Rodney Campbell's Blog

Twenty minutes to sunrise and we’e got some deep blue sky and a hint of stringy clouds just above the city. It’s time to put together a long exposure stitched panorama – this one seven frames taken with the 16-35/4 on my old crop sensor D7000 (the D600 is back with Nikon again to fix something they broke the last time they were fixing the camera). Seven frames at 16mm (24mm equiv) at f/11 and ISO 200 with exposure times varying from 58 to 77 seconds between frames (I was adjusting by feel somewhat based on the light).

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.

Beached Before Dawn

NIKON D7000 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 77 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Right on sunrise (5:45AM) the colours came out to play as the clouds lit up – it only lasted a couple of minutes – just long enough to take this 8 frame stitched panorama set and I was happy with the show. Unfortunately almost all of the lights in all the buildings in the city had turned off by now but you can’t always have everything 🙂 – I mean nature gave me my nice green foreground rock so gotta be happy with that…

Sydney’s a Beach

NIKON D7000 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

…another large stitched panorama… sadly another panosphere opportunity…

This time the Anzac Bridge and the Sydney city skyline…

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.

Planet Anzac

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 30 sec at f/9, ISO 100

Pastel Planet

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 4 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I wasn’t planning to photograph sunrise this morning but for some reason I woke early and since I was up I figured I’d make good use of it and quickly get ready and make a quick dash down to Blues Point on Sydney harbour for sunrise.

I didn’t get there quite as early as I would have liked but I was still there and setup about 20 minutes before sunrise.

I have to thank Grant Galbraith for alerting me to this location (for sunrise) – I’d been here before many times but I had no idea there was this small sandy beach with some lovely green moss covered stones out in the water. Every other time I’ve been here (during the day or in the evening) this whole area is well underwater right up the stone wall behind me.

Twenty minutes to sunrise and we’e got some deep blue sky and a hint of stringy clouds just above the city – I was really hoping these would turn with a show of colour before sunrise

Sydney Twilight

NIKON D7000 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 61.00 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Minutes before sunrise and the stringy clouds are still sitting patiently above the city and I’m waiting for them to blaze to colour

Harbour City

NIKON D7000 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 15 sec at f/11, ISO 100

and then right on cue the sky lights up in an array of soft colours – only for a few minutes but just enough time for me to take a sequence of frames for a panorama – this is one of the single frames processed (even though I was taking a pano set I ensured one of the frames had the single composition I wanted)

Sydney Seeing in a New Dawn

NIKON D7000 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The sun had well and truly risen and the wind had picked up moving some clouds across the sky quite quickly (unfortunately mostly behind us) so it was time to switch to BigStopper mode for some long exposures

Stones on Ice

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 215 sec at f/8, ISO 200

Streaks and Stones

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 150 sec at f/8, ISO 200

I’d briefly shot a single test frame from this location a couple of years ago in the morning but now I’m finally back to try some stitched panorama’s encompassing the massive Anzac Bridge with the Sydney CBD directly behind. The Anzac Bridge is the longest span cable-stayed bridge in Australia and it replaced the adjacent old Glebe Island bridge and joins the city to the suburbs to the west. On the 80th anniversary of Armistice Day, the 11th November 1998, the new bridge was renamed as the ANZAC Bridge as a memorial to members from both sides of the Tasman who formed the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

I was dropping my eldest off to yet another birthday party late one afternoon so I took the opportunity again to do some sunset and twilight photography somewhere different. As the party was at the inner city suburb of Rozelle I was originally intending to shoot sunset somewhere in Balmain but just after drop off I could see the Anzac bridge close by so decided to divert there.

There’s a nice set of walkways over the major roads which give a pretty good view of the Anzac bridge and the Sydney CBD skyline. I actually wanted to be more to the left than where I shot this from however that wasn’t possible as the pedestrian bridge to the left of me had a high metal mesh blocking the view above the freeway lanes.

This location is quite a long way from the bridge and the city so I opted for my goto landscape lens (jokes :)) – the Sigma 85/1.4 – and decided to use the longer focal length to produce a more compressed stitched panorama of the scene rather than taking a single shot with a wide lens (which would have given a much less interesting thinner view).

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.

Of course we had no clouds and no real interesting colour to speak of during sunset, although we did get some nice pastel bands early on

Pastel City

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 4 sec at f/11, ISO 100

My favourite however was to wait till we were well into twilight when the city lights were on and we could see the streaking lights of the cars crossing the bridge – a bit over half an hour after sunset and we’re right in the peak of blue hour…

Anzac Blue

NIKON D600 + 85.0 mm f/1.4 @ 85 mm, 30 sec at f/9, ISO 100