Rodney Campbell's Blog

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. 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. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

I would have liked to have shot from right at the waters edge or even out in the water. With 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! :). 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

Lily Creek Lagoon

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 the above at up to ISO 4000. It wasn’t quite dark enough to go to ISO 6400 or beyond

Ghostly Trails

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 61 sec at f/2.8, ISO 1250 x X Frames

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

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