Rodney Campbell's Blog

Received an invite to meetup with some friends for an impromptu sunrise shoot the day before. It was decided to head off to Cronulla (or TheRealShire as it’s colloquially known).

So it was a 4:30AM wakeup for another Sneaky Sunday expedition to a location I’d never shot before (truth be told I don’t think I’d ever even been to Cronulla beach before in my life – a pretty sad state of affairs when I’ve lived in Sydney for 30 years).

Still you need a passport to visit #therealshire 🙂 but Michael Sutton had it all arranged for us this morning 🙂

Fluffy

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 72 sec at f/13, ISO 200

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 wasn’t familiar with the area, and I knew it would be close to low tide but Google Maps shows that the two tidal pools surrounded by rocks shelves just at the southern end of the main beach looked promising enough.

I planned to arrive an hour before sunrise (5:45AM) as I normally try to and the others were going to arrive around 6AM.

When I arrived I was a little disappointed that the whole area was lit by strong flood lights casting a strong yellow glow over the rocks and pools and the sky looked like it was heavy with cloud… not another crappy sunrise I thought…

It must have been our time however – in what probably best explains how good the morning was… I took 31 shots the whole morning (which is actually a reasonably low number for a sunrise session) however I’ve selected and processed 11 of those images to what I rate my publishable level. It’s very unusual to have such a high hitrate – I’m usually happy to come home with just one or two good images from a session.

I started with this composition with this curved leading line of one of the rock pools heading out to sea. It was still very dark and after a couple stupidly long exposure attempts (250 seconds each) but ending up with black skies I ended up putting on a Lee 0.6 (2 stop) grad ND filter – upside down – so that the grad covered the ground which was being lit by the flood lights. The colour was just starting to come out in the sky and my friends had just arrived. I bumped the ISO to 200 so I didn’t have to wait for a stupidly long time for the exposure to run and got some nice touches of colour in this 126 second exposure.

Curve

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 22 mm, 126 sec at f/13, ISO 200

Things were looking promising…

Most of the others moved over to the larger well maintained pool where the morning swimmers were already gathering to swim. They were aiming to do some reflections off the more still water surface in the pool which was well above the tide so the waves wouldn’t disturb the water.

I decided to head out onto the rocks to these pools of still water I could see while the colour continued to build. You’ve probably noticed but I like to have definite things in my foreground in my images so the rocky pools were more my thing.

So I worked this little area as best I could – the rock shelf itself wasn’t all that interesting a location to shoot, but this large still pool of water with little rocky points of interest in and around the edges was working well enough for me.

Above and Below

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 124 sec at f/13, ISO 100

and with the colour of the sky turning gradually from blues to purples to pinks and hopefully eventually oranges and reds, the interesting sky continued to provide a great counterbalance to the reflections.

The Pink State

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 65 sec at f/13, ISO 100

#therealshire was certainly putting on a decent show for us and it only got better…

We begin a very fruitful photographic day back at Cape Willoughby. Lots of amazing photographic opportunities present themselves this day and it all begins with a very early morning drive on the rough dirt road out to Cape Willoughby Lighthouse (well not quite – we turn off just a hundred metres or so before the lighthouse itself).

Amazingly my two eldest daughters had decided to join me for this sunrise session – which was a very welcome surprise – and a great opportunity to show them the glorious feeling of being out in the wilds of nature at the very best time of day.

Cape Willoughby Lunar

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 157 sec at f/8, ISO 200

We had about a 35km drive (26km of it on dirt roads) from where we were staying – and it was hours before sunrise so we had to drive carefully so we didn’t end up causing havoc to both ourselves and the abundant wildlife out on the island.

We arrived around 5:15AM and made our way out to the headland we’d visited the previous day. It was cold and very windy so my girls sheltered out of the wind in amongst the large rocks whilst I set to work nearby in the darkness.

Sunrise was scheduled for around 6:20AM so there was plenty of pre dawn long exposure goodness to play with – and some light painting with the powerful zoom torch was the order of the first fifteen minutes or so. In the image above I’ve setup with just enough frame to catch the rising moon before it moves too high plus some light painting of the rocks during the almost three minute exposure with just the polariser and a light grad filter for company.

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.

Next I moved down onto the rocks and the little fingers of rock reaching out towards the sea much closer to the water. They have these spindly dead bushes with silvery white bristly branches all around the place here just lying in amongst the rocks. I found myself a nice specimen and dragged it around with me to use as foreground interest in my compositions with the rocks, water and sky.

There’s one composition that had possibilities but because of the complex nature of the rocks and cliff rising above the horizon I couldn’t use any graduated filters to hold down the exposure of the sky and more evenly balance my shots in camera like I usually try to do. So I had to bracket some frames to get me the exposure coverage I wanted. This is a manual layer blend of five exposures in photoshop though the majority of the image comes from a single exposure and most of the rest came from another. The final three (overexposed frames) were just used very selectively for a few little areas. In the end I decided I didn’t want to over brighten those rocks in the cliff face (even though they are as bright as day in the most exposed base frames).

Spindly Forms

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 10 sec at f/11, ISO 100

About ten minutes before sunrise I suggested to my girls that we try making our way up onto the top of the cliff to our left (we hadn’t gone up there yesterday). Basically we’d be walking around and up onto that point right in the middle of the image above. We could see what the view was like from up high and watch the sunrise out to sea.

The clouds out towards the east over the sea where the sun would rise were pretty thin and ordinary so I wasn’t expecting anything interesting sunrise colour wise.

Up top it was still very windy. Whilst my girls took some pre sunrise and right on sunrise selfies to post online 🙂 I setup for a 360˚ stitched panorama from the highest point I could find. We could see Cape Willoughby off to our left and the sun about to peek over the horizon straight out to sea.

Here is where my first failure for the day occurred. I took almost two complete rotations worth of 50% overlapping shots. One set with my standing next to the rising sun in the relevant frames and then my daughters on the next pass by. I was rushing because the sun was rising fast and what I didn’t account for was some camera movement – probably the gusting wind (we were at the highest most exposed point after all). I should have more closely checked the sharpness of the frames (but I’d taken around 25 overlapping frames). Unfortunately about half a dozen or more frames were unusably blurry. The remainder were pin sharp but removing all the blurry ones left lots of gaps in my ability to stitch any decent number of the frames and a full 360 was completely out :(.

Given that the sun rose so fast I probably wouldn’t have been able to reshoot anyway even if I’d noticed my error at the time… I’ll keep telling myself that… 🙂

This was the best I could do with the remaining frames – it took a bit of work but turned out surprisingly well in the end.

Cape Willoughby Surprise

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100 x 8 Frames

Thus is the life of a landscape photographer – the one that got away…

Now that the sun was up it was pushing beautiful soft light across the land – time for some shots down the coast – looking back down to where we’d explored yesterday and shot pre dawn this morning.

The rugged coastline here at Cape Willoughby was spectacular and all the colours richly saturated by the soft morning light was eye popping.

I setup on the southern end of the cliff as close to the edge as I dared and framed some compositions of that awesome coastline below, the amazing greeny blue water and these fantastic orange lichen covered rocks underfoot.

That finger of land down below on the left is where we’d explored yesterday and where I’d taken a few handheld panoramas with my girls. That reddy orange section right in the middle was where I’d shot earlier in the morning.

The Orange Abyss

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Adding the Lee LittleStopper (six stop ND filter) for a little long exposure treatment.

Sliding over the Abyss

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 72 sec at f/10, ISO 100

Then it was time to go grab my girls and bring them over here to appreciate the view and get some selfies :)…

On the thin strip of land which joins the Dudley Peninsula (where Penneshaw is) to the main part of Kangaroo Island there lies this great lookout at the top of Prospect Hill with fantastic 360˚ views. Sometimes called Mount Thisby it was officially designated Prospect Hill in 2002 to honour Matthew Flinders’ original naming.

Just before reaching Prospect Hill there’s a turnoff down a dirt road to Pennington Bay. This little spot looks like it would be pretty good for a sunrise shoot (maybe even sunset). Unfortunately didn’t get the chance to try it out but we all liked exploring the beach – actually looks like it would have been a great spot for some reasonably protected swimming too.

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.

Looking Back

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/1250 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

There’s a small carpark just off the main road into this area (Hog Bay Road) and then there are around 500 steps up to the top of the small hill and the waiting lookout.

This is the view looking towards Penneshaw way.

Prospect Hill Views

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 31 mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

My eldest daughter (the only one of the three to actually climb the hill :)) taking in the views.

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 60 mm, 1/800 sec at f/4, ISO 100

and this is a 360˚ stitched panorama taken on a landing just down the steps from the top (my eldest daughter there up at the top).

Prospect Hill

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/250 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Whilst on the Lightstation guided tour at Cape Willoughby our guide noticed my penchant for photography and we got talking. It turns out he’s a damn fine landscape photographer and finding that I was intending on coming back for a sunrise session the next morning, he made some suggestions of where I could go shoot and how to get there.

We had some time to spare so after lunch we drove down to the nearby cove he suggested and my two eldest daughters and I went off to explore and do a recce. Travelled light with just the camera and the 24-70 along with a polariser.

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.

Checking the View

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/200 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Heading along the coast and around to the tip of land the wondrous rocky coastline was varied and amazing. Some parts bright orange covered with lichen and others just varied colours of stone. The rocks too were varied with rounded tumbled boulders through to wind and water worn rock formations thrust up out of the sea.

Climbing right out onto a high point on the rocks thrust out into the ocean I tried a couple handheld full 360˚ panorama’s. In this view I’ve stitched the sequence so that we (and my daughter who’s nicely perched on another spire of rock across a small gully from me) are looking back towards the mainland part of the island.

Wondrous Rocks

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 100

My daughter is enjoying the scenery

Pose

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 56 mm, 1/100 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Time to head back to the car and the rest of the family waiting there.

Windward

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Weathered and Lost

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/40 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Somebody else had left these small stone piles here on the rocky beach near where we’d parked – best put them to good use.

Stones

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 62 mm, 1/640 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Hard to believe these are all within the same small cove – all within a few hundred metres of each other.

We were looking forward to returning here and exploring this wondrous location further the next morning.

You can probably guess what sort of sunrise session it’s been when at the end of it you’re having discussions around whether we should just format our memory cards right now.

The morning was essentially one disappointment after another. We were forced to enact Plan B and after visiting three (well four really) separate locations to try and get some shots and having taken just 39 frames the whole morning it wasn’t looking good. Especially when you consider that amongst the 39 frames there was a set of shots for a stitched panorama and nearly half of the total shots were all from a single composition where I’d taken 18 frames trying to time the wash of the water over the rocks in my foreground. Even the pitiful little waves weren’t coming to the party (I had to wait for the swell of water from a passing tanker ship to get enough wave action). We were effectively in a protected bay after all.

Surprisingly in the end however I think I’ve managed to rescue a few passable shots.

18 Reasons

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 6 sec at f/13, ISO 100

Gerry and I had hastily made some plans late the evening before to head out to Kurnell in the southern shire of Sydney. Gerry suggested trying for some lone mangrove trees at Towra Point – with two potential options being available. The southern end where it would be quite a walk in and we’d likely get very wet, and the northern end of the bay where we could easily park right near the mangroves.

The problem was that the northern end didn’t look all that promising on maps but it was convenient and had an option nearby of doing some after sunrise long exposures with these interesting looking rock walls going out into the bay – that is assuming some decent cloud appeared. The weather forecast for the next day wasn’t looking promising for any decent cloud in the morning so I certainly wasn’t holding my breath. In the end we opted for the more convenient option.

So I figured we might as well have a Plan B as well – I was considering the drive to the eastern side of Kurnell out to Cape Solander, but the gates weren’t supposed to open till after 6AM. So I suggested the north eastern tip of Kurnell as our Plan B and we could park nearby and walk in if necessary.

After a 4:30AM rise I made my way to meet Gerry at Kurnell. I was a bit early for our meetup and when I noticed the gates out to Cape Solander were open I headed out for a quick recce.

Met Gerry at the designated meeting place at 5:40AM (an hour before sunrise). Of course there was absolutely no cloud so any dreams of interesting clouds with blazing colour was right out. We walked in to where the mangroves were and tried to find any isolated trees we could use for a decent composition looking out to the water but it was just a dense forest. Thankfully Gerry took the hit and did the “swimming” :).

Eventually we gave up and opted for Plan B – we drove across to the closest parking spot to the northern tip of Kurnell and quickly made our way to the rocks.

We arrived at 6:25AM just in time for the skies to start showing some smooth colour tones – absolutely no clouds so pastels were about all we could hope for.

To be honest the rocks weren’t looking very inspiring and we had no real midground or sky to create an interesting composition so we just winged it.

About all I could do here was try and fill my foreground with some interesting pockmarked rocks and these small deep pools of water in the rocks and focus on them. I’d put the cityscape of the Port Botany industrial area on the other side of the bay as my mid to background and let the sky fill with the sweet pastels which were forming.

Plan B

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 15 sec at f/22, ISO 100

Then we watched the sun rise up over the horizon – Gerry tried some shots with the long lens… he didn’t sound hopeful.

After the sun had popped up it was streaming low golden light across the water. I found this composition where I had this interesting “H” shaped channel in the rocky shore leading out into the water whilst the golden sunlight could glisten across the top of the rocks.

This is the shot where I’d taken 18 frames trying to get some sort of water movement in the right places in this H channel. In the end I ended up manually blending components from three shots opened as layers in Photoshop. Other than that pretty minimal editing was done and so ends Plan B… we were more than ready to get outa here and find some breakfast 🙂

H18

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

After breakfast in Kurnell we even tried a hastily selected Plan C – checking out another spot nearby for some lone tree mangrove action. We took exactly zero shots – we could however see some excellent specimens… only they were on the other side of the bay and required a boat to get to – it was just one of those days :(.