Rodney Campbell's Blog

On the spur of the moment decided to head out to Bradleys Head (near Taronga Zoo on the north side of Sydney harbour) for sunset

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.

Oyster Sky

I’d invited my friend Gerry to join me and it was looking promising but we just ran out of time. I barely made it in time – I arrived to Bradleys only moments before sunset – I quickly parked the car in the one spot that was left (thankfully) and as I got out another friend (Yogesh) drove up (he’d also decided on a whim to come here :))

The sun was setting fast so I dashed down to the water – I’d fully intended on shooting the small Bradleys Head Light Tower just off to the left. My intention was to shoot long exposures looking down the stone and wooden walk to the lighthouse (basically facing directly South) with some cloud and colour in the sky

Unfortunately it was looking totally grey to the south so I quickly changed plan and walked along the rocks towards the Doric stone column

An Aside: Sitting on the rock platform off the headland is a Doric stone column. It is one of six that were taken from the demolished Sydney Post Office and placed in positions in Sydney

The sun had actually set by the time I’d found a little spot and setup my tripod – I was rushing now – the clouds and colour to the west were starting to look epic so I was frantic to get a shot before it expired!…

Not one to shy from a challenge I decided my first frames would be for a stitched panorama (which meant ensuring my tripod was levelled for the rotation I was expecting (which takes some time with just a simple ball head and no levelling base or pano head))

Anyway I took two sets of frames for a stitched pano – the first 6 frames at 26mm and for the second I moved a little further forward towards that interesting diagonal rock with the green on top and went a little wider to 22mm for 5 frames – with the second I also added a 3 stop ND (to join the 3 stop reverse grad I was using) to lengthen the shutter times to smooth the water

Both panos stitched ok (and I included the Doric column – which looks so out of place here – in real life :)) and the colour was fantastic in both (and the water was nicer (to my eye anyway) in the second long exposure version but the first pano was much less distorted and had an overall nicer composition of the foreground rocks so was my easy preference

Bradleys Sunset

My only problem now was to decide whether to leave the column in (as it really was) or clone it out – what do you think?

Once those frames were in the can I set about taking some single exposures as the light fell rapidly and the sky continued acting very interesting

This one was my favourite – I really liked the composition I was able to get with this great diagonal rock leading down to the water and the sky was fantastic

Vortex

Then about half an hour after sunset I switched to a horizontal framing on that rock and started trying long exposures with a little light painting of the foreground rocks to bring them out of the darkness

This one is about 45 minutes after sunset

Bradleys Light

Having finished our sunrise session at beautiful Makapu’u on the east coast of Oahu/Hawaii we headed off for the all important group breakfast – it was great to just sit, eat and chat with “dA Crazies”

After breakfast a number of people were going to continue the photographic morning with an exploration of temples and churches along the eastern coast of Oahu

Our first stop was the Byodo-In Temple located at the foot of the Ko’olau Mountains in Valley of the Temples Memorial Park. It was established on June 7, 1968, to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of the first Japanese immigrants to Hawaii. The Byodo-In in O’ahu is a smaller-scale replica of the over 950-year-old Byodo-in Temple in Kyoto, Japan

It was a beautiful spot and a nice day for photographing the temple with a good cover of overcast clouds to soften the light

Looking over the bridge which is the entranceway to the temple at the base of the mountains

Byodo-In Temple

A little ten stop ND to simplify the scene and let those high clouds really mist up the mountains

Temple in the Mist

It wouldn’t be a Japanese style temple if there wasn’t a pond jam packed with huge carp

Carpeted

Gingerly

Sand and camera equipment generally don’t mix well…

Having just spent the afternoon and early evening on the Stockton Sand Dunes we headed to Nelson Bay to warm up and grab some well earned dinner. Whilst at the table we also started thinking about the following mornings activities – we wanted to get up early for sunrise and shoot somewhere on the coast nearby

We also checked out where we were staying for the night on Google Maps and noticed it was really really close to the beach at Anna Bay – maybe, just maybe we could do some star trails before turning in…

Galactic Chimney

So after checking into our cabin we drove to the Anna Bay carpark and parked close to the beach. It was immediately obvious we wouldn’t be able to shoot directly out on the beach from the carpark because there were very bright lights shining over the carpark, the buildings and out onto the beach. A bit of a rece along the beach a little to the left (east) and we found a nicer sheltered spot which was somewhat out of the wind (it was blowing a bit of a gale and the sand was terrible). Our preferred location in a bit of a gully between two rocky walls looking pretty much southwards out to sea was out because it was channeling the wind and sand like you wouldn’t believe

It was nearing midnight and we knew we’d have to wait up for the hour or so of shots to finish (we had no illusions of completing a 2, 3 or more hour trails set) so we setup quickly and took our base light painted foreground image (that we’d need to blend with the star trails in the sky later). To be frank we did a pretty poor job on the one light painted foreground take we made – how to count the ways – we overlit it and we lit directly into the face of the rock for starters

I was using the Sigma 15mm fisheye on the D600 again for this. Whilst setting up I also fired off some higher ISO single frame starfield images to capture the milky way in a single shot. I blended the sky and stars with the light painted foreground. Here I’d lined things up so that it looked like the milky way was like a smoke cloud emanating from this point on the rock

Then we setup the intervalometer to take our trails source images – I setup mine to take 40 second frames at f/2.8 and ISO 1250 with 0.3 second gaps between frames – we kicked them off at exactly midnight (coincidence)

Pro Tip: One definite advantage of the Phottix Aion Wireless Timer and Shutter Release I was using was that it supports sub second (0.1 second) increments for the delay, shutter lengths and intervals – most timers only support whole second increments. You want to use shorter delays between shots so that you have smaller gaps between the trails images once they are stacked (zoomed at 100% you can see the gaps when 1 second intervals are used)

Horrible sand was already accumulating on our cameras and in the lens hoods of our lenses so I got out the Rocket Blower and blew away what I could

We then left the cameras to do their thing and we headed back to the car to wait (and plan for tomorrows sunrise shoot – which was getting closer and closer (we’d need to get up at 5AM!! and we hadn’t gone to bed yet and it wasn’t going to happen for a while – sigh…)

I went back and checked the cameras after about half an hour and blew off the sand again with the rocket blower in the dark (so I couldn’t actually see whether there was any or if I was effective :))

Just before 1:30AM we figured enough was enough waiting so we returned and retrieved the cameras – they’d shot for 85 minutes (and I had 127 frames to use)

This time we could turn on the lights and see what havoc the wind and sand had caused – not good to say the least

Looks like Gerry’s Tokina UWA (11-16) is less than happy and it’s likely only a matter of time before the grinding caused by the sand grains in the zoom and focus mechanisms results in catastrophic failure. Suren’s Canon 10-22 is also unhappy – auto focus is optional it seems My Sigma 15mm fish seems to have fared quite well (probably because it’s not a zoom and it’s a tiny lens in comparison) – time will tell…

So the final stacked star trail image better have been worth it…

We headed back to the accommodation – grabbed some quick showers and hit the beds around 2AM – moments later (or so it felt :)) the alarms were going and we’re up for the sunrise shoot. Clouds were almost non existent and the morning colour was less than spectacular – Gerry reckons we should have stayed in bed

Galactic Whirlpool

The Astro Photographer craves the night – and not just any night – they desire the lowest of low lights. They search out dark skies, requiring moonless cloudless evenings far away from cities and light pollution. Huddled alone in the dark with camera pointed up into the vastness of the universe seeking out those faint points of light in the skies

A stitched panorama consisting of six (6) fisheye frames shot at 25 sec @ f/2.8 and ISO 3200

Alone with the Universe

The sky was incredibly clear now with the whole span of the milky way visible in the sky above

Pro Tip: For astro work you want to use a fast (wide aperture) lens basically because with very dim stars you want to let in as much light into the camera as you possibly can – this both allows you to use a lower ISO (allowing cleaner less noisy images) and a short enough shutter speed so that the stars appear sharp in the image (without trailing)

Pro Tip: When selecting the shutter speed to use for single static star (starfield) images you can use what is known as the 500 rule – basically divide 500 by the full frame equivalent focal length of your lens and that represents the maximum shutter speed you should use to avoid having trailing starts in your images and instead having point stars. e.g. when using a 16mm lens this leads to 500/16 = 31.25 (so I kept my shutter speeds under 31 seconds before), with the 35mm lens I’d have to stay under 500/35 = 14.3

I had the 16-35 f/4 (which I used for the earlier shots but it’s not really fast enough – you really want to use f/2.8 or faster), the 24-70 f/2.8 and the 35 f/1.4 (which I was originally intending on doing a massive multi row starfield panorama with

The 35/1.4 is an ideal astro lens because it’s really fast (1.4 aperture) and relatively wide (the 24/1.4 would be better but it’s a > $2.5K lens), it’s also quite sharp wide open

The 35mm would however have taken an insane number of rows of images to cover over 180º field of view of the span of the milky way overhead, it would have been massively painstaking given I didn’t have a multi row pano head – but it would have resulted in a very sharp and highly detailed gigapixel image if it worked

Personally I would have liked to have had the Rokinon/Bower/Samyang 14mm f/2.8 (or the much more expensive Nikon 14-24/2.8) but alas…

See the following excellent guide if you would like to know more about How to Pick a Lens for Milky Way Photography

In the bitter cold I wasn’t up for the time and effort required for this so opted instead to use the Sigma 15mm f/2.8 fisheye – basically because it’s the only other fast (aperture) wide lens I had brought and it has a massive field of view so I wouldn’t need to take very many frames. I just winged the frames (since I couldn’t see anything in the viewfinder) and hoped I’d get enough overlap and a half decent level whilst pointing angled up towards the sky

I got close to the tree so it would be reasonably large in the frame and placed myself so that the milky way would appear to arch over the tree and spread over to where the horrible light pollution was (that’s the city of Newcastle by the way), and also hopefully have the 4WD drive tracks that were already there in the sand leading off from around the corner of the frame

The Sigma 15mm fisheye is very nicely wide – tick, and it’s f/2.8 maximum aperture is pretty fast – tick, but wide open it unfortunately isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed – especially when you get near the edges and the distortion (it’s a fisheye after all) is pretty intense. This all makes for pretty interesting stitching results but I was pretty happy with my first attempt at a panorama starfield of the milky way, I’ve even managed to get Suren there happily shooting the stars

To end our evening on Stockton dunes a single vertical shot of the tree from even closer with the milky way above – and for this one I’ve let Lightroom’s lens correction profile for the lens do it’s work

Heavens Above

It was only just after 8PM but we were cold and hungry (very very cold) so it was time to walk back out and head to nearby Nelson Bay for some well earned dinner…

So what is all the fuss about with these Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filters – read on and see what I think about one of my current favourite sunrise and sunset landscape filters – the Formatt-Hitech Neutral Density Reverse Grad 0.9 (3 Stops)

Otherworldy Light

For a number of years now I’ve been an extremely happy user of the Slot in Lee 100mm Filter System

Starting with the Foundation Kit, with the Filter Holder (with up to 3 slots) and a 77mm wide-angle adapter ring and a single Lee 0.9 (3 stop) Hard Graduated Neutral Density Filter (or Lee 0.9 Hard ND Grad for short) – this has been my constant companion on trips around Sydney and around the world, along with my ultra wide angle (currently the Nikon AF-S 16-35mm f/4G ED VR) and standard telephoto (currently the Nikon AF-S ED 24-70mm f/2.8G) lenses

Over time I’ve added things like a Lee 0.6 Hard ND Grad (2 stop) and a Lee 105mm front filter ring and my most expensive filter the absolutely awesome Heliopan 105mm Slim Circular Polariser SH-PMC Filter. I also have the very useful but fairly specialised Lee BigStopper (a 10 stop neutral density filter)

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.

A Bit of Background

The reason landscape photographers use Neutral Density filters is for two main reasons

- we use solid ND filters to lengthen shutter speeds – ND filters cut down the amount of light coming through the lens into our cameras – ideally in a “neutral” way (i.e. evenly across the visible light spectrum and thus not causing any unwanted colour shifting or colour casting) and also by a fixed amount (generally indicated in the number of stop of light reduction – e.g. 1 (0.3), 2 (0.6), 3 (0.9), 4 (1.2), 6 and 10 stops

Some examples of when we might use these types of filters is to be able to lengthen shutter speeds when shooting moving water (waterfalls, oceans, rivers and so on) or moving clouds or in fact any moving objects (sometimes just to remove those objects from our scene). Other times photographers want to shoot with a wider aperture than the normal bright ambient light allows

- we use Graduated ND filters to try and balance larger contrast differences across parts of the scene

Basically cameras cannot see and record the same range of brightness that the human eye can. When the sun is low in the sky or just over the horizon there is generally a much wider tonal range than the camera can capture. In essence the sky is really bright and the land is really dark in comparison and this range of brightness between the sky and land is beyond what a camera can capture – either the sky is over-bright (or completely blown out) or the land is extremely dark (or black) or both

A Graduated ND filter is toned with a darker area at the top of the filter and a clear area on the bottom half. The darker area is neutral and holds down the exposure over the sky portion of the scene whilst allowing the bottom half (the land) to expose normally. The idea here is to create a more evenly exposed single image with good detail and colour in the sky and a lot more detail in the foreground

Aside: Technically these days photographers can use multiple exposures of the scene (taken at different exposure settings – e.g. -4EV, -2EV, 0EV, +2EV, +4EV) and post processing techniques (HDR tone mapping, blending multiple exposures on layers using tools like luminosity masking, etc) to achieve the same result

Personally I’m a bit lazy and I’d rather spend a few minutes more in the field getting the filters and the exposure just right at capture time rather than spending hours post processing an image on the computer – I’m a very strong proponent of getting as much right as I can in camera. I believe this has other side benefits as well – including making me slow down and be a lot more patient and selective when taking the images which I also believe has made me a much better photographer with stronger compositions

I’d been using this basic filter kit for quite a while however I had been interested in getting and trying what is known as a reverse grad for some time. To understand why I’ll go into a little about the different types of grad filters

Teaching Point: A tip for others using the rectangular based slot in filters (e.g. 6×4″/150x100mm or other similar systems) – if you have hard grad filters you don’t necessarily need to also purchase the expensive solid ND filters – I just pull the hard grad filter right down so the ND portion covers the whole frame. Even on a full frame camera at 16mm I find the slightly less than half of the 150×100 grad which is a solid ND coating is enough to cover the whole frame

Graduated ND Filters

I mentioned above that solid ND filters come in various strengths. Graduated ND Filters (ones which have a neutral darker area on one half and are clear on the other half) also come in various strengths. Commonly in 1 (0.3), 2 (0.6), 3 (0.9) and 4 (1.2) stop variants but sometimes others as well but in addition they also vary in the way the transition area (between the clear part of the filter and the coloured (neutral density) part of the filter)

As a general rule, a hard grad would be used for images containing a horizon, or any hard transition between the sky and the foreground – even with jagged or mountainous horizons, the exposure can be controlled far easier with a hard grad. This is because the transition between the clear and ND part of the filter is fairly quick (note that it isn’t by any means an instantaneous hard line)

Soft grads perform best in woodland, mist, or interiors. Anywhere where there is no definite transition between sky and foreground, a soft grad will gently balance exposure across the image. The transition area of this filter is quite broad and in fact it transitions over from clear to ND over a much wider area so the area around the middle of the filter is quite weak. Because of this soft grads can be more difficult and less effective when used on crop cameras, lenses with a smaller diameter and telephoto lenses

One problem when shooting sunrises and sunsets is that the horizon is normally the brightest area of the scene, with the soft filter this can actually be the weakest part of the ND area and the sky can easily burn out in this part of the scene (which forces most people to drag the filter down way too low – darkening the rest of the scene). This is less of a problem with hard grads as the horizon area of the filter is much darker and because of this it is more effective

Still however it’s this transition area of both soft and hard grads which is the weakest area of the ND grad filter and thats generally the area you put onto the horizon of your scene. Another thing which tends to also happen at these times of day is that the upper sky is quite a bit darker than near the horizon so when you shoot with a regular ND grad and expose for the brightest part of the scene (the horizon) the top of your image in the upper sky ends up being even darker because thats the part of the filter which is the strongest

Reverse Grads

So wouldn’t it be great to have an ND grad filter which was strongest in the middle and then got gradually weaker as it moved up to the top of the filter…

As it happens a few filter makers have listened and have produced what are called Reverse Graduated Neutral Density Filters (or Reverse Grads for short)

Singh-Ray pioneered the way with their excellent but extremely pricey reverse grads. This was a bit rich for my blood and as Lee don’t as yet make any Reverse Grads I opted instead to try another British filter maker – Formatt-Hitech and their reverse grad (the subject of this review)

I would have liked a four stop (1.2) reverse grad however the strongest one that Formatt-Hitech make is the 3 stop (0.9)

I’ve now been using this filter for about 9 months and so far I’ve been extremely impressed and I seriously don’t know what I’d do without it now

My Thoughts

First up I’ll list what some people might consider some of the negatives

The Formatt-Hitech filters are slightly thinner than the Lee filters – it still stays in the filter holder without any issues but I can tell it isn’t quite as thick as the Lee grads both by feel and because it slides more easily in the holder slots. In practice this isn’t a problem at all but just in case you need to know

The filters come in a plain plastic wallet – nothing like the very nice padded cases that the Lee filters come in. This isn’t a problem if you have a separate filter pouch – but it does appear to be common with the other filter manufacturers like Formatt-Hitech, Kood & Cokin. Personally I would not keep the filters in this plastic wallet because I’m sure they would easily scratch over time going in and out. I keep my multiple filters in the very nice Lee Filter Wrap and then in the Lee pouches

Like the Lee grad filters I own it is made from optical resin (and not glass) – which I like because they are lighter and less prone to breaking when bumped, dropped or slightly bent but they are apparently more prone to scratching – I’ve used mine for many years without issues

On my copy of this filter the transition line in the middle of the filter is slightly off perpendicular to the side edges of the filter – whereas my Lee filters are for all intensive purposes exact. What this means is that I have to rotate the filter (either the whole holder or the filter in the holder) ever so slightly to get it right – this is only a problem if I’m stacking grad filters and thus need the transition lines to be parallel and it really is very very slight – it’s not like it’s diagonal across the filter or something

Lastly it’s not colour neutral when stacked with other filters. With the Lee filters I generally find I can stack them with other Lee filters and the Heliopan CPL without undue colour casting or shifting. When using the Formatt-Hitech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad stacked with other filters there is a definite colour shift

Personally I usually like the effect this filter gives me in this regard. I can’t explain it exactly but it is like it gives a slight but noticeable colour boost and even a slight punchiness to the image (almost like you’re using a polariser) but it’s an effect I generally like. There are scenes however where you don’t want this colour shift (in the area covered by the filter) and then of course it’s a problem

Here is an example of two shots taken less than 2 minutes apart – the first using the Formatt-Hitech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad stacked with a Lee 0.9 ND and then the second a Lee 0.6 ND Grad stacked with the same Lee 0.9 ND. It’s not exactly a fair one to one comparison since I probably should have been comparing with the Lee 0.9 grad so I’ve had to slightly adjust the exposures in post to more readily match the overall exposures of the two scenes but the rest of the processing, white balance and so on has been synchronised between the two images

Whilst this is probably the most extreme example of this that I’ve seen myself it does show that there can be a noticeable difference in the results when stacking different filters (especially from different manufacturers)

Hitech Reverse Grad vs Lee Grad

Lest you think that the sky colour change is just due to the natural colour changes in the sky happening very quickly just before sunrise (which it was) – the following image was taken after the stacked Lee shot above (4 minutes after) – I’d switched back to the reverse grad because I liked the results I was seeing on the camera LCD better

Sweet Dreams

In practice this filter is a joy to use and does pretty much what it’s designed to do. It’s clear to see the difference between shots taken with say this 3 stop reverse grad and the standard 3 stop Lee grad at sunrise or sunset. The detail retained at the bright horizon along with the subtle tones and details retained in the upper sky – be it clear sky or clouds and colours are readily apparent

The one major potential problem when using the reverse grad is that anything that seriously breaks the horizon, be it some headland, a mountain, a building or tree is going to get very dark very quickly because the darkest part of the reverse grad is right at the horizon transition area. However for many seascape purposes where the horizon is often dead flat out to sea this is perfect

Formatt-Hitech also make a large range of other slot in filters including soft, hard, reverse, solid in various strengths and sizes (e.g. widths of 67, 85, 100, 150 and 165mm) as well as things like variable ND filters, large circular polarisers and of course all the filter holder systems and accessories

Aside: They also make what I’ve heard is an extremely nice set of high density ND filters which compete with the Lee Little and BigStoppers – the ProStop IRND series. This series however has the full range of densities from 1 to 10 stops at 1 stop increments. Hitech-Formatt indicates that the filters have been optimised for digital sensors and reformulated with a nearly flat attenuation of both visible spectrum light and infrared light. Apparently making it the world’s most neutral ND filter, especially at higher densities where other brands suffer from colourcast. It’s this ability to limit infrared which makes these filters different and it is something I would really like to try as the BigStopper suffers from a definite strong blue cast (which sometimes I really like but you basically get no choice). I’m often taking images with stacked filters for very high light blocking (e.g. 15 stops) and at these levels light and the effects on the resultant images is extremely sensitive

All in all I’ve been very happy with my purchase of the Formatt-Hitech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad and would not hesitate to recommend this particular filter to anyone using a slot based filter system taking sunrises and/or sunsets. Realistically it’s only the cheap plastic wallet that it comes in which is the only real negative for me

Some other examples taken with the Formatt-Hitech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad

Sky Fire

Magic Island

A Fan of Sunrise

Bradleys Light

Long Rays