Rodney Campbell's Blog

Knox Gorge receives little publicity and fewer visitors but it is one of the hidden gems of Karijini. I was originally intending on doing the walk down into the gorge but we were just too tired to get there early enough in the afternoon to take it on. It’s also apparently quite an arduous climb down and along the gorge.

Instead my daughter and I decided to just go see the view from Knox Lookout around sunset.

Knox Bend

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm, 1/10 sec at f/13, ISO 100 x 9 Frames

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.

Knox Lookout is a spectacular lookout just a short trip north up Joffre Road. It’s a short 300m/5min walk on a Class 2 trail from the car. Take the steps down to the lookout and watch the views spread out in the distance. This view is especially good in the early morning or late afternoon light.

There is a more difficult walk into Knox Gorge – a 2km, 3hour return walk where you climb down and trek along the gorge which we decided to forgo.

We’d arrived around 5PM (sunset was in 30 minutes at 5:40PM). There’s a metal lookout platform that hangs out over the gorge walls which provides an excellent view into the gorges. It does however present the problem of movement and vibrations when trying to take photographs with a tripod. My solution was to set everything up and remotely trigger my camera using my wireless remote after I’d walked off the platform. An easy enough thing to do since we were the only ones here but a minor inconvenience walking back and forth to the camera.

When we arrived the clouds were out (which was extremely unusual for our trip) and we were starting to get a little colour in the sky. The lookout is on a corner/bend of the gorge so the deep valleys of the gorge sort of head out in two directions from the lookout.

I decided first to compose a wide stitched panorama of the view – sort of my local Australian take on that famous Horseshoe bend.

The stitched panorama above is composed of nine (9) vertical frames taken at 38mm (with the camera leaning as far forward over the railing as I could get it with the tripod). I also tried another at a wider 24mm which does let you see further down into the gorge but given the location and the high guard rail there was no way to take the shots without a significant portion of the rail curving through the frame.

Pinks on Reds

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm, 1 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The sun was setting behind us so I’ve rotated about 90 degrees to the right and am shooting along the gorge on the right with the sun having set to my right. This frame at about the height of the colour at 5:48PM (around ten minutes after sunset). This image is an exposure blend of three brackets frames -1&2/3EV, -2/3EV and +1/3EV.

Don't forget to Share...

Google

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Email

Print