the Winds kite flying festival is an annual event at Sydney’s famous Bondi beach.

Some Google+ friends were having a meetup there during the day – I wasn’t able to make the start but I was able to arrive very late (basically only minutes before the end and after many had already left :().

Still I did get there and chatted with a few friends before they headed off home and I managed to get a few images of the amazing array of kites flying above the beach – it must have been spectacular when they were all out in full force. Here are a couple with the Sigma 15mm fisheye…

Festival of the Winds

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/320 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

This thing was absolutely enormous – the sandbag holding the kite down was nearly as tall as me and must have weighed a ton (literally)

Kiteosaurus

NIKON D600 + @ 15 mm, 1/400 sec at f/8, ISO 100

All three of my daughters love to do dance – and they all got to dance in the parade and then later on stage at the city spring fair over the weekend.

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 is my youngest all dressed up in costume for the stage performance…

Joys of Dance

NIKON D7000 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 1/125 sec at f/2.5, ISO 220

It’s the last day of winter (tho you wouldn’t know it given the glorious weather we’ve been having here in Sydney for weeks) and I was heading to Clontarf on Sydney’s middle harbour to take my daughter to a late afternoon/evening birthday party. Since I had a couple of hours to kill I figured I’d take my gear and see if sunset on the beach was going to be viable – TPE showed that I’d have the sun setting directly opposite behind The Spit over the other side of the bay.

I grabbed myself some grilled fish and chips from a local eatery and headed to Clontarf Beach to sit and eat on the sand as the sun set. It’s a popular place with nice sand on a protected beach in the inner harbour so there were many families out enjoying the great weather. Once the sun neared the horizon I setup my gear and set to work.

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.

The sun dips over the ridge, the children are still swimming and fishing – it’s a good day to be enjoying the outdoors

Sunny Daze

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 1/15 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I tried some BigStopper long exposures for a while but nothing was really grabbing me. Half an hour after sunset however, we still had great twilight colour in the sky – oranges and deep blues – and the lights on the houses and buildings had come on across the bay. It was dark enough now to do the long exposures naturally

Masts in the Bay

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 44 sec at f/11, ISO 100

After sunrise at Bronte beach we had quite a bit of cloud coming in leading to fairly overcast skies – it was time to switch to BigStopper (10 Stop ND) mode and try some long exposures.

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.

I was really interested in these fantastic green boulders on the sand near the waters edge all along the beach which I hadn’t noticed (were green) earlier in the darkness.

Stones in the Mist

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 123 sec at f/11, ISO 100

A very long (244 second) bigstopper exposure (helps remove the people from the beach and turns the water and sky to a soft blue misty blur). Thanks to Tami for keeping me company on this – good conversation is an excellent thing when you’re spending half an hour taking a small sequence of multi minute exposures tuning the composition and exposure to get it right 🙂 – this was the very last frame of the morning

Green Eggs and …

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 20 mm, 244.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100