Rodney Campbell's Blog

Over the weekend I joined a healthy crowd of enthusiastic photographers for the Varina & Jay Patel Sydney Photowalk hosted by Dianne & Mykal Hall.

It was great to meet up and spend some time chatting with this dynamic duo from Ohio in the USA. The walk started late in the afternoon and went from the Sydney Opera House around Circular Quay and up onto Observatory Hill and it was just great to catch up with old friends and meet some new.

The main attraction (besides taking some photographs on a lovely summers evening) was actually the respite to the pub after the walk (as is pretty typical of our photowalks here in Sydney) and the many many hours spent just chatting, drinking and eating in a relaxed atmosphere (I didn’t get home till almost 3AM). Our guests shared a wealth of knowledge and I’m sure everyone else, as I did, really appreciated the opportunity.

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.

Varina & Jay

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm, 1/400 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

We had some fairly decent clouds in the afternoon and evening which made for some interest in the sky. Sticking around the front of the Opera House before sunset I spent most of my time with the Lee BigStopper for some long exposures

Looking back at Circular Quay and the city with the wind blowing the clouds towards and to the right of us from the setting sun – the clouds were moving but not quite enough so to get a stupidly long 379 second exposure I stacked the Lee BigStopper with a Lee 0.6 GND and my CPL

With this image I wasn’t totally convinced with the colour version so created this very dramatic monochrome rendition – here they both are – so what do YOU think – colour or monochrome?

Sky Explosion

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 379 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Just after sunset we had some lovely pink clouds in both directions

Opera Looming

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 84 sec at f/8, ISO 200

I cut the previous long exposure exposure short so I could quickly swivel around and catch the fluffy pink clouds just hovering above the quay (374 seconds)

Simplicity in Pink

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 29 mm, 374 sec at f/8, ISO 200

Headed out to Bare Island at La Perouse in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs with Sabine (a fellow local photographer) one afternoon after work.

We were hoping for better weather really, but we had very heavy overcast skies and really really windy conditions (at ground level at least – up high the clouds weren’t moving very much). It was pretty bleak but we figured we’d give it a try since we were there and to be honest we were just happy it wasn’t raining. As usual the wedding photographers with their brides and grooms were out in force in this beautiful location with this sweet little island just off the mainland joined by this old wooden footbridge.

We arrived well before sunset (a bit over an hour and a half) but there wasn’t much of anything going on weather wise other than a complete cloud cover of albeit chunky interesting clouds. Sabine had recently received her BigStopper so it was long exposure time.

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.

This one the first shot after we arrived – a crack in the sky opened up on the left – the sun is somewhere under heavy cloud over to the right – a tighter view of the classic composition looking straight down over the bridge to the island – a bit over 4 minutes exposure at 256 seconds using the Lee BigStopper stacked with a Lee 0.9 Grad and the Heliopan CPL

Classically Bare

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 256 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Tried a couple more long exposures and pulled back for a wider view – the clouds weren’t moving all that much so I dropped down to ISO 100 for a lazy 9 minute exposure to try and smear the sky a little more

Exceptionally Bare

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 528 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Whilst I was taking the shot above a wedding couple with their photographer arrived. They took some shots up on the headland where we were and then I could see they were making their way down onto the bridge. When they got close I stopped my exposure and quickly took off the filters (an advantage with the Lee kit – it’s super quick and easy) to take some shots including the couple on the bridge.

They weren’t going to stand anywhere near still enough to include them in a long exposure shot 🙂 but I figured if I could get them in a shot with the same framing I could composite them into the LE frame

My technique for this for those who might be interested:

– ensure I use essentially the same focal length as the shot I want to composite with (in my case I’d only taken a couple LE’s at 32mm and 24mm)
– they were moving so I opened the aperture and bumped the ISO to get a faster shutter
– I only need to use the area just where the couple are so that all I need to get to expose correctly

In post I:

– I shoot RAW and use AutoISO so I adjusted the white balance of the frame with the couple to roughly match that (mostly for the bridge) of the long exposure – the BigStopper gives a blue colour cast to the LE (which my friend Gerry dislikes but I quite like :))
– open the two images as layers in Photoshop
– with the LE frame on top adjust the opacity of that layer so I can see the layer underneath coming through
– manually move the bottom layer to align it with the top (I only need the small bit where the people are so I’m not concerned with it being cropped)
– add a layer mask to the top LE layer and then lightly brush in the couple so they come through from the lower layer (here’s where getting the white balance of the bridge right matters since some of it blends through as well)
– change the opacity of the top layer back to 100 and we’re done

The results of the two composite blends…

Bare Wedding

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 32 mm, 256 sec at f/11, ISO 200 & 1/50 sec at f/5.6, ISO 800

and

Wedded Bare

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 528 sec at f/11, ISO 100 & 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400

Unfortunately I didn’t get their contact details so if anyone by chance knows this couple I’d be happy to supply them with the image files if they’d like them

We headed off down onto the island next to try some compositions on the rocks looking back at the mainland. As it was getting closer to sunset the sky opened up a bit away from the setting sun behind us and a little colour started to form. We headed back to where we started to try our luck again with some long exposures. It was getting darker all the time so had to bump the ISO and widen the aperture so I didn’t have to wait for too long an exposure

Bare in Blue

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 25 mm, 267 sec at f/8, ISO 400

I was in the city doing a little shopping with my girls. We were checking out the enormous Christmas tree in Martin place and stopped for a few photos for dad in the long arched alcoves of the old General Post Office

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.

The Time Tunnel

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/2.8, ISO 125

We also took the opportunity to try out lunch at Jamie’s Italian Restaurant. My quick review – the ambience was fantastic, the food whilst perfectly OK didn’t wow us

JI

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 36 mm, 1/40 sec at f/2.8, ISO 2200

I’m embarking on a new photographic project with a group of local photographers (titled Parallaxis) – each working toward a combined goal to produce a body of work to present at an exhibition together. Our work for this project is centred around a fairly open ended theme titled “Odyssey”.

My personal take on the theme is to depict scenes showing the passage of natural time juxtaposed against unyielding man-made static objects. I aim to produce a body of work centred around very simplified views of sharply defined man made structures (essentially buildings, etc) set in a long exposure scene where the motion of natural objects show the motion of time – in most cases I expect this to be the streaking of moving clouds or water over many minutes. I plan to find and shoot the subjects and process to monochrome over the next six to twelve months.

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.

The following are my first two test shots to give an idea of my thinking. I likely wont be able to get a consistent monochrome conversion, crop or compositional style till I’ve shot quite a number of potential images and get a feel for what will work best (together) but I am interested in your feedback on either/both the concept in general and the samples (compositionally and processing)

Angles
Chatswood Concourse Building, Sydney, NSW, Australia

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 113 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Lines and Curves
Chatswood Concourse Building, Sydney, NSW, Australia

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 92 sec at f/11, ISO 100

National Falls in the Royal National Park. After making our way down to the bottom of the lower falls and taking some images of the falls themselves I headed a little further downstream and setup for some images looking through the lush green canopy of trees towards the waterfall down in the bottom of the gorge. The single frame was OK but nothing spectacular but I figured since I was setup on this nice rock in the middle of the stream I might try a full 360° stitched panorama.

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’m actually a little surprised this worked so well – I hadn’t levelled the tripod for a pano so it was pure luck it was actually correctly levelled for this (almost perfectly so as it turns out). Eleven (11) frames at 22mm with just under 50% overlap and here we have…

Follow the Fall

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 20.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100 x 11 Frames

oh and that single frame I’d taken at the start…

The Fall

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 20.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100