Rodney Campbell's Blog

We had originally thought of staying in Wyndham for the evening but it was still early so we left Wyndham and headed south. Eventually we arrived at the crossroads between the Great Northern Highway and the Victoria Highway.

There isn’t a lot here – it’s an intersection of two major highways after all :). However there were a number of other caravans and campers setup here in the rest area for the night so we figured we’d join them.

Crossroads

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 4000

There were a few nice looking Boab trees in a semi clear area nearby so I went for a wander with my daughter just on sunset for a bit of a recce. Surprisingly even though we were literally in the middle of nowhere we had good mobile reception here. So as the sun set over the Kimberley’s we facetime’d the family so they could enjoy the sunset behind the boab trees with us :).

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 42 mm, 1/50 sec at f/7.1, ISO 100

After dinner I went back to the boabs to see if I could make use of the clear skies and the stars again. The moon was well and truly out by this stage. Quite high in the sky and more than a quarter moon. Very much not ideal for shooting the milky way. The moonlight did however light the landscape turning night into day so I had to work with it as best I could.

I figured the best way to deal with it was to simply include it in the frame. For the image up top and the one below I’ve moved up quite close to the boab to let it fill a lot of the frame. I then took three horizontal overlapping frames moving from top to bottom to create a vertical panorama.

Lunar Scaping

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 2500

I also tried a horizontal panorama with a milky way arch over this boab using vertical frames with the Samyang 14mm. I really wasn’t hopeful at the time with bright frames on the left from the campsites and the big moon and the massive flare it creates on the right. It’s got issues but I’m hopeful it will also be a potential for inclusion at an exhibition I’ll be doing with the Parallaxis group next year.

Finally back at the crossroads and the campsites I saw this couple with their fire out under the stars. They were singing songs accompanied by their guitar. I figured it was worth me trying a shot since I already had the camera on the tripod out. Couldn’t be bothered with a lens change so I just got up reasonably close with the 14mm and had to expose three frames. One for the stars (30 seconds), one for the general moonlit ambient (10 seconds) and one for the couple and their fire (1.5 seconds). I blended the three on layers in Photoshop using luminosity masks and some manual blending for this final result.

Star Song

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 1.5, 10 & 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 3200

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.

Don't forget to Share...

Google

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Email

Print