Rodney Campbell's Blog

One of the things I had planned to shoot whilst I was on this trip was some wide stitched panoramas of the whole Milky Way arching over from horizon to horizon. Might as well start now…

I did a stitch of five (5) vertical frames using the fabulously sharp Samyang 14mm f/2.8 prime. The great thing about this lens is that it is fabulously sharp even wide open at f/2.8.

I also did a little light painting of the foreground during the frames to just slightly lift them out of the darkness.

Road Train to the Stars

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 36 sec at f/2.8, ISO 5000 x 5 Frames

I learnt a few new techniques this night.

I wanted to include the top of the arch of the Milky Way so I had to angle the lens upwards for the shots. As I don’t have a multi row pano head I couldn’t just rotate the head to take the shots – I basically had to just manually rotate the ball hoping to keep the vertical angle intact across the frames.

The second factor I had to deal with was how incredibly dark it was. Looking through the viewfinder it was pitch black. Even using the torch it was difficult to see anything in the distance so I had to learn how to guess just how far to manually rotate the camera to get the roughly 50% overlapping frames.

Lastly for this particular set I had to get myself and the tripod off the road in the middle of the sequence and come back later to complete :).

Out here it is so dark and quiet it is almost deafening :).

There are very few vehicles along the road at night but we do get some massive road trains.

The road train is an interesting thing. It consists of a relatively conventional tractor unit, but instead of towing one trailer or semi-trailer, a road train pulls two, three, four or more of them. It’s one massively long chunk of momentum…

Anyway it is so quiet you can hear any vehicle coming many minutes before it arrives, so I heard the truck coming a long time before I needed to get off the road but with 36 second exposures and fiddly manual recompositions between frames it takes a long time to complete the frames. I was facing up the road when the light came into view far far into the distance.

Not wanting to be smashed to oblivion like so many Roos on the side of the road I left the road in plenty of time :).

Even still moving off the road and back to roughly the same spot thankfully didn’t appear to cause any issues with the stitch.

We are in dark skies territory now and it was not more evident than when I walked outside after sunset… it’s incredible just how many stars you can see when you’re not in a light polluted area.

The nearest “town” south of where we were was probably Alice Springs – over 1000kms away to the south and a little east!

Vince Connoly Crossing

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 36.00 sec at f/2.8, ISO 5000

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 knew I would have the opportunity to shoot some decent Milky Way and star trails whilst on our trip through the remote north west of the country. Who knew it would come up on our first night of travels.

As it happened it was the night before the new moon so conditions could hardly be better.

Sydney’s light pollution makes seeing the stars let along good Milky Way shots pretty much impossible. The other factor besides the moon phase which makes things tricky when photographing the stars is having to also wait for clear skies at the right times.

Up here in the north during the four month long dry season we basically have no clouds…. ever…. want stars – bonus!…

So here I am at a rest area literally in the middle of nowhere and somewhat lacking in foreground interest…

Thankfully the highway next to the rest area ran primarily north-south right here, and we had a massively long stretch leading south into the distance.

I setup in the middle of the road and set to work…

Star Drive

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 36.00 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

It was now time to leave Darwin and head off for the real adventure exploring the real Australian outback… but not before visiting Berry Springs which is a very nice little thermal pool and waterfall about 50kms south of Darwin.

Berry Springs with Grandma

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 230 mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1800

Berry Springs

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 150 mm, 1/160 sec at f/5.6, ISO 450

We went for a refreshing swim before continuing our journey.

Heading south past Pine Creek and to Katherine before turning west towards Western Australia.

We camped the night at Vince Connoly Crossing rest area.

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/30 sec at f/5.6, ISO 1800

One thing my parents warned me of and I had to be cognisant of when photographing up here was the threat of being devoured by a crocodile whilst shooting seascapes. Something I definitely didn’t have to be concerned with when shooting in Sydney :).

Rising and Setting

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/125 sec at f/11, 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.

When I’m taking landscape photos I’m pretty well completely singly focused on the task at hand, looking for and crafting compositions and working with the light. I spend my time patiently adjusting things, reframing slightly and getting things as right as I can in camera.

I’m not normally looking around to see if a crocodile is going to have at me…

This evening I was looking for compositions with single isolated mangrove trees and this fantastic leafless tree raised up at the waters edge was perfect for some sunset silhouettes.

Nightcliff

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/50 sec at f/11, ISO 100

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 8 sec at f/11, ISO 100

It was getting pretty dark now and not wishing to be left stranded at the waters edge in the dark in crocodile infested territory I figured discretion was better than valour in this instance and I headed off the rocks back towards the car.

I decided to take a last minute detour through the park towards the Nightcliff jetty. Just before the jetty is a boat ramp with this nice curved seawall with a small light beacon at the end. Time for a very late twilight long exposure with just the 0.9 GND and the CPL while there was still a touch of colour left in the sky.

Beacon

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 35 mm, 108 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Thankfully I survived the evening unscathed and I was no crocodile dinner this night…

When we were at East Point the other day I’d seen some lone mangroves out in the water which I thought I may be able to craft a composition out of.

So I decided to head there by myself before sunset to try my hand at my first real sunset shoot up here in the top end.

Unfortunately the tide was quite high and so my previously chosen trees were mostly underwater – undeterred I searched for some other opportunities.

This first was at East Point and is a 93 second exposure with the Lee BigStopper stacked with a Lee 0.6 GND.

East Point Isolation

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 90 mm, 93 sec at f/11, 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.

I then returned to the car and left East Point and drove to Nightcliffe to check out another spot I’d seen on Google maps and TPE which looked like it might have promise.

Stranded

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 27 mm, 41.00 sec at f/16, ISO 100

With the lowish tide there were some quite nice isolated high and dry mangroves to work with along the rocky shore.

Nightcliff Pastel Paradise

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 100