Rodney Campbell's Blog

Another first shot of the day. We were a little late getting on location this morning (5:25AM and just 20 minutes before sunrise). Typically I like to be shooting from about 45 minutes before sunrise. So I can take those natural multi minute long exposure shots that Gerry say’s we’ll throw away anyway 🙂

What Lies Below

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 64

We’ve revisted a favourite haunt of Little Bay in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs for this sneaky Sunday

I was keen on these little potholes of “interesting stuff” which lies below. So I’ve placed them right up close in the foreground and added some light painting with the headtorch to bring them out of the darkness

A bit after 6:20AM and almost half an hour after “official” sunrise. We’re now getting our second chance sunrise and some colour in the clouds. Better make use of it now before it quickly fades. The tide was high at this time of day and the waves were really pounding making for some interesting water movement

Rip Tide

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 14 mm, 1/5 sec at f/11, ISO 31

Shot with the Kase Filters CPL and 3 stop reverse grad filter

A few minutes after this I also stacked in the Kase 6 stop solid ND64 filter. The intention was to drag out the shutter and smooth out the water a little with around 10 to 20 second exposures. I was fully intending to process and post one of those but ended up liking the look (the stringy water) of this shot better (plus the cloud colour had vanished by the longer exposure variants)

I probably should have gone Gerry’s route and tried the Kase 10 stop ND1000 instead for some multi minute long exposures

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.

This one is about timing and luck

Timing to choose when to expose the frame so that I’d capture the huge splash of a large wave hitting the rock shelf in front of me. And luck to have this ideally placed hole in the wave splash that was right where the rising sun would peek through

Hole in the Wall

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 16 mm, 1/40 sec at f/11, ISO 31

This was actually 15 minutes after “official” sunrise, and we were getting a second chance sunrise. That’s what happens when heavy cloud on the horizon kills the “real” sunrise. And it’s only now when the sun peeks past the low cloud that we get what we call the second sunrise opportunity. Even a little god ray action happening too

Kase Filters CPL stacked with a 3 stop reverse grad

A follow up from yesterdays horizontal composition with this vertical one also at 14mm focusing on that cool kidney bean pool of still water in the foreground

Embyonic

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 14 mm, 6 sec at f/11, ISO 31

I’ve still added a quick touch of low directional light painting on the rocks in the foreground. Lighting is from around 45 degrees on the right out of frame and from down very low. This adds some dimension and depth with light and shadow

Alas the mid and high thin clouds that Gerry “promised” for sunrise were a bust. Instead we had this heavy low cloud out to sea and chunky dark cloud above which failed to light up. Dark was the mood today…

On the plus side the new Kase filter kit is proving to be excellent. Here I’m using the CPL and the 3 stop reverse grad filter

This reverse grad is excellent – reverse grads are darkest in the middle and progressively lightens towards the top of the filter. The idea is to put the darkest part of the grad over a particularly bright horizon without it overly darkening the top of the frame. A “normal” 3 stop grad would also darken the frame right to the top. This is ideal for before sunrise and sometimes up to just after sunrise when the sun peeks above the horizon. In those conditions it’s typically brightest just above the horizon but the upper sky can be relatively dark still. The other really good thing about this particular reverse grad is that the transition area between the darkest part in the middle and the clear part is not too hard. My previous reverse grad had a very hard transition, this one is more like a medium

Out for another sneaky Sunday sunrise session with Gerry. This time we’ve headed to Freshwater – Gerry wanted to check out the tidal pool there

Alas the pool itself was, well, absolutely and completely uninspiring… so we hit the rocks nearby to try and salvage something of the morning

Salt

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 14 mm, 25 sec at f/9, ISO 64

This was my very first frame of the morning @ 5:33AM (about 20 minutes before sunrise). I’d found this terraced area with all these dried salt pools, and one still filled with water. Tried to put together this landscape composition with the interesting salt trails at a very wide 14mm. Add a touch of low light painting over the rocks in the foreground with the headtorch. Gerry is just to the right of frame shooting down a large crack (again… :))

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.