Rodney Campbell's Blog

One of my favourite projections this year at Vivid is titled Ninget Universe. This bright and brilliant animation is projected on the old ASN Clocktower down at Campbell Cove in The Rocks

Welcome to a fantastical realm bursting with myriad creatures, inventions and planets as imagined by an 11-year-old boy (Luca) growing up in our awe-inspiring city

It’s Back! – Vivid returns to Sydney in 2022 after a few pandemic affected years. It all kicks off this Friday the 27th of May from 6PM till 11PM each night. All the usual favourites are there, but there’s also a whole bunch of new city locations being lit up at night

I’ve been photographing quite a bit for the event over the past week. Here’s a sneak peek at one of the more amazing installations. I’ll be sharing some of my favourite installations over the coming week

Something quite beautiful and a bit different at Vivid Sydney this year is an installation titled Temple that is well worth a look

It’s located down at Circular Quay near Customs House. Temple’s slow motion film on a large screen in front of a reflection pool offers a contemplative sanctuary on the Light Walk

The spectacular images of Red-tailed Black Cockatoos, Galahs, and Sulphur-crested Cockatoos are amazing. Watch them play in water and fly through mist in hypnotic loops. They appear and disappear out of the frame, asking us to consider the fragility of their existence

Gills

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S @ 20 mm, 490 sec at f/13, ISO 1250

This is an up close and personal shot of that giant ghost mushroom we found a few weeks back. Here using the new Z 20mm f/.18 lens up very close. The minimum focusing distance of this lens is incredibly small – almost to the front element. Here I’ve shoved the camera on the ground and right up under the gills. Stopping down to f/13 to try and get some depth of field (it’s still not enough). This required a 490 second (8 mins+) exposure even at ISO 1250

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.

To get an idea of how sharp this lens really is… The following is a 100% crop of a tiny area of the whole frame. This one was taken at f/2 (almost wide open) so the DoF drops off quite rapidly

100% 20mm Sharpness

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S @ 20 mm, 62 sec at f/2, ISO 400

Heartbeat

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 14 mm, 652 sec at f/8, ISO 100

More light painting goodness in the dreamtime tunnel with Gerry. Almost 11 freakin’ minutes for this one – longest shot of the night

Gerry laid down his dome with the gap in the front first (we knew I was going to put an orb in there). This was done with his torch with a diffuser dome over the front that he’d 3D printed. This gives much wider light trails which are warmer yellow rather than blown out white

Next up I’m doing the plasma orb with the LED umbrella in the same spot; first in blue mode and then in red; this bit takes a really freaking long time :(. No external lines around the outside on this one. At the same time Gerry’s doing the blue EL wire all over the ground. Then I’m trying something new with the sort of inverted cone trunk at the bottom; again using the LED umbrella dangling upside down (in orange from memory?). I add some fairy sparkles inside the dome with my new Emisar D4V2 torch. Meanwhile Gerry is painting the walls and ceiling of the tunnel with the ten colour torch in various colours

Eleven minutes later and phew… we’re done…

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.

Floral Motion

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S @ 14 mm, 587 sec at f/8, ISO 100

From one end of the time spectrum to the other. This was the first shot of our evening session at some nearby tunnels I’d found recently. Where Gerry joined me for an evening of light painting fun

I really like Gerry’s pixelstick “flowers” as he called them. On the left and right of this frame. I think I like these more floral whispy versions even more than the striped rainbow ones he does. Check his feed or wait for my shots to be posted soon :). Blue EL wire goodness on the ground also courtesy of Gerry

My contribution to the cause (which actually took up most of the time for the exposure) is the plasma orb in the middle. I think I’m even starting to get pretty competent at these. Especially the squared outside lines (which is tricky to do when you can’t actually see them, nor where the lines are/have been)

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.