Rodney Campbell's Blog

My eldest daughter and I spent the weekend with a large group of photography friends staying at Bundeena in the Royal National Park just south of Sydney. Our aim was to spend the weekend taking great pictures, eating and drinking, great conversation and processing images. We woke at 5AM on saturday morning for a sunrise session at nearby Wattamolla beach.

Wattamolla Sleeps

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 123 sec at f/11, ISO 100

We knew that the weather forecast was pretty grim for the whole weekend (you don’t know that when the trip was planned months in advance :)) but we were here so we pushed on. To be fair it could have been much worse – it was raining for quite a bit of the time but whilst it was completely clouded over with very very heavy clouds it was at least not raining when we woke and prepared to leave. It did however rain a little on our short drive to Wattamolla which was of some concern but once we arrived the weather gods at least allowed us to walk down to the beach and start shooting before it started to drizzle.

So with umbrellas at hand and rain covers over our gear we began our morning ritual…

At the back of Wattamolla Beach there is a lagoon and a small cliff with what looks to be a very nice set of waterfalls (when the water is flowing). Unfortunately today even with the rainy conditions (and in fact rain in Sydney for the previous week) the water still really wasn’t flowing and all we had was a single thin fall. I’ve seen images where there’s a wide cascade of water coming over the edge and I look forward to one day shooting that 🙂

So we stuck to the beach and I tried some compositions both on the right and left sides with the rocks that were available at a medium to highish tide

6:30AM and it’s a bit over ten minutes to sunrise (not that we saw any of that – it just got gradually lighter grey). The image above is a natural two minute long exposure in the dark with no filters at all (which is unusual for me :)). I’ve left the blue cast (because I like that sort of thing – others hate it) for a dreamy look to the sky and ocean

I then moved back to the beach to try something with the rocks in the foreground – I liked this curved piece (reminding me of some long low creature digging into the sand – a platypus maybe?) right at the waters edge and with a long exposure the waves intermittently washed around it right up to the tripod

Digging In

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 57.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

A move to the other side of the beach I’m up on this nice looking sandstone wedge with the 16-35 to let it point me out to sea (and that nice looking log wedged in the rocks (I did try to move it to a better position but alas it was very tightly wedged)). Whilst it doesn’t look much changed this was taken just a few minutes after sunrise – apparently it’s directly out towards the middle – I’m sure you can see it out there on the horizon… not… Still quite dark at this time allowing me to still use a long exposure

Pointing the Way

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 28 sec at f/13, ISO 100

Finally as it was getting lighter I looked around along the rocks for somewhere I could get some nice water movement in some images with a shorter exposure time to emphasise the structure of the swirling water. Found this great spot with the waves every now and then washing right up to encircle this great rock in my foreground. Pushed the ISO to 400 and opened the aperture to f/8 to allow a shorter shutter speed (0.6 seconds) to capture the water

Wattamolla Swirl

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 1/2 sec at f/8, ISO 400

Whilst we were staying with my parents at my childhood home recently I continued my exercise in small scale light painting of natural world seeds and seed pods

My mother has this fabulous collection of these in some baskets and I took the opportunity to try some of them out – here are some of my favourites

Enveloped

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 134.00 sec at f/32, ISO 100

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.
To recap I’ve got my subject securely in position using a Wimberly plamp with my camera and macro lens on a tripod pointing at my subject with a bulb mode remote controller

I darken the room (turn off the lights) and with just a single small LED torch with some black gaffer tape wrapped around the head to allow me to more finely control the light and limit any spill I set about light painting my subjects during a long exposure

For all of these I’ve had to stop down quite some way f/32 to gain enough depth of field with the subjects so close and at times quite deep. I know this sounds like I’m also deep into sharpness and detail robbing diffraction territory (and it is) but honestly it isn’t anywhere near as bad as most people make it out to be and I’d much rather the depth of field in this case than a slight loss in sharpness. Shooting so closed down also has another useful effect – it helps to counteract any ambient light (esp any stray light) and allows for a longer exposure giving me more time to paint with light

Clover

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 117 sec at f/32, ISO 100

Five

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 118.00 sec at f/32, ISO 100

This one was interesting because I couldn’t use the plamp to hold this one so I needed some flat surface to put it on so it could stand up. I was hoping the top surface of my dad’s inkject printer/scanner (which was black and glossy) might do the trick and add some cool reflections – it did

Sharks Teeth

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 121.00 sec at f/32, ISO 100

Nine

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 93 sec at f/32, ISO 100

During our early morning session at Curracurrong Falls in the Royal National Park south of Sydney…

About 45 minutes after sunrise the sun started to break through the higher clouds and we had a nice patch of god rays breaking through way out to sea to the north east. We moved around to the other side of the falls where we could get a good position with the patch of colour and rays on the horizon with the prominent peak of Eagle Rock

I tried a number of exposures but eventually switched to the BigStopper for some daytime long exposure fun

Note: These images (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 Eagle and the Abyss

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm, 61.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Life On The Edge

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 206 sec at f/11, ISO 100