Rodney Campbell's Blog

Whilst overlooking Hidden Valley in Mirima National Park I continued my quest for Milky Way arches over the outback landscape.

The quarter moon was great for lighting the landscape during my panorama frames but was a real problem lighting up the background sky as well forcing me to shoot at a much lower ISO than I wanted.

The moon also presented a serious problem for those frames which included he moon or had strong flare from the moon. Shooting with such an extreme wide angle lens as the Samyang 14mm tends to mean flare is easy to occur.

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

I also figured I’d include myself in this arch panorama. There was a nice rocky outcrop close by sticking up into the frame just on the left of the arch so it was an ideal framing for me. The way the framing worked and the closeness of the outcrop also meant I wouldn’t appear minuscule in the extreme wide angle frame.

The end result was a stitch of nine (9) frames shot at 14mm and 30 sec @ f/2.8 and ISO 4000 (that was as high as I was willing to push the ISO this evening).

I’m saving this final image for an exhibition I’ll be doing with the Parallaxis group next year so this teaser will have to do till then sorry :)…

Our second day in Kununurra and we checked out all the local touristy destinations. That evening however I’d decided to head back to Hidden Valley National Park for a little starry skied action.

The conditions for photographing the stars were getting poorer each day.

– the moon phase was getting on with the moon up around a quarter moon now
– it was also in the sky before sunset so it was always out during my shooting times
– the angle of the milky way was getting much more vertical now so it was harder to shoot a nice arch of stars over the landscape

So I’d use what I could now before it got impossible.

So I drove into Hidden Valley and trekked up the mountain in the dark lugging all my gear (I also brought my iPad, laptop and mobile access point).

Hidden Under the Stars

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

This was one of my star trails foreground test shots taken with the bright moon in the sky to my right lighting most of the landscape. I also added a little light painting of the darker foreground below with my torch. The view here is across Hidden Valley with Kununurra itself just off to the right.

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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.

To give you an idea how much of a problem the moon is – here’s a frame including the moon at the edge of frame.

Moonlight

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 32 sec at f/2.8, ISO 5000

Anyway I took a set of images for a stitched panorama of the milky way arching overhead. I also included myself in the end frame standing and admiring the milky way :).

Then I setup for the star trails and just past 8PM I let it run.

Whilst the intervalometer was doing it’s work I got out my laptop and mobile hotspot and get online. Tonight I was running an online Google Hangout with some of my Arcanum cohort. It’s quite bizarre being out in the dark at the top of a mountain on location chatting with friends via video :).

Still it was an excellent way to while away some of the time. After my hangout I read some material on my iPad before deciding I’d had enough of the cold and the dark. At 10PM and 149 frames later (46 seconds each) I called it a night.

I’m saving these images for an exhibition I’ll be doing with the Parallaxis group next year so this teaser will have to do till then sorry :)…

This spot is literally metres from he caravan on Lily Creek Lagoon. I was too tired to go out so I figured attempting a little relaxing set of star trails right at my door would have to do.

The lake is filled with many ghostly dead trees. With their white and grey twisting trunks and branches reaching up out of the water, the result of the diversion dam of the nearby Ord river creating this man made lake.

Ghosts

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

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 would have liked to have shot from right at the waters edge or even out in the water, with the nice bare trees in the foreground and the stars reflecting in the water.

However the dead trees were quite a long way out and the water nearest the shore was covered in dead water Lily leaves… Well that and the fact that these waters were crocodile infested might have had something to do with it! :). Figuring being made a ghost myself might not be the best idea I opted instead to include this most fortunate and fabulous ghost gum large in my foreground.

This is basically in the town area of Kununurra so I was a little unsure I’d be able to shoot this so cleanly. Still these darks skies are very good (even with a little bit of moon out and little bit of town light pollution). In the end I was able to shoot this at up to ISO 4000 (it wasn’t dark enough to go to ISO 6400).

Lily Creek Lagoon

With that in the can I setup for star trails and set the sequence going – 61 second exposures at f/2.8 and ISO 1250.

Frankly I’m pretty surprised they worked. During the trails sequence I had a number of people walking through the frame with torches along the lakeshore searching for crocodiles. Thankfully it looked like no one shone their torch directly into the camera and I was able to just darken the bottom of those frames I needed.

I’m saving this final image for an exhibition I’ll be doing with the Parallaxis group next year so the teaser above will have to do till then sorry :)…

In the afternoon we drove into nearby Mirima National Park (commonly known as Hidden Valley National Park). After we arrived we took an easy sunset stroll into hidden valley. We were up at the lookout just in time for sunset and the view was lovely.

Mirima Glow

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 85 mm, 1/100 sec at f/11, ISO 4000

Mirima is a culturally significant place for the local Miriwoong people. For thousands of years the natural features of Mirima have attracted the local Aboriginal people.

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 58 mm, 1/60 sec at f/8, ISO 1250

Unusual sandstone formations dominate the park (those unmistakable beehive style rock structures). These fascinating rock formations were deposited up to 350 million years ago and it is often referred to as a mini Bungle Bungle range.

Hidden From View

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/30 sec at f/11, ISO 360

It’s quite incredible that this spot is only a few hundred metres from civilisation. This is less than 2km from the centre of town! – it’s literally a 5 minute drive.

It also looked like it might be a decent spot for a little Milky Way action and star trailing… Of course :).

With the moon phase getting stronger each night, my opportunities for shooting the stars were diminishing each night. I’d definitely have to make best use of these dark skies as I could whilst I had the chance…

Lily Creek Lagoon sat right next to our caravan park and with this huge expanse of super still water providing a spectacular mirror to the scenery within and beyond the water it would be a crime not to capture it.

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.

Taming the Lily Pond

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 98 mm, 20 sec at f/13, ISO 100 x 14 frames

Here’s my take with a 14 shot stitched long exposure panorama taken with the ever useful 28-300mm all purpose travel lens. All the frames were taken with a Lee 0.6 GND stacked with the Lee BigStopper to stretch the exposures out to 20 seconds each. Taken at 98mm this gives a nice tight view of the landscape and I just needed a lot of frames to cover a wider horizontal view in massive detail. It probably wasn’t necessary but hey I’m always up for a (photographic) challenge :). Zooming in on this baby I can likely see the ants on the trees out in Lily Creek Lagoon.