Dawn Seascape Shoot – Long Reef @ Collaroy…
by Rodney Campbell on Jul.23, 2010, under Life, Photography
This is my second dawn seascape shoot (inspired to try this type of shooting somewhat by the awesome work of Xenedis and Brent Pearson) – also many thanks to the folks from the photography forums for inviting me on both occasions.
Note: Click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.
It was another very chilly 5:30AM start in total darkness at the carpark at Long Reef (behind the Golf Club) at Collaroy – scrambling over a couple hundred metres of extremely slippery rocks and low water in the pitch dark to get to the edge of the reef was “invigorating”.
I should note that I don’t own any of the essential tools of choice of seasoned landscape and seascape shooters (ND’s or GND’s – Neutral Density and Graduated Neutral Density filters) (and there is no filter thread on my Ultra Wide Angle lens so it would have to be handheld even if I did) so I have to make do with what I can. I also discovered the gradient tool thingy in Adobe Lightroom so had a bit of a play and got much better results adjusting the single RAW exposures (rather than using HDR).
Firstly Way Pre Dawn – this is a 3 minute exposure I took looking back towards the City – so the ambient light in the sky is coming from the main city. I didn’t have my remote with me so this is a three minute hand hold the shutter button down – not ideal but it appears to have basically worked although I did have to heavily post process this image to bring it back…
D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 16mm, 177 sec at f/11, ISO 200
Pre Dawn (the very long shutter speed misty water look) [6:20AM]:
D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 200
The next two shots are the slower shutter speed flowing water shots – the first at 6:35AM and the second just after 7AM:
D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 12mm, 2 sec at f/13, ISO 200
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D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 13mm, 1/13 sec at f/16, ISO 200
Looking Back (this is the headland we walked down and the rocky reef we walked across in the darkness) [7:15AM]:
D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 12mm, 1/25 sec at f/16, ISO 200
The edge of the reef in the early morning light [7:35AM]:
D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 31mm, 1/80 sec at f/9, ISO 200
A Panoramic shot of the headland and beach (this is a single ultra wide shot cropped):
D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 200
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July 28th, 2010 on 1:01 pm
Hi Rhodney,
My husband shared your site to me. This is awesome. and Great work and inspiring, love it:)