Rodney Campbell's Blog

We headed to National Falls in the Royal National Park after our sunrise session on Garie beach to shoot the waterfalls there.

It was a pretty bright morning but we had some intermittent cloud coming through which helped tame the contrast at times. We managed to scramble down below the lower falls where we were treated to a very nice view and a lovely rocky stream.

This shot encompasses the entire height of the falls from the very cool trees at the top down to the pool at the bottom. I was planning to try and do a vertical pano stitch of the scene but was able to get this (much more convenient) compromise with my 16-35 at 17mm. I was expecting the contrast in the scene with the bright sky at the top and the dark pool at the bottom under the trees to make it impossible to do this in one shot but with the help of some cloud cover it ended up being manageable.

I stacked a three stop ND with the CPL to get the slower shutter speed I wanted and…

National Falls

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 4 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I’m very pleased to announce that I have been published as a featured photographer on the official Sydney website.

They’ve included a little bio writeup on me along with a selection of 14 of my recent images across my favoured genre’s (Seascape/Landscape, Long Exposure and Night (Light Painting and Stars) Photography)

You can find the article at the following link: Featured Photographer: Rodney Campbell

I’m honoured and humbled to have been included along with previously featured greats like Eugene Tan of Aquabumps, Mark Seabury, Pavel Trotsenko and Michael Sutton

Dragon’s Lair

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 20 mm, 387 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Joined Gerry for another impromptu early morning session – this time at Malabar – another location I hadn’t been to however Gerry had visited some years ago. Suren was supposed to join us but he messaged me at 3:40AM indicating his battery was bust 🙁

So it was another very early start with a 4:30AM meetup at the carpark near Long Bay.

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.

We were originally intending on shooting from the cliffs facing north along the coastline at the next set of cliffs being lit by the early morning light. However there were almost no clouds to the north (and the wind was blowing those inland). There were heavy clouds where the sun was going to rise out to sea and around to the south so we quickly headed further north along the coast and around the bend till we could shoot south along the coast.

Before 5AM and about 40 minutes to sunrise – the view looking north towards Malabar and the city along the coast in the distance – those cliffs just to the left of middle are where we headed to next

What comes Before

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 82.00 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Found this lovely patch of colourful succulent right on the cliff edge to use as some foreground interest as well as this small spindly shrub.

Looking south along the coast almost 20 minutes to sunrise with a natural long exposure

The Little Tree

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 30 sec at f/14, ISO 100

With fantastic pastel tones out to sea our succulent made for an ideal set of leading lines in this view a little north west along the clifftops – a couple minutes to sunrise

Clinging to Life

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 8 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Sunrise itself was pretty much a bust but we were both surprised how quickly that red ball lifted above the horizon and then back under the clouds on the horizon

Almost 15 minutes after sunrise the sun was still struggling to get through the heavy cloud on the horizon and it was just starting to peek above to light the cliffs along the coast

Racing out to Sea

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 23 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Just after sunrise I wanted to get above the beach and shoot down on the array of surfboards scattered across Garie beach as part of the 1000 Surfboard Graveyard, so I headed up the headland next to the beach.

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.

Good fortune smiled upon us as a few minutes after sunrise the sun lit up the upper clouds in the sky and we had a fantastic display of bright pink clouds set against the blue sky.

Curves in Pink

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 35 mm, 1/3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Heading back down towards the beach, a bit over fifteen minutes after sunrise – pink clouds and pink god rays – couldn’t ask for much more really…

Pink Dawn

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/13 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I was trying this little composition with this very nice looking driftwood log in the stream. Luckily Suren was unknowingly helping me out with my composition

Drifting By

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 1/6 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Art imitating life…

1000 Curves

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 1/8 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Once the sun had cleared the clouds and was much higher in the sky we get interesting harder shadows and vapour mist in the air from the crashing swell

Graveyard of Boards

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 100

When I first arrived and saw the scene at Terrace Falls at Hazelbrook in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney I was thinking longer focal length and a panorama of the wider base of the falls.

This place must look quite spectacular with a really heavy flow of water – when the rushing water spreads right across the base of the falls.

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.

The light was frankly terrible – absolutely no clouds and harsh direct sunlight in dappled patches across the scene. I setup as far back and and as high as I could in the area whilst still having a clear open view and used the longest focal length I had with me (70mm). My first shots of the morning at this location were the set of six vertical frames I took for this stitched pano.

This was pretty much the best I could be bothered to do to recover the highlights and shadows with such a contrasty scene – it’s amazing what you can extract from the D600 RAW files – but even it has it’s limits (I probably should have underexposed the set even more than I did)

Terraced Pano

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 8 sec at f/11, ISO 100