Rodney Campbell's Blog

I was assisting Keith McInnes on an assignment for the company (TDC) running the lightshow on the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge for the Royal Australian Navy International Fleet Review here in Sydney.

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.

We were fortunate enough to be able to photograph the projections onto the SOH and SHB during the extremely early morning test runs so I was able to shoot the whole uninterrupted sequence from a couple of great locations. This included places like in the projection towers and for the massive light beam ones below from directly in front of the towers – I’m standing in the middle just a metre in front of the projectors and I’ve got about a dozen light projectors all within a few feet of my head all around me so I could get the focused beams of light to streak into their target from around my frame.

Battlestar Opera

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/5 sec at f/4, ISO 800

Rainbow Beams

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/1 sec at f/5.6, ISO 640

Australian’s All

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/4 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800

Australia’s Pride

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 2 sec at f/6.3, ISO 400

Handheld with the dreamy Sigma 35mm f/1.4 Art lens in the QVB when I was out in the city shopping with my girls the other day.

Victorian Curves

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/1.4 @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/4, ISO 160

One of the definite advantages of having privileged access (a huge thankyou Keith McInnes) is being able to stand just a metre in front of the array of massive light cannons projecting the images onto the Sydney Opera House for the International Fleet Review being held here in Sydney Australia. I’m standing in the middle and I’ve got about a dozen light projectors all within a few feet of my head all around me so I could get the focused beams of light to streak into their target from around my frame.

You have no idea how tempting it was to put my hand up and do bunny ears on an epic scale… I resisted…

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.

Australian’s All

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/4 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800

Inspired by a friend online I decided to give crafting a reflection to an existing shot a go.

Whilst I normally don’t “change” my images (it’s not that I don’t edit or post process my images – I do – it’s that I don’t generally add or remove major components that weren’t there in real life). However being a technical soul I’m always up for learning something new so I figured I’d see what would be involved in adding a somewhat believable reflection to an existing image. I took a recent, quite popular long exposure image I had taken with Gerry down at Mrs Macquaries chair one evening when we had very red sunset skies, and performed a little post processing magic to create a more perfect watery reflection.

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.

What was most disturbing and depressing for me was how ridiculously simple this was to do (basically a minutes work) and the effect here seems to work fairly well

Reflections in Crimson

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 62.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I’d been commissioned to take some landscape photography at Manly’s Shelly beach recently and whilst I was there I took in some nice sunsets (no clouds at all but some nice coloured sky bands as the sun set). The beach faces sort of slightly north of west so here is one I liked twenty minutes after sunset at the western end of Shelly Beach looking back towards Manly beach where the sun has just set behind.

Manly Setting

NIKON D7000 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 100