Rodney Campbell's Blog

A couple of slow shutter experiments using the Lee BigStopper 10 Stop ND filter

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.

Looking for lone tree’s at Salamander Bay up at Port Stephens near Newcastle. In this case it was a bit too windy for this but still the effect is “interesting”

Waving

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 28 mm, 62.00 sec at f/13, ISO 50

At Redhead Park high up on the headland looking south along the beach towards Lake Entrance. In this case it was very bright midday so I’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this – shot down at ISO 50 and stacked the Lee BigStopper, a 3 Stop ND and a CPL for about 15 stops of ND

Slow Passage

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 27 mm, 245 sec at f/11, ISO 50

Some sunrises are too good to miss. One of our second floor bedroom windows faces east so I’m in the unfortunate (or fortunate) position of being able to see straight away what I missed as far as epic sunrises full of fire and blazing colour go each morning. This assumes of course I’m awake around the time of sunrise – which at this time of year in winter happens a lot since sunrise is around 7AM

This morning my wife (who generally wakes before me) is looking out the window and saying “Wow!! the sky looks like it’s on Fire!!!” – which for me is generally a bad sign…. It’s meant another morning I wished I’d been out there somewhere along Sydney’s coastline taking seascapes with this epic fire in the sky… Given that the crazy coloured light spills into the room and glows off the ceiling and opposite wall it’s a little hard to miss even when still lying in bed 🙁

This one however was too good to waste so I setup my tripod at the window and with the 24-70 (no time for filters or anything) quickly fired off a few frames before the sun crept over the horizon

Another great sunrise – almost missed 🙂

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.

Fire

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I’d just arranged to meet my friend Gerry in Martin Place at 6PM to go shoot pre Vivid activities and I was looking out the windows of my office building and the sky was looking very promising for a great sunset (there had been burning off out west earlier that morning so the particle level in the atmosphere was looking bad for the environment and general health but great for photography). It was just over 45 minutes to sunset (5PM) so I headed out of the office and down to the car park to pick up my push bike and made a dash through the city for Mrs Macquaries Chair (I figured I’d try shooting sunset back towards the Opera House and Bridge)

Pink Blush

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 4 to 42 sec at f/11, ISO 50

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.
As it happens I didn’t make it – it was almost sunset when I was riding past the Art Gallery of NSW. I figured I wasn’t going to make it but as I road over the bridge where Art Gallery Road crosses the Cahill Expressway I looked to the left and saw the sky aglow behind the city skyscraper skyline

A hasty stop and I setup above the road with the idea of catching a great sunrise with the lit city buildings in the background and light trails from the cars below

Art Gallery Road is a good spot for this since it faces slightly North West pretty much towards sunset (behind all those tall buildings) and there are lots of lanes of traffic below which boded well for plentiful trails. Also helping was that it was now peak hour traffic time so there were tons of cars on the road – perfect

Now unfortunately I hadn’t brought any of my filters (except a screw in polariser) because I was only expecting to be taking night time photos at Vivid this day – so I was forced to bracket images that I could blend later in post. The sky behind the buildings was pretty bright compared to the darkness of the foreground below and this side of the buildings – I could still get everything in one shot but the foreground was very dark

I wanted as long an exposure as possible (so I could get trailing lights from the moving cars) so I shifted the ISO down to 50, stopped down to f/11 and put the polariser on to cut another two stops of light – this let me get a normal exposure of 11 seconds and a 42 second long over exposure for more foreground trails and a brighter foreground. The image at the top of the post is a result of blending these two plus a shorter 4 second exposure to pull back the sky

The end of the pink and a few more trails – this is the result of blending five (5) manually taken bulb mode exposures from 5 to 82 seconds long

Last Pink

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 5 to 82 sec at f/13, ISO 50

after that I was getting more car light trails but less colour in the sky. Technically I could blend shots from different times – so an early sky plus the later foreground (which I may try) since I was shooting all these later shots on a tripod with the same framing

Finally twenty minutes after sunset I’m getting a nice balance between lots of trails and the lights on the streets and city buildings lighting up – lost most of the colour in the sky now so it’s turning that cool twilight blue – four exposures from 5 to 41 seconds blended

Life in the Fast Lane

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 5 to 41 sec at f/11, ISO 100

It wasn’t till about 25 minutes after sunset before the sky and foreground evened out enough to where I could get really nice single exposures and by then the colour in the sky was long gone and I was left with a very nice twilight blue

Twilight Trails

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 17 mm, 5 to 41 sec at f/11, ISO 100

Another stitched panorama – another excuse for a panosphere (tiny planet) – this time my sunset panorama at Bradleys Head is the subject for this torture… Actually I quite like the result which I’ve titled Lollipop…

Lollipop

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 26 mm, 1/2 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I’d arranged for an almost impromptu sunrise session with my friend Gerry. He suggested we could do a session at Long Bay (next to the Golf Course) at Malabar on the coast in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs.

Unfortunately Gerry had a bit of a family emergency and couldn’t make it but I was up and there so I figured I’d see how I’d go – the clouds were looking a little non-existent but you never know…

The Wedge

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 13 sec at f/11, ISO 100

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.

Sunrises at this time of the year are great (because sunrise is so late at this time of the year) and as an added bonus the weather has been unseasonably warm so the winter chill has not set in yet

By the time I got far enough along the point so that sunrise would come up near the end of the next finger of land along the coast (Malabar), and then down onto the rocks and setup to shoot is was 6:20AM and about 25 minutes to sunrise. I would normally like to be setup at least 30 minutes earlier but was running a little late this morning

I initially moved out to a large rock above the water but a freak wave came in and even on this high perch I got wet up to my knees. As there were some cool rock formations and a couple still pools of water behind me I decided prudence was the order of the day and I moved back to find a composition. We were getting some nice subtle colour rays in the sky in the pre dawn light but it quickly faded to a pastel blur

Eventually the early morning fishermen started coming past, I setup to take a stitched panorama – this one from five (5) vertical frames at 18mm

Malabar Glow

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 15 sec at f/11, ISO 100

I really liked the look of that nice still pool in front of me with the single large bright stripy orange sandstone rock (almost keyhole shaped) in it. So I moved forward right up to the pool with the ultrawide on as the pastel mauves and purples in the sky started to dance

Locked

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 100

We’re just about on sunrise just over behind the headland on the other side of Long Bay with the image at the top of the post

and then I went in search of another pool for some foreground interest. Here with the suns rays peeking over the far headland of Malabar

Long Rays

NIKON D600 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 19 mm, 5.00 sec at f/9, ISO 50

With the image above I was playing around with focus stacking landscapes – I’d taken three shots at f/9 – one focused for the immediate close foreground, another for the rocks in the mid distance and the final shot for the far headland and horizon (infinity). In photoshop I layered the three images and manually blended them using layer masks

Personally I’m not sure it did much better than just taking the single frame at f/11 – f/16 at this focal length but it’s goot to experiement and I was also able to get a little more DR by also adjusting the exposure across the frames too (even with the use of a 3 stop reverse grad as I was using here)

Just after 7AM I finished off, headed back to the car and was home in time for breakfast; a quick mornings work…