Rodney Campbell's Blog

Headed to Turimetta to join the FOCUS crew for another dawn seascape shoot. I’d never shot at this location before (South Turimetta beach) and I decided to head out there early so I could try some pre dawn light painting along the coast.

I arrived at the ungodly hour of 4:30AM (almost two and a half hours before sunrise) so it was extremely dark along the coast with minimal light pollution. Luckily I had my new uber torch (a small 860 lumen hand torch – which I’ll review soon) which allowed me to check out the coastline looking for some likely light painting candidates.

The sea was really rough with ferocious waves constantly battering the coast and constant wet spray in the air.

I found these two very nice looking rocks with shallow water at their base and setup for a few hours of light painting.

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.

This first is at 4:45AM and was to be a test shot – 4 minute exposure at f/5.6 and ISO 400 with the 16-35 at 19mm. I lit the two stones from the left with my smaller zoomable single AA LED torch for about two minutes of the exposure

Amber Neoliths

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 241.00 sec at f/5.6, ISO 400

The second is at 5:15AM and by this time quite a bit of the cloud had cleared revealing the sky and stars. A 6 minute exposure at f/7.1 and ISO 400 at 18mm. Similar lighting for the stones as above however I also use the monster torch to light the water canyon on the left and a touch on the water on the ground and finally a bit of blue EL wire to add the meteor landing (and this is where I got very wet when some waves came in whilst I was doing the EL work and drenched me up to my knees :))

Meteor Storm

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 360.00 sec at f/7.1, ISO 400

Finally at 5:55AM and we’re starting twilight so we have a lot more colour in the sky. Another 6 minute exposure at f/9 and ISO 200 this time

Two to See in the Day

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 360.00 sec at f/9, ISO 200

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