Rodney Campbell's Blog

Stepping out of Time

NIKON Z 7 + 14.0 mm f/2.4 @ 14 mm, 837 & 640 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

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.

The first of our light painting extravaganza’s at Cape St George Lighthouse

Gerry’s on EL Wire duty – everywhere 🙂 and for his “footsteps”. I’m on LED umbrella orb duty again. One full orb back further and one split orb up front

For this final frame I’ve blended the long exposure light painting frame(s) (with star trails in the sky) with a (short 15 sec) static milky way frame in the sky

Colour Wash

NIKON Z 7 + 14.0 mm f/2.4 @ 14 mm, 15 sec at f/2.4, ISO 3200 x 4 Frames

We were planning to setup for some light painting extravaganza. Looking straight down between the two buildings out at Cape St George at Jervis Bay

Switching from the 20mm to the 14mm lens for a wider landscape view

Before we really began I took this four (4) frame vertical panorama. Again with the Novoflex pano rail to ease taking the overlapping frames. Alas Lightroom (and Photoshop) both refused to stitch the frames so I was forced to use a standalone pano stitcher

Our two colour torches (placed inside the buildings) give an “interesting” Colour Wash to the scene

Light The Way

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S @ 20 mm, 10 sec at f/1.8, ISO 3200 x 5 Frames

With the bioluminscence at Jervis Bay a bust we moved onto our alternate astro plan. I’d mentioned to Gerry I’d been to this busted down lighthouse MANY years ago. It was quite closeby and you could drive almost to it (so no hour long hike through the scrub in the dark to get to it)

This channel between the buildings runs sort of north to south and aligned with the whole milky way. The 180˚ arc of the milky way was already leaning towards the west. It would rotate over even further towards the western horizon through the night

This is a 5 frame vertical panorama again with the amazing Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8. This time I’m using my Novoflex multi row pano rail. It’s click stops makes rotating the camera and lens at the proper increments; and keeping the frames straight and aligned MUCH easier 🙂

This pano runs from a little down in front of us to behind our heads – around 180˚ all up

The tree to our right was a bit annoying. Moreso for Gerry who’s composition was taken from my left and facing more to my right

Purple Patch

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S @ 20 mm, 10 sec at f/1.8, ISO 3200 x 5 Frames

So the bioluminescence was a complete bust. We’d just driven 3 hours from Sydney to Jervis Bay so we weren’t leaving empty handed

It was time for Plan B. We already knew it should be a good night for some milky way/astro action so…

We turned around on the beach and faced away from where the bioluminescence “should” have been and took in the breathtaking milky way

To get things started… this is a 5 frame manually adjusted vertical panorama. Taken with the outstanding Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8 lens. The composition includes from facing level forward all the way to looking directly up

It was so dark here I couldn’t actually see anything through the viewfinder. So I had to adjust the framing and overlap of the frames by feel. Basically guessing :). I wasn’t entirely hopeful for a successful stitch but here we are…