Rodney Campbell's Blog

Before I even set foot on the island I had this vision in my mind of an image looking down a long and winding road heading off into the distance. So when driving about the island I would often (much to my families distress) slow down and look and even at times stop and take some shots in the hope that maybe I would get the source material for a shot.

There were many stretches of road which had promise at various places on the island. I was looking for that perfect set of conditions with nice low green bushland to the sides of the road and a nice dark black winding road with the pencil white centre line. I know I don’t ask for much… 🙂

The Long and Windy Road

NIKON D600 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 300 mm, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 220

Having shot some test shots at a number of spots and with various focal lengths from wide (24mm) to long (70mm) (I almost always had the 24-70/2.8 on the camera body when we went out each day for our daily travels) I eventually settled on this spot on Cape Du Couedic Road in the Flinders Chase National Park.

This is on the road heading out to the Cape du Couedic lighthouse (and Remarkable Rocks and Admirals Arch) from the Flinders Chase Visitor Centre.

This particular spot had a nice high position so you could look down and see the road right down to the bottom and back up the other side of this little valley. I also tried shots along this stretch of road at various places and looking back from the other end but this is the compo I liked the best.

Unfortunately we were only ever here in the middle of the day so the light was always terrible. The first shot above was taken just before midday when were were heading out for the day and the shot below mid afternoon when we were coming back that same day. Both were shot near the long end of the 70-300mm lens, so in the end a very long focal length was the perspective I was looking for. A polariser would definitely have been handy but I didn’t have one (or a step up ring) for the thread diameter of this lens unfortunately.

The Winding Road

NIKON D600 + 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6 @ 280 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Alas the shot needed many things and if I’d had the time I might have come back at a better time… By myself, with the tripod, a polariser and the time and patience to focus stack the image for front to back sharpness :). Still I’m relatively happy with the shot of what could have been :)… It’s essentially the composition I wanted but not the execution… perhaps part of an excuse to return here one day…

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