Rodney Campbell's Blog

Joined Photography Hot Spot‘s Ben Fewtrell and Rob Potter for their Bronte Beach Photo-Walk.

I’m still waiting for my D600 and 16-35 to come back from Nikon Australia so in the meantime I had to use my old D7000.

Unfortunately with no wide DX suitable lenses anymore I had to use my very first kit lens – the venerable 18-200 ultrazoom which is the only crop lens I kept with my old camera. It’s not an ideal landscapers lens to say the least and it’s rather soft compared to my newer glass but having looked at the shots now in Lightroom it did a much better job stopped down than I had anticipated and I was still able to attach my usual Lee filter kit.

What we did have were some really wonderful clouds which resulted in some fantastic colour all the way through twilight to sunrise.

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.

Twenty five minutes before sunrise and I’m trying some long exposures in early twilight blue

Bronte Blue

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 55 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Soon after I moved around to the centre of the beach where there were a line of exposed rocks leading out into the ocean with a couple up on the sand at the waters edge (and also few people :)). They provided me some nice foreground interest with some lines of rocks leading you out into the frame – oh how I wish I had my ultrawide 🙂

Just under fifteen minutes before sunrise and the clouds have lit up in spectacular form and I’m setting the polariser and timing the waves for some colourful reflections off the water

Swirl & Shimmer

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Moving back a little and getting a little lower we have ten minutes before sunrise and the colour in the sky is still magnificent

Red Ribbons @ Bronte

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 1.60 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Right on sunrise and with the sky lit up nicely it’s time to try a vertical composition with my cool foreground rock and puddle 🙂

I normally do all of my image post processing in Adobe Lightroom (version 5 currently) but for this image I also round tripped it through Google Nik Software’s Colour Efex Pro 4 for a touch of selective Tonal Contrast adjustment before finishing it as usual in Lightroom

Bronte Lines

NIKON D7000 + 18.0-200.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 18 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

This seven frame stitched panorama was taken right on sunset and incorporates the path leading around to the Royal Botanical Gardens on the left and then past the CBD skyline and around past the famous Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge and on to North Sydney on the right. The smoke haze gave us a very nice show of colour above the horizon and at times turned a bright crimson red (around half an hour after sunset).

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 normally do 100% of my image post processing in Adobe Lightroom (version 5 currently) but for this image I also round tripped it through Google Nik Software’s Colour Efex Pro 4 for a little selective Indian Summer and Tonal Contrast adjustments before finishing it as usual in Lightroom

Sydney’s a Peach

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 25 mm, 1.60 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Taken about ten minutes after sunset we have this eleven frame stitched panormama showing the Sydney CBD right around past the Opera House, Harbour Bridge and the harbour foreshore across to Cremorne

Sydney View

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 5.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100