Rodney Campbell's Blog

As part of the Sydney city Christmas celebrations the Lights of Christmas is back on again this year with light projections onto some of Sydney’s famous CBD landmarks like St Mary’s Cathedral and the Town Hall during December in the lead up to Christmas day.

I’d had an idea for something I wanted to shoot with the projections on St Mary’s Cathedral being reflected on the pond during twilight – and since this is quite close to my work I stayed back one evening just before Christmas and headed out to shoot.

Merry Christmas everyone – have a safe and happy holidays…

With sunset just after 8PM and the projections starting at 8:30PM you only get one small window of opportunity to shoot with some twilight colour in the sky – by 8:40 twilight is pretty much done – ah well a short shoot is a good shoot 🙂

Shot with a 2 Stop Lee Graduated ND to hold down the brighter sky and building projection to match with the reflection – 8:25PM

Sydney Christmas

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 15 sec at f/13, ISO 100

There was quite a bit of wind gusting about so to smooth out the water I figured I’d try a long exposure by stacking a 3 stop ND with the two stop grad for a lazy 202 seconds (only got one take before the real show started – this turned out pretty well considering the projection actually changed mid way through) – 8:29PM

Faerie Palace

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 202.00 sec at f/13, ISO 100

Once the show started I ditched the ND and had to bump the ISO (to 400) and open the aperture a little to speed up the shutter (the animations get faster and faster each year and you have to time your shots for those moments with the longest static scenes) – 8:34PM

Crystal Palace

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 4 sec at f/11, ISO 400

8:42PM and twilight is gone (at least for these exposure times)…

Madonna & Child

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 5.00 sec at f/11, ISO 400

I also put together this neat little animated GIF composed of 25 frames leading from twilight to night during the 15 minute projection show

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 42 mm, 2.5-202 sec at f/8-13, ISO 100-400

Don't forget to Share...

Google

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Email

Print