Rodney Campbell's Blog

Sneaky Sunday is something my good friend Gerry instigated some time back. At it’s simplest it just meant to sneak out on a Sunday morning to shoot the sunrise at some as yet undisclosed location. We used to shoot a lot on Saturday mornings but with more and more photographers getting out in the field for sunrise sessions it was hard to go somewhere without a crowd of eager photographers trying to cram into one tiny location. It was hoped the switch to Sundays would bring about quieter and more peaceful locations. When that doesn’t work – find new locations, less well known locations or places most togs don’t go and shoot.

OK we’re heading off topic… So it was we had earlier in the week laid the foundations for plans to shoot a sneaky sunday at the end of the week. As with all well laid plans there was much vigorous debate over the location :). So it wasn’t till 11PM the night before that we finally decided where we’d shoot :).

S Bend

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm, 31 sec at f/8, ISO 100

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.

Gerry, Deb and I made the return trip to the Sea Cliff Bridge. Almost a year ago we were shooting at Coalcliff on a wet and overcast morning and discussed shooting the Sea Cliff Bridge from a location we’d heard of up on the cliff above the bridge. We recce’d the area which we believed was the entry point to the area but went no further that day.

Now a year later we’re back and again there’s quite a bit of cloud in the sky and a light drizzle on the drive down. We made good time to the car park but even with zero traffic at 4AM it still took over an hour to get here. About twenty five minutes later we’d followed the fenceline and done a bit of bush bashing and were on location and setup to shoot.

Sunrise was just before 5:50AM and we were shooting a bit over half an hour before that.

The view from up top is pretty spectacular but you do have to be careful up here. Falling (a very very long way to almost certain death) is not recommended.

The Bends

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm, 30 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Earlier on the darkness was giving us naturally long exposures and adding to the dark moody feel. With the few cars passing by at 5:20AM we could also include some car trails – however they were too few and far between. The sky was giving us almost nothing and it was rapidly getting brighter. Early on it almost looked like we might get a bit of colour in the sky with a few faint red and pink patches in the sky. Alas the heavy band of cloud right on the horizon brought us back to earth and left us with a dull uneventful sneaky sunday sunrise.

The two shots above are thirty (30) minutes apart, plus a move of about 10 metres along and down the cliff top area to a different shooting location.

There’s really only a few different compositions you can make from up here. The view is pretty fixed and when the weather conditions aren’t changing it gets pretty boring pretty fast taking repeated shots of the same thing in the vain hope that something, anything, will improve your shot :)…

Sinuous Flow

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 25 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Tighter horizontal shot, wider vertical, even tried a stitched panorama when the clouds had maximum colour right around sunrise.

Sea Cliff Bridge

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm, 5 sec at f/16, ISO 100 x 7 Frames

After sunrise in the bleakness it was time to turn to the heavy ND’s like the Lee Little Stopper (6 Stop) and Big Stopper (10 Stop). A single photographer shooting from the deck of the bridge cuts a lonely figure when he is all that is left when all else is swept away in this five minute exposure.

Swept

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 292 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Ah well at least the location and the company was good – better luck next time…

After a less than stellar sunrise session shooting from the cliff above the Sea Cliff Bridge we had a well earned breakfast. Choices were limited and we could only find one place open (at 7:30AM) in the area – a breakfast cafe in Coledale.

After breakfast; Deb, Gerry and I went in search of the Otford Tunnel. Gerry had once tried to find the tunnel from the northern side without luck. This time we went in search of the southern end.

Zoom

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 209 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

In the 1880’s a mistake was made building the rail line between Sydney and the Illawarra. The Otford Tunnel was built with too steep a grade, one in forty, trains couldn’t get through safely. The steam trains would stall, passengers and crew would choke, become overcome with fumes and suffer burns in the tunnel.

A ventilation shaft was built in 1891, but the problems persisted. Eventually the line between Waterfall and Stanwell Park was duplicated then replaced.

The Otford Tunnel is the grand tunnel, of all the six dis-used rail tunnels in the Helensburgh and surrounds area. Technically it is the No.7 tunnel on the Illawarra line, measuring a whopping 1550m in length, more than double the length of any of the other five tunnels. The tunnel is dead straight right up until the (southern) Stanwell Park end where there is a short curve.

Finding the entrance was remarkably easy – heading to the end of Chellow Dene Ave at the Stanwell Park end leads you right there. Asking one of the locals walking down the road also helped :). He informed us we could also walk right through the tunnel to the other end.

Torches out we proceeded to make our way through the tunnel and out the other side. It was a very very long walk 🙂 – 1.5km’s to be exact – over dark rough uneven ground. I’m not sure what madness overtook us to check out the entire tunnel but it’s done now so lets move on :)….

On the way through we did see a few potential shooting locations, so on the way back we decided to do a little light painting craziness inside the tunnel.

After a couple test shots with some quick light painting we settle on f/5.6 and ISO 200 as our base exposure parameters (we’d started two stops down at f/8 and ISO 100).

Pro Tip: When light painting it’s worthwhile doing some quick tests and working out what a suitable “ambient” base exposure is. There’s a few reasons for this:
– if there is some ambient light (none this time in a dark tunnel) then this sets how bright the ambient scene will be in the light painted long exposures (not too bright and not too dark).
– it determines how much and for how long you have to light paint for it to show/expose correctly in your frames (this depends a great deal on how bright your light painting implements are and how close they will be to the camera and the objects they are lighting).
– when you’re shooting with multiple people everyone uses the “same” settings (otherwise some people can have overexposed images and others underexposed – for the same take).

So back to the light painting… First up this nicely parked (it’s definitely not going to get stolen here :)), it’s seen better days, old back-hoe. I mean of course – totally expected to find that in here…

The Backhoe

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 193 sec at f/5.6, 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.

Further along we find the ventilation shaft (a large round shaft going straight up in the centre of the tunnel – a very very long way up to the surface above). And there’s an old bath here – again of course – why not!. It’s foreground interest now and with Gerry and I adding our ghostly figures to the image we have…

Apparitions

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 166 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

What can I say – a little impromptu light painting in the middle of the day – much more civilised (and convenient) than the middle of the night…

Sometimes even in the greyest of sunrise conditions you can get really lucky. As it was this morning at Coalcliff on the coast between Sydney and Wollongong where this amazing golden yellow rock was sitting like a huge dragons egg shot down from space.

Splashdown

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 29 mm, 1.60 sec at f/11, ISO 100

It was my friend Gerry who found this fantastic rock whilst wandering along this pebbled beach at Coalcliff. Sitting amongst all these fabulous small rounded black pebbles right at the waters edge.

Frozen Whirlpools

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1.60 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Everything was coming together perfectly for these shots. It was a nice stormy moody morning which perfectly suited the theme with the dark stones and sand on the beach. The ocean was dark and of the deepest green which contrast fantastically with the bright wash of white frothing water. We had dark menacing clouds and a nice swell pushing waves crashing over our Dragons egg onto the beach. With each surge of waves and water it would rush over the rock. Then with it’s rush back out to sea the water dragged the round black pebbles back over each other with this fantastic clattering sound which even now I can still hear in my mind.

It really did look like some ancient meteor splashing down from the skies right at our feet. It was wonderful stuff and exactly the sort of break we needed after our very uneventful sunrise.

Dragons Egg

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 1 sec at f/9, ISO 100

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.

Golden Egg

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

A fantastic find – cheers mate – a perfect way to end our session at Coalcliff.

The year that was 2015 draws to a close ready to welcome in NYE 2016. Happy New Year from Sydney everyone – I hope you all have a fantastic 2016.

NYE Twilight

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 32 mm, 4.5 sec at f/8, 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.

This is what happens when you try to cram a million people onto the Sydney Harbour foreshore :). We’ve arrived just in time to enjoy the family friendly 9PM fireworks.

The Crush

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 40 mm, 9.1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

My middle daughter and her friend have joined me to wait for and watch the main event – the midnight fireworks.

Sydney’s NYE 2016

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 48 mm, 1/8 sec at f/5.6, ISO 250

We were positioned down on the road on Broughton St at Bradfield Park in Kirribilli. About 15 minutes to midnight the massive crowds stood almost in unison and surged forward to fill all available space.

Chaos on the SHB

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 44 mm, 1/8 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Earlier on I’d almost setup the tripod but in the end I gave up on the idea of using the tripod for all of the midnight fireworks and planned to just enjoy the show and shoot a few shots handheld.

Trails

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 44 mm, 1/8 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Surrounded by tens of thousands of phones pointed to the sky I programmed for a slowish shutter, a stack of negative exposure compensation (2 to 3 stops) and went handheld with the D-SLR. A little prayer to the VR (vibration reduction) and AutoISO gods and we are away…

Instagramed

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 34 mm, 1/8 sec at f/5.6, ISO 180

The Phone Generation

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 28 mm, 1/8 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season and that the new year and the year to come brings you much joy and success.