Rodney Campbell's Blog

I decided (not exactly sure why but hey, I’ll run with it :)) to give myself a mini shooting project on a theme. I had my camera with me at work so I gave myself 45 minutes at lunchtime to work on the theme of “Utilities” to come up with something hopefully vaguely meaningful which would loosely converge with my chosen topic. As if it wasn’t hard enough yet… I also decided to restrict myself to one focal length (35mm on full frame) and no cropping/zooming in post allowed – so what you see here is essentially straight out of camera converted to monochrome.

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

So how did I go…

Gas

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/5, ISO 160

Garbage

NIKON D600 + @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/2, ISO 125

Water

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/640 sec at f/2, ISO 100

Post

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/400 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

Telecom

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/2000 sec at f/2, ISO 100

Fire

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/400 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Sewer

NIKON D600 + @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/4, ISO 200

Actually the restriction to just the 35/2 was probably a blessing in disguise – with just 45 minutes to roam the streets looking for things which met my brief there was no time to fluff about changing lenses, etc – just go small and light

Out and about in the city at lunchtime again

This little church is tightly wedged between two buildings in the heart of the CBD

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/40 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

and this is just a few doors down the road (they’ve actually recently moved from this location)

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/40 sec at f/5, ISO 100

and I know this isn’t a church but it was my last shot of this session so…

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/250 sec at f/5, ISO 100

Having taken the 35/2 street walking recently I decided to take the new 20mm for a wander… as it happens I was actually on my way around the camera stores looking for a good deal on a Nikon 16-35/4 – which btw I did eventually purchase during this session so it was definitely a good day out 🙂

On the way I tried my hand at some extremely wide angle street work with the 20mm. I think this lens is just too wide for general people style street photography – you basically have to be on top of someone to get them to fill any reasonable portion of the frame – but it does seem to suit my passion for street architecture. Although judging by the images I’ve posted today you’d think all I do is get close to the ground and look up 🙂

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

Two shots at the Prada store in Westfield Centrepoint

Prada

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/40 sec at f/4, ISO 1100

Bow Tie

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/80 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

and of course the old faithful, especially with an ultrawide, the Queen Victoria Building – here are two two takes with the massive Christmas tree they have in there at the moment – not sure myself which one I prefer right now – probably the later?

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/20 sec at f/4, ISO 360

Stars in the Sky

NIKON D600 + 20.0 mm f/2.8 @ 20 mm, 1/20 sec at f/4, ISO 320

A work colleague has lent me his 35mm f/2 (an older Nikon design) to try on my D600 (I currently have no wide angle lenses – the 50/1.4 being my current widest full frame lens I own).

I was inspired by some recent street photography images I’d seen and since I hadn’t been out to shoot any street in many many months I figured I’d head out at lunchtime in the city to see what I could discover.

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

I got a lucky break in the lunchtime rush of people going in and out of this building and walkway…

Romantics

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/9, ISO 720

Post

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/50 sec at f/8, ISO 100

This is what happens when you stand still for too long playing with your smartphone…

Time Stands Still

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/13 sec at f/16, ISO 100

This didn’t quite work exactly as I’d planned but hopefully you can see where I was going with this…

Step into the Light

NIKON D600 + 35.0 mm f/2.0 @ 35 mm, 1/40 sec at f/5.6, ISO 110

I fully “borrowed” the following idea from a friend (Marcus) who’d shot something very similar just minutes before (admittedly he did his handheld at ISO 8000) – however it was too good a shot to pass up so here is a timeless moment and the best shot of the evening…

Light the Way

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 9.5 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200