Rodney Campbell's Blog

Shooting the full moon from the Overseas Passenger Terminal with some friends. I was sporting the Sigma 50-500 which has a pretty extreme focal range but is remarkably sharp for what it gives – using the long end for some close up detailed shots of the Opera House sails with the moon rising

I figured as it was still twilight I’d give a panorama a go (with the 50-500). The light extremes were… well… extreme and the moon was very bright so I bracketed my shots using three shots at 2EV steps with the centre shot manually underexposed as a base

I was shooting the 50-500 at 50mm and ended up with 42 frames and well I was feeling a little uninspired by the results (the focal length was just too close for the nearby city (the tops of the buildings were being cropped) and I’m sure the horizon was well off)

Not deterred I switched to the trusty 24-70 and tried again at 24mm and took another 27 frames (9 sets of 3 brackets)

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.

In post I HDR processed the brackets (using a very natural blend which resulted in images which weren’t all that far off the centre frame with a bit of the shadow detail of the +2 frame) and then stitched the 9 resulting images for this sweeping panorama view which takes in Kirribilli on the other side of the harbour around past the Sydney Opera House and Circular Quay

Full and Wide

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 3 sec at f/8, ISO 200

The panorama is pretty ordinary so I also created a panosphere version – not sure that’s really helped either :)…

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 3 sec at f/8, ISO 200

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