Rodney Campbell's Blog

I’d not managed to shoot the starry sky the night before (the half lit moon in the sky and clouds had conspired against me) so I was hoping a sunrise shoot at the same location would satisfy me.

It was just a five minute walk from where we were staying so I set the alarm for 4AM the night before planning for a 5:20AM sunrise and arriving at the location my usual one hour before.

What I hadn’t factored in tho was that the change of daylight savings in New South Wales happened overnight so in fact sunrise was going to be at 6:20AM (effectively an hour later). I didn’t really know this till I got to the location and after about half an hour of shooting – thought to myself – man it’s still very dark with no hint of light on the horizon – whats happening with sunrise :).

Still the sky was very dark and there was very little cloud in the sky so I figured I could try some of those shots of the starry skies I was hoping to do the night before 🙂

Jagged Milk

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 25.00 sec at f/4, ISO 4000

Above we are at 4:25AM and I’ve lit the distant rocks and the tree stump in the foreground with some low extreme side lighting with my zoomable torch and a 25 second exposure wide open at ISO 4000 with the 16-35/4 at 16mm

Below we have a similar composition this time with the Sigma 15mm fisheye – 30 seconds at f/3.2 and ISO 3200

Showin’ the Way

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 30 sec at f/3.2, ISO 3200

I shot some other compositions for another 20 minutes or so and seeing it was still very dark with no hint of sunrise – finally grokked that I was an hour early 🙂

Figuring I probably had a little time to try some starry trails before twilight came in too strongly I headed over to where I’d shot some interesting southward facing test shots the night before. I climbed up the landward rock pillar once again and setup a shot southward over the seaside pillar of Wellington Rock.

I knew I didn’t have a lot of time before twilight so I quickly worked out a good exposure for the individual star trails shots (60 seconds at f/4 and ISO 1000) and programmed and started the intervalometer. I figured if I was lucky I might get half an hours worth of frames which I was hoping would be enough to at least give a promise of what might have been given a few hours here in the dark.

At 5AM when I started the sequence the skies were nice and dark and the milky way was clearly visible. Just over 15 minutes in I could see the sky was getting noticeably lighter so I stopped the sequence – quickly dropped the ISO to 800 and started the intervalometer again. Ten minutes later I again adjusted the settings down to ISO 500. Just after 5:30AM twilight was really starting to show with clearly deep blue skies and fading stars so I stopped the sequence and hoped that the 29 frames I’d taken would be enough to show the starry trails.

Finally before moving on I did another frame to use for my foreground in the final shot – 61 seconds at f/8 and ISO 400 with some light painting of the rock pillar in front of me. Unfortunately this is where I needed a second person – there is only so far I could reach out from my position to give angled light on the rock. Some side lighting would likely have been more interesting but I was cramped up on a thin ridge on the pillar I’d climbed.

I stacked the star trails in photoshop as per usual (see previous posts for the technique) and blended in my foreground light painted layer for the final result. This is a promise of what starry nights could be and a definite reason to return here someday and do the job properly.

The Promise

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 61.00 sec at f/8, ISO 400

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