Rodney Campbell's Blog

We had a number of relatives visiting Sydney and they all stayed in a large apartment in Chatswood. They were staying on the 26th floor and had uninterrupted views East, South and West from Chatswood towards North Sydney, the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the CBD.

I’d never tried shooting a city scene from way up high before and the view was so good that I went there one late afternoon so I could photograph sunset, twilight and the night views from their large balcony. I took both single shots as well as sequences of vertical images covering about 180 degrees to stitch into large panorama’s.

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.

The single shot just (about 5 minutes) before sunset as the late afternoon sun was raking across the buildings and trees. The Sydney CBD is pretty much straight ahead directly in the middle…

Sydney Skies

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 13 mm, 1.3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

This is a panorama stitched from 7 vertical frames (18mm, 1.6 sec at f/11 and ISO 100)

Sunset Panorama

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 2.5 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Towards the end of twilight (about 40 minutes after sunset) but before night really settles in, using a long exposure we get both the city lights on, light trails from the cars in the streets and still some deep colour in the sky (just barely lit from the sun over the horizon) – it’s a magical time to shoot

The single shot

Sydney by Night

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 13 mm, 30 sec at f/8, ISO 100

and the panorama stitched from 6 vertical frames (14mm, 30 sec at f/8 and ISO 200)

Sydney by Night Panorama

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/8, ISO 200

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