Rodney Campbell's Blog

When I was done with shooting Terrace Falls at Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney I switched to my Tamron 90mm macro lens and went in search for some likely 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.

Sabine joined me for a wander downstream along the river path, we didn’t really find anything of interest (waterfalls, pools or macro) but on the way back I stopped at this large moss covered log looking to shoot the mini forest which was growing on the side of the log (with all manner of tiny delicate moss, fern like plants and other greenery).

Floating Ride

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/80 sec at f/16, ISO 400

It was very bright with harsh direct sunlight streaming from above so I setup my tri-grip diffuser to provide a pool of soft glowing light above a moss covered area. I was framing up a spread of miniature forest when this fantastic colourful snail wandered into my view. It has this almost translucent orange shell with interesting swirls and patterns and was pretty tiny (the shell is smaller than my little finger nail).

I framed various shots as it wandered through my mini forest…

The Little Snail

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/160 sec at f/16, ISO 400

Ring Road

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/100 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Looking for the way Down

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 1/60 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Headed up to Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney for a morning session at Terrace Falls.

As it turned out it wasn’t a great day for shooting waterfalls – clear blue skies and strong hard sunlight in dappled patches making it very difficult to get a good composition without having hard contrast. I opted for a longer lens for all my compositions to try and hone in on areas mostly in shade rather than going wide and including the whole area of random bright white and deepest shadow. On the plus side there had been a bit of rain lately so there was at least a decent amount of water flowing.

The company however was excellent (Sabine, Yogesh, Fernando, Johana, Peter & Kate), and our session was followed by a long and very tasty lunch and desert at a local cafe 🙂

There are a couple of compositions I was reasonably happy with and given better overcast light we might have been able to come away with some winning shots.

Terraced Flows

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 2.50 sec at f/11, ISO 100

This composition down low and close to this smaller second falls with the main falls in the background looked like it had merit – if only we didn’t have hot spots of light right in the flow. Here I’ve tried the BigStopper to vastly lengthen the exposure and hope that it might go some way towards evening the light and contrast in the scene

Falling

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm, 304 sec at f/11, ISO 400

Yogesh found this nice spot much further back – he was going wide with the BigStopper – I was sticking with the narrower view and dropped the BigStopper and just used some ND’s to get the exposure time I wanted.

All Flows Lead to Here

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 44 mm, 5.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Waiting for the sun to set from our little possie at Kirribilli. It was looking grim as far as sunsets go with heavy clouds blanketing the horizon and most of the sky, so we had little expectation of any colour.

The wind was still blowing the clouds quickly through the sky and for a short time about 15 minutes before sunset a hole ripped open the fabric of space and time right above the intersection of the city and the harbour bridge. Framing directly down the stone jetty I could look right at the crack in the sky and for about ten minutes we had some interesting light in the sky as the sun continued to head down towards the horizon way over to the right of frame behind the heavy banks of cloud.

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 had the 3 stop reverse grad along with a 3 stop ND to lengthen the exposure to smooth the water a little and allow the fast moving clouds to streak

Streaking Towards the Nexus

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 15 sec at f/13, ISO 100

A Tear in Space

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 20.00 sec at f/13, ISO 100

and for comparison this shot was taken just over a minute before the first shot above (with a “normal” shorter exposure before I added the 3 stop ND)

Portal

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 5.00 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Joined two fellow photographers (Ali and Sabine) for a sunset and evening light painting session at Kirribilli on the northern side of Sydney Harbour opposite the Sydney Opera House and the city.

We’d planned to shoot sunset (with the sun setting to the right of us behind the Sydney Harbour Bridge) and then do some light painting with the Opera House, City and Harbour Bridge as our background.

Along the harbour foreshore at Kirribilli there is a nice little stone jetty sticking out into the water and I was hoping we could frame things up nicely with some light painting later on out on the stone jetty itself.

By the time I’d arrived at 6:30PM (over an hour before sunset) Ali was already hard at work. It was very overcast with particularly fast moving clouds streaking through the sky away from us towards the city. It was BigStopper time and I figured I’d go for broke with a stitched long exposure panorama.

I wanted a more telephoto feel (so that the city and bridge weren’t just tiny ribbons along the horizon) so I shot a large number of frames at a longer 48mm focal length (on full frame).

Shooting two minute exposures with my Lee 3 stop grad along with the 10 stop ND, the light levels were going all over the place with the sun intermittently coming in and out of the overcast clouds. I ended up going back and reshooting many of the individual frames and adjusting my ISO between 100 and 400 “by feel” to try and get relatively consistent exposures for the frames.

Truth be told I held very little hope that this was going to work and by 7:15 after having spent nearly 45 minutes taking 16 frames I practically gave it up as a lost cause. Back in Lightroom I selected the best nine adjoining frames and adjusted them as best I could for consistency and let Photoshop have a crack at them. Much to my surprise… it worked… with heavily overcast conditions there was very little colour and the sky is a bit meh but here we have…

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.

Longing for Kirribilli

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 48 mm, 122.00 sec at f/16, ISO 125

When I first arrived at the point at Berry Island Reserve – about 50 minutes before sunset – to find these absolutely fantastic colourful striped sandstone rocks, I knew it was time to bring out the Lee BigStopper before it got too dark.

The light was already dropping a little and my first testshot was about two stops underexposed so I had to bump the ISO and open the aperture a little to drag in a little more light – still this six minute (368 second) exposure with the Lee BigStopper stacked with my new Formatt Hitech 3 stop reverse grad worked pretty well with the sun still above and rim lighting the heavy cloud.

Berry BigStopper

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 368 sec at f/8, ISO 200

and for comparison here’s the “normal” before shot (without the 10 stop ND)

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100