Rodney Campbell's Blog

Woke early for a sunrise session in the parklands looking over the Torrens river looking back towards the city.

In theory the sun was supposed to rise (looking from this position) behind the Adelaide Festival Centre (that white building on the left). However I took these twelve long exposure frames over the sunrise boundary and as you can see – nada… The sky just got gradually brighter.

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.

Still the black swans seemed to enjoy my company and it did make for a nice blue hour panorama with nice smoothed glassy water from the long exposures. Because it was getting much brighter during the time I started the sequence till I finished I had to adjust the exposure times across the frames.

Adelaide Blues

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm, 123 to 31 sec at f/11, ISO 100 x 11 Frames

Pro Tip: When photographing frames for a stitched panorama at the edges of the day (sunrise or sunset): 1) At sunrise take the frames pointing towards the currently brightest parts of the frame at the start (towards where the sun will rise and only get brighter) and finish where it was currently darkest (but will brighten over time – away from sunrise). 2) At sunset do the reverse – start pointing away from the sun and finish towards the now set sun. The aim here is to reduce the overall exposure differential as you’re rotating to take the frames.

In the case here I started on the left and rotated around to the right. Even using this technique and because I started at 6:07AM and finished at 6:26AM I still had to manually adjust the exposures across the frames. I started with a 123 second exposure (@ f/10) for the first frame and ended with a 31 second exposure (@ f/11) for the last frame.

and for kicks (and because I noticed the left and right sides would likely reasonably match up) here is the Panosphere (Tiny Planet) version…

Torrential

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 38 mm, 31.00 sec at f/11, ISO 100

On my early morning walk to this spot I’d also scoped out another potential shooting location. The view off the Montefiore Bridge – which crosses the Torrens – looking westwards (away from sunrise) over the train tracks which come into Adelaide’s Central Railway station.

Having finished the “sunrise” session and with the skies still pretty grey and overcast I headed back to the bridge to see if a long exposure would salvage the view.

This end result is actually the result of manually blending four long exposure frames taken with the Lee Bigstopper (ranging from 30 to 216 seconds).

All Tracks Lead To…

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 108 sec at f/13, ISO 50

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After visiting the famous Adelaide Central Market we headed back into the city. On the way past Victoria Square we were walking down King William Road when we were passing by the Australia Post office.

Now normally you wouldn’t give an Australia Post shop a seconds thought but even from the outside the old architecture looked intriguing enough for me to venture inside for a quick look. So one of my daughters and I headed inside whilst the rest of the family continued blissfully down the street.

The interior is awesome and I could have spent ages in here making compositions – time was very short however so after a few takes with the 24-70 (my current favourite walkaround lens) I quickly switched to the new Samyang 14mm to try and fit it all in.

Squatting on the floor amongst all the Australia Post shop paraphernalia I lined myself directly in the middle of the floor under this fabulous light fixture and pointed up for this shot. This is actually a three bracket HDR (0, -2 and +2EV) which I’ve processed with a natural tone mapping profile. I was originally intending on converting the result to monochrome (as I usually do for these types of architectural shots) but I liked the original green and yellow colouring they had so I’ve kept it.

The Samyang 14mm has hellacious distortion but the Lightroom lens correction profile I’ve got loaded for this lens does a remarkably good job of correcting a lot of the wavy moustache distortion (you should see this uncorrected! – sigh…).

Posted Up

NIKON D600 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 1/30 sec at f/4, ISO 100

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On our second day in Adelaide we went for wander down North Terrace in the heart of the city. Much of the space between North Terrace and the River Torrens is occupied by cultural institutions and other public buildings including the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Museum, State Library, Parliament House, Government House, War Memorial and the University.

So many interesting places to look into – however being pressed for time and with young children with limited attention spans we decided to start at the Art Gallery as it also had an exhibition titled “Fashion Icons” (I am in a household of four women after all :)).

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.

My youngest loved this display – thats my iPhone wielding child there

Crystalline Refractions

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 66 mm, 1/80 sec at f/4, ISO 1100

Love these circular leather chairs in the centre of the art gallery.

G4

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 50 mm, 1/50 sec at f/4, ISO 2800

and the ceiling is ripe for photographic abuse as well

H

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/40 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Unfortunately I don’t know who the artist was or what their piece was actually titled but it looked very interesting to the lens…

Zebraoidal

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/4, ISO 3200

Plus my daughters enjoyed the hands on experience for the younger ones – making their own haute couture…

F is for Fashion

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/3.5, ISO 1000

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Whilst briefly staying in the city of Adelaide one of my Arcanum apprentices in my Mastery Cohort who lives nearby was kind enough to join me on a very overcast and a little rainy evening for a walk, chat and photography session in the heart of Adelaide.

We wandered around the parklands bordering the River Torrens next to the city CBD and around Adelaide Oval and up to Montefiore Hill to overlook the city. We finally made it back to War Memorial Drive and the new footbridge which joins the CBD to the new Adelaide Oval having just walked and chatted and taken absolutely no photos as yet

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.

I’d earlier spied a spot on the northern end of the footbridge where I thought a pano of the city CBD with the river in the foreground might work around sunset. I setup and we chatted as I took some uninspired frames whilst the skies just got gradually greyer and the drizzle continued. Finally just before 9PM and about half an hour after “sunset” we started getting the blue hour colours in the sky I was hoping for. It also allowed me to use some longer exposures to smooth the water and get the look I was aiming for. Twelve (12) frames later at 40mm on the trusty 24-70 and I had the source material to make the best stab at this given the conditions.

This one is for you Kym – hope you enjoy mate. Thanks for taking the time to play tour guide.

Sweeping into Adelaide

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 40 mm, 15 sec at f/16, ISO 100 x 12 Frames

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Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia.

Early Adelaide was shaped by religious freedom and a commitment to political progressivism and civil liberties, which led to the moniker City of Churches. We didn’t actually visit any churches on the few days we were there however

Named in honour of Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, queen consort to King William IV, the city was founded in 1836 as the planned capital for a freely-settled British province in Australia. Colonel William Light, one of Adelaide’s founding fathers, designed the city and chose its location close to the River Torrens, in the area originally inhabited by the Kaurna people. Light’s design set out Adelaide in a grid layout, interspaced by wide boulevards and large public squares, and entirely surrounded by parklands.

Visiting the city for a few days as part of a family holiday, we are having a brief stopover on the way to Kangaroo Island.

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.

Staying in the heart of the city on North Terrace we were very close to the Rundle Mall which afforded my girls lots of opportunity for shopping and inspecting the various artworks scattered throughout the mall.

Pleased to Meet You

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/800 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

Oink!

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/500 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

Silvered Balls

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/800 sec at f/3.5, ISO 100

Walking into Adelaide Railway Station at ground level I was inspired to take some shots of the architecture within.

Adelaide Railway Station

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/25 sec at f/5.6, ISO 160

Later in the afternoon my two youngest and I ventured out to explore the nearby parklands around the River Torrens. When it started to rain I got my girls to shelter under one of the bridges which cross the river and of course pose for me

Shelter From the Rain

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/4, ISO 250

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