Rodney Campbell's Blog

Took the girls to Jamberoo Theme Park (our first time) on a nice summers day – sunny and warm but not too hot with a little breeze. Jamberoo is located near Kiama on the South Coast of NSW (about 90 min drive south of Sydney).

I’ve long known about this place (in fact I’m sure I have been when I was a child) but this was the first time I’ve been with my children and I’ve got to say that it really was a great place. It’s not as flashy (and sterile) as the Gold Coast Theme parks and it has more of a family feel about the place. What it does have is lots of areas for families to have a picnic (lots of grassed areas and lots of trees along with covered seating areas as well as outdoor tables and gas bbq’s). There is food available and it’s actually not too exorbitant. There were quite a number of rides for the children – the majority of them focused around water activities (slides, pools, rivers and so on) so if you do go – swimmers are a must. There were queues for the major rides (not as bad as on the Gold Coast) but they moved quite rapidly for most of the rides. I reckon the only thing they could do to improve would be to have more toilet facilities around the park (they are pretty clustered in just one area).

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 girls all on the chairlift heading up to the top and the start of the Bobsled tracks

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/800 sec at f/4, ISO 100

.

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/2000 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

and the smiling girls 🙂

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/125 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

.

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/125 sec at f/2.5, ISO 100

.

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/160 sec at f/2.5, ISO 100

I was initially just looking to capture some macro shots of some of the nice flowers in my dads garden when a few small bugs on flowers and plants caught my eye…

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.

I’m not sure what insect this is but the flower was lovely 🙂

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/9, ISO 320

I think this was some sort of juvenile bee (it was smaller than a “normal” bee and seemed to lack colour – to the naked eye it looked grey and “fluffy”) – I even managed a few nice handheld macro shots of it

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/9, ISO 500

and this one shows a very nice sharp closeup view around the eye (luck more than anything)

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/11, ISO 1100

Lastly, I’d long wanted to take one of those classic shots of a ladybug walking along the edge of a nice green leaf or blade of grass but had never had the opportunity to give it a try. As luck would have it I just noticed this really tiny ladybug when photographing the flower on this plant. It was wandering continuously up and down the long leaves and it was a real PITA trying to capture a decent image since it was always moving and trying to AF at this distance was… lets just call it “challenging”. Anyway I managed a few shots I was pretty happy with including…

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/11, ISO 2200

.

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/11, ISO 560

Some flowers in my dads garden with the Nikon 105VR macro – no focus stacking, no macro ring lighting, no flash, no tripod this time – just basic handheld run and gun 🙂

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.

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 500

.

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400

.

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/9, ISO 560

Personally this last is my favourite but I guess it all comes down to personal taste…

NIKON D600 + 105.0 mm f/2.8 @ 105 mm, 1/250 sec at f/9, ISO 250

We were staying with my parents for a few days around Christmas and they had some visitors over for a BBQ on Boxing Day and one of our guests was this too cute for words baby girl…

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/800 sec at f/2.5, ISO 100

.

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/2.2, ISO 100

and whilst I was chimping the back of the camera (zoomed in) to check my focus on the eye for some shots my eldest daughter mentioned that the baby’s eyes looked like a flower – which they do in this very mysterious way – here’s a 100% view of one of her eyes (not much DoF @ f/2.5 :))

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.8 @ 85 mm, 1/640 sec at f/2.5, ISO 100

all taken with the Nikon 85/1.8G