Rodney Campbell's Blog

On of the most notable things about the city of Mount Gambier is that it is located on the slopes of an extinct volcano. Even more remarkable is the the Blue Lake – a large monomictic crater lake located in the volcanic maar associated with the Mount Gambier maar complex. During December to March, the lake turns to a vibrant sapphire cobalt blue colour, returning to a colder steel grey colour for April to November.

We all decided to drive into town near sunset so that we could do the 3.5km rim walk around the top of the crater in the cooler evening rather than in the heat of the day.

Lake in Blue

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 135 mm, 1/160 sec at f/6.3, ISO 900

I of course took the camera and just the 28-300mm lens and shot some handheld images as we went around :).

The panorama below is the view from the southern side looking north across the blue lake with the main part of the city of Mount Gambier behind. The eight (8) vertical frames for this pano were taken handheld at 85mm so I was pretty happy it stitched :).

Blue Lake

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 85 mm, 1/100 sec at f/5, ISO 1800

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.

When everyone finally got back to the starting point there’s a spot with all sorts of gym and exercise equipment setup in the park. Of course my crazy family indulged in the twilight :).

Twilight Gym

NIKON D750 + 28.0-300.0 mm f/3.5-5.6 @ 100 mm, 1/100 sec at f/5.6, ISO 4500

I’d just finished my sequence of frames for a star trails sitting over this windmill. As if it wasn’t late enough already (12:30AM) didn’t want to waste these dark skies and I wanted to try again to get a decent static milky way ribbon streaking through the sky above the windmill.

Milky Ribbon

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

At this time of the year the milky way runs approximately north south and at this time of the night it is quite high in the sky running almost vertically overhead. Unfortunately the core of the milky way is also over the southern horizon so we don’t get to see that massive galactic cluster. Still the ribbon of the milky way in the dark night sky would have to do :).

I’d also mentioned before that the light pollution from Mount Gambier about 50km away was still quite strong on the horizon.

In the end I opted to face directly at the light pollution on the horizon but cover most of it with the water tank at the base of the windmill. I’d figured this would give a nice rim light to my tank and windmill whilst hiding the worst of the glow and give me a half decent angle on the windmill and stars.

Because the angle of the stars is quite steep I decided to go with a vertical panorama. This consisted of five (5) vertical frames taken at 14mm. This covered from almost at my feet in front of the tripod to a little behind me looking straight up.

Red Ribbon

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

Having completed the sequence of frames for the pano I also decided to try one with red lighting of the windmill, tank and foreground. I didn’t bother taking the whole sequence again – instead I just took a single red lit frame facing the tank for the second of the five vertical frames and used the same other four frames I’d already taken for the stitch.

This worked and the red result is above. I believe I prefer the more natural light version overall but I do like how the windmill stands out against the dark skies when it is lit with the red light.

So here is a single vertical frame version with some red light (taken from roughly the same spot – just in case my panorama failed me :)).

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

It was now 1AM and I was wrecked 🙂 – time to head to bed…

But not before stopping on the main road for just one more shot… those galaxies spinning in the darkness are just too good to pass up – 1:10AM – really time for bed 🙂

The White Line

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400