Rodney Campbell's Blog

A flashback to just before Christmas last year where we had a lovely evening with friends (Deb, Von, Ron and Jess) down at Woolwich a the end of Hunters Hill. First there was a relaxed dinner at the Woolwich Pier Hotel followed by a trip down to nearby Clarkes Point Reserve for a quick sunset session on the harbour.

Clarkes Point

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 1.6 sec at f/11, ISO 50

The evening was quite lovely with some nice warm weather and some lovely sunset colour in the broken clouds above.

The cloud formations looking away from the sun towards the city were quite spectacular. There wasn’t much interest to stick in my foreground down here on the waters edge – just this small patch of seaweed and oyster encrusted rocks being exposed by the low tide.

Cloudfall

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 1.3 sec at f/11, ISO 50

It was my first landscape session out on the water I’d had in many many months (and frankly it showed :)) so it was really great to just get out. A pleasant evening was to be had and we even had a spot of distant lightning way out to sea on sunset.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Harbour Views

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 3 sec at f/16, ISO 50

Gerry, Suren and I were heading home from the Blue Mountains now. We’d had two days out here without much real success but it was still good to get away and at least try and do some “real” photography.

Burgess Falls

NIKON D750 + 12 mm f/2.8 @ 12 mm, 1/13 sec at f/11, ISO 100

We decided to stop off at one more place on the return trip. Another waterfalls session here at Burgess Falls at Hazelbrook.

The water flow was very minimal so it was pretty much a non event.

I’d brought my new Laowa 12mm ultra wide angle lens with me this trip so it was an excuse to get it out and give it a try. The lighting conditions were very harsh here with full sun and full shade in the one frame. So I bracketed seven exposures (-5EV to +1EV at 1EV increments) for this shot and then did a 32bit HDR merge of the exposures and edited the resultant 32bit RAW file.

Instead of walking back out of the bottom of the gorge from the falls the same way we’d walked in. Gerry suggested we try going downstream a bit and then go cross country through the jungle and see if we could find the track on the other side.

The Lost Jungle

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 8 sec at f/11, ISO 50 x 6 Frames

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

We stopped in this beautiful little spot on the creek. It was soo lush and green down here – the product of quite a bit of rain probably.

The view was going to be messy but this is another stitched panorama using six (6) frames. It was taken with my Novoflex multi-row panorama kit I’d lugged down to the bottom of the gorge.

I actually also took a two row version but in the end preferred the single row stitch.

I’d originally planned to remove Gerry and his camera and tripod from the right of the frame. In the end however I felt the slight mystery of the partially ghosted moving Gerry and the bold colour contrast was worth keeping.

Contrary to popular belief – we weren’t lost – we just got to wandering a little. Plus dealing with the nightmare near vertical climb back out of the gorge :(.

One of the things I wanted to do whilst we were here in South Australia visiting our relatives was to do some aerial shots over the fantastic pine plantations they have here.

Pine Lines

DJI Phantom 4 - FC330 + 3.6 mm @ 3.61 mm, 1/30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 126

There are so many to choose from – and even better the tree’s themselves vary from the very young and small to the massively large. So we have some areas with almost newly planted stock through to areas with relatively ancient pines. One thing in common however is that they are always planted in these very structured and systematic rows.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Forrest

DJI Phantom 4 - FC330 + 3.6 mm @ 3.61 mm, 1/30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 175

Finding the area with the right tree density and just the right road running through them was going to be the real trick. In the end I didn’t actually find exactly what I was looking for… yet… It was however our last day here so on my way home from the morning shoot I made a quick stop here to at least test my thinking…

Fine Pine

DJI Phantom 4 - FC330 + 3.6 mm @ 3.61 mm, 1/30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 166

Time for a little monochromatic action with these lovely sandy patterns on the beach here at Cape Banks in South Australia.

Monochromatic Wash

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 26 mm, 1.60 sec at f/16, ISO 100

The rippled lines in the sand were just beautiful and soft overcast light it was easy to take these subtle low contrast images. Even in colour they have an almost monochrome washed out soft look to them.

Stranded

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 26 mm, 1/1 sec at f/16, ISO 100