Rodney Campbell's Blog

We had some relatives arrive from overseas (Japan), and my two youngest daughters along with my sister played tour guide hosts in Sydney for a day.

Our Japanese visitors wanted to see the usual tourist locations so we visited the always popular Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney Opera House and the Botanic Gardens.

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 weather forecast predicted rain for much of the day but thankfully it held off for most of the day and we were blessed with slightly overcast conditions till the afternoon when very foreboding clouds rolled in and a massive thunderstorm hit the city.

We started the morning by climbing to the lookout in the southern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for some spectacular 360˚ views.

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/500 sec at f/4, ISO 100

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/1000 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/320 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

Harking back to Olden Times

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/250 sec at f/6.3, ISO 100

We then walked around Circular Quay to the Sydney Opera House

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 36 mm, 1/500 sec at f/5.6, ISO 100

and then onwards into the Sydney Royal Botanic Gardens (they were keen to see some flowers)

I hadn’t actually brought a macro lens with me this day – I packed light just bringing the camera with the versatile 24-70/2.8 lens. It’s not a macro lens by any means but you make do with what you have in these situations and I was happy with the falloff and background blur I could getting about as close as I could with the close focus distance of this lens along with a wide aperture

Sun Cluster

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/1600 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/800 sec at f/2.8, ISO 100

Lifted

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/160 sec at f/4, ISO 100

Then we could see some epic dark clouds and rain rolling in from the south west and it was time to make a dash for the city and cover

Echoes of Egypt

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 140

Storms Above

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/80 sec at f/5.6, ISO 125

After lunch we drove around to some good viewing and photographing locations around the northern side of the harbour (Bradfield Park/Kirribilli, Blues Point and Balls Head Reserve)

NIKON D600 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 70 mm, 1/500 sec at f/4, ISO 100

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