Rodney Campbell's Blog

I’d mentioned in my previous post that I was initially rejected by security from taking images inside the magnificent foyer inside 1 Bligh Street. Undeterred I visited their web site and contacted the buildings owner explaining my personal project and requested if I’d be able to get permission to take photos within the building. Thankfully she arranged it for me so my next visit was a lot more successful

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.

Looking straight up in the middle of the central core of the building – a fantastic piece of architecture

Welcome to my Heart

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 100

There were so many interesting possibilities just in this one open space – I only wish I could have gone up to the top and taken some shots looking down as well – still my twenty minutes was up quickly enough

Inverse

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/50 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Lift me Up

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/60 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Offset Beat

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/50 sec at f/4, ISO 100

What Goes Up

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/15 sec at f/4, ISO 220

Open Heart

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/30 sec at f/4, ISO 100

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My daughters are growing some miniature capsicums (peppers for our northern hemisphere readers) on a single quite prosperous plant in our front garden.

We’d just picked a couple and since I had the camera and tripod out I figured we’d take some shots here on the kitchen bench. I plonked the tri-grip diffuser over the lot and shot away.

I shot a couple stacks of images to later focus stack but here is one of the straight shots I liked with a deep aperture (f/22) to gain some depth of field

This is on of the monochrome conversions I did with this shot that I quite liked. I also did a dark one – where the red skins are quite dark – but I prefer this almost snowy infrared looking rendition

Pepper Smile

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 2.50 sec at f/22, ISO 100

and the original colour version

Little Reds

NIKON D600 + 90.0 mm f/2.8 @ 90 mm, 2.50 sec at f/22, ISO 100

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On many recent mornings Sydney has been blanketed in fog – which is quite unusual this early in the year – it’s normally May before this starts to happen and even then it’s a pretty rare event

On this morning the fog was about the heaviest I’d ever seen and was still going very strong well after sunrise which seemed unable to burn it off

I was actually on my way to work this day and had just dropped my daughter off at school in North Sydney and since I had my camera with me (just the camera and the 24-70) I figured I’d make a quick side trip to Kirribilli and see what I could shoot

Note: These photographs (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.

This is 8:30AM and I’m just under the northern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge as it vanishes in the fog even before we get to the main northern pilon only 100 metres away and forget seeing the harbour just a few metres beyond that

Bridge to Nowhere

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 29 mm, 1/100 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

An eerie feeling and hard to believe this is almost 90 minutes after sunrise and the sun is actually quite high up in the sky by now

Time for the classic shot under the harbour bridge looking out across the water towards the Sydney CBD. Normally here we’d be seeing the sails of the Opera House on the left and the city skyline on both sides – here we’re lucky to see the waters edge on this side

Raising the Bridge

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 200

The view from near Luna Park with the ferries out in the harbour sounding their horns so they don’t crash into each other

Running to the Edge

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

9AM!

What Lies Beneath

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Headed further around towards Kirribilli and shot back across the water towards the side of the bridge which just extends out into space

Link to the Past

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/100 sec at f/11, ISO 200

and finally around 9:20 the fog starts to burn off and we can just make out the city on the other side of the harbour

The Other Side

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm, 1/200 sec at f/10, ISO 200

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My journey with my one lens, one focal length for one hour in one location, on a nice overcast day project continues in World Square.

Note: These photographs (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.

The Bull

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/30 sec at f/4, ISO 100

The Glass Half

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/15 sec at f/4, ISO 180

The Dragon

NIKON D600 + 15.0 mm f/2.8 @ 15 mm, 1/20 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

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The sky was being bathed in epic light late one afternoon in Sydney and it was looking like we might get a spectacular sunset so I’d thought I’d reprise my trip to nearby Berry Island on the North Shore of Sydney Harbour near Wollstonecraft.

The last (and only other) time I was here I marvelled at the fantastic multicoloured and striped sandstone at the waters edge around the point of the island on the harbour and knew I’d have to return.

Being back here again I could see what inspired me the first time. Unfortunately nature conspired against me this trip – it was very low tide so my favoured rocks were no longer right at the waters edge and sunset was pretty much a bust with quite heavy cloud limiting the spread of colour through the sky.

With my images from my last trip to Berry Island my wife remarked that the stones were nice but complained about that ugly ship in my compositions :). The striped stone was still stunning so I set about creating some compositions which looked in a different direction but still included the stone as my foreground interest. This time I ventured further around the point and along the sides and used the Sydney CBD in the distance on the other side of the harbour as my background.

This composition on the eastern side of the point looking mostly south and taken pretty much right on sunset

Puffs and Stripes

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 71.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Just on the western side of the point facing south east about ten minutes after sunset and a natural long exposure (121 seconds) with just a CPL and the 3 stop reverse grad

Sydney Ice

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 26 mm, 121.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Half an hour after sunset and I wanted to include some greens and really interesting textured rocks to go along with the purples of late twilight – no filters now, just a 244 second exposure in the near darkness

Swirl

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 28 mm, 244 sec at f/11, ISO 200

I wanted the city to have a more prominent view in my composition so I moved much further back and used a more telephoto lens (52mm) to compress the scene and bring the city closer to my foreground

The following image is also focus stacked – I took one long exposure (244 seconds) frame predominantly for the foreground (and the water out to the horizon) with the foreground rocks being the point of focus and then another shorter exposure (81 seconds) for the city and sky (with the focus on the city) and finally a third frame also with the focus on the city but exposed just for the bright city lights (36 seconds). I then took all three frames and blended them for this final result

Sydney Sleeps

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm, 244 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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