Rodney Campbell's Blog

Sunrise itself wasn’t giving us much along the coast at Malabar just north of Long Bay so I switched to the Lee BigStopper to create some funkiness with the heavy swell in the ocean crashing on the rocky coastline.

A couple minutes after sunrise and the sun has gone back behind heavy clouds on the horizon – I was hoping for a second chance sunrise – unfortunately it never really eventuated. Hedged my bets here a little bumping the ISO and aperture so I didn’t have to wait more than three minutes for the exposure

Liquid Ice

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 182 sec at f/6.3, ISO 200

About twenty minutes after sunrise the sun finally broke above the clouds and lit up the coastline and the rocks below us and the BigStopper did it’s thing

Mystic Flow

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 23 mm, 92 sec at f/6.3, ISO 160

All three of my daughters love dancing so their annual concert is a pretty big thing in our household with the girls performing in many of the dances during the concert.

NIKON D600 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 135 mm, 1/320 sec at f/2.8, ISO 5600

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NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 1/200 sec at f/2, ISO 200

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NIKON D600 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 180 mm, 1/400 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

I’d shot at the bunkers at the northern end of Malabar before (you actually get to them from South Maroubra), but there were also some bunkers here at the southern end of Malabar near Long Bay. After our sunrise session on the cliff tops we made a choice to go in search of the bunkers instead of going down the gorge to the rocks at sea level (plus the swell looked pretty ferocious down there and I could easily see us being unceremoniously swept out to sea).

We were looking for this multi storey bunker but instead found a smaller one with the gun emplacement circle in front of it. Surprisingly the doors to the underground were open so we went exploring and eventually came across some pretty interesting tunnels which eventually led to an abandoned rail line cut into a deep trench across the coastline (presumably to cart ammunitions back and forth between the installations). Following the trainline we eventually came to the large three storey bunker and went exploring inside. As with all these bunkers it’s covered inside and out with graffiti and littered with debris.

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.

Outside Gerry and I set about to try some daytime long exposures with the ten stop ND’s (in my case also stacked with a 3 stop ND and a polariser). The clouds weren’t moving in the right direction for our first couple exposures so going ultra wide and cramming ourselves into a small open pocket on this side revealed something more like we were after

The Bunker

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 213 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Going back inside we set about taking some HDR brackets in the various stairways and rooms for later processing. I used the fisheye for some dramatic wide distorted views

The view from the top of the stairs looking down

Bunker Art

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1.30 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The following two framed by feel (couldn’t get behind the camera to look so just placed the tripod, angled the camera and prayed :))

This one with the camera placed in the corner of the turn of stairs looking a little forward and up

Bunker Stairs

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 10.00 sec at f/8, ISO 100

This one taken against the wall, halfway down the lowest set of stairs leading underground and looking up. It was incredibly dark down at the bottom of the bunker so I used my torch to do a little light painting on the underside of the stairs and on the wall to the right during all the bracketed exposures

Bunkering Up

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 2.50 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Finally – intentionally took the processing of this one over the top 🙂 – this is the room at the top of the bunker – a cornucopia of colour and madness

Vomit Induction

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I took a couple quick panorama sets well after sunrise during our trip to Garie beach and the 1000 Surfboard Graveyard.

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 took this one very quickly handheld at maximum focal length on the lens I had on at the time (70mm on the 24-70) just as we were making motions to leave. It was such a rushed job and handheld at a long focal length I considered it a dead loss.

We did head back down the beach to the car to wait for Gerry to come back from his expedition down the southern coastline. However when he arrived he wanted to head back up to the surfboards to try a few more shots so we headed back up there and I setup for a “proper” pano on the tripod.

However when I stitched it I didn’t like it so I thought I’d try putting together the handheld job and much to my surprise it worked… Stitched from 10 frames shot on manual at 1/160 sec @ f/8 and ISO 100 at 70mm. With a little Nik Color Efex to bring some more detail and spice back into the clouds and the hills.

1000 Surfboards Tall

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/160 sec at f/8, ISO 100

A little extra juice from a light painting session at Kirribilli on the northern side of Sydney Harbour opposite the Sydney Opera House and the city with fellow photographers (Ali and Sabine). I’d never shot a lightning strike before and had wanted to for some time… tick

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.

Lightning Orb

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 122.00 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Along the harbour foreshore there’s this nice little stone jetty sticking out into the water and I was hoping we could frame things up nicely for a light painting session.

It was a very overcast evening with sunset almost a bust – the weather was turning a little ominous with thunder in the far distance and some flashes of light in the sky way out west. About twenty minutes after sunset we setup for a little light painting during twilight.

My orb tool is very bright so it’s ideal to use when there’s still a little ambient light and we can shoot stopped down – I setup for a two minute exposure at f/11 and ISO 200 to give me enough time to spin the orb (30 seconds or so) and then let the rest of the time run out to soak in some of the ambient sky and city lights.

My luck was running hot this night… this was my first test capture with the orb and near the end of the extra time after doing my spin I was extremely fortunate to catch this fantastic multi branch lightning strike right over the city – better yet it fit in perfectly with my framing – the weather gods were smiling 🙂

We only got a couple more shots in before it began to rain so our light painting session was cut well short – this was the second last shot of the evening when I was going a little crazy with some light sabers (aka childrens toys)

Faerie Beams

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 122.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100