Rodney Campbell's Blog

Lake Argyle also hosts the Argyle Diamond mine.

Rio Tinto owns and operates the Argyle diamond mine in the remote East Kimberley region of Western Australia. The mine has been operating since 1983 and has produced more than 800 million carats of rough diamonds. It is one of the world’s largest supplier of diamonds and the world’s largest supplier of natural coloured diamonds. The most famous being their very rare and very beautiful Pink Diamonds.

How appropriate I’d come up here to photograph these gems in the sky over the lake. The conditions were still very good for photographing the stars. Absolutely no clouds (of course) and it was only a few days after the new moon. The moon was also very low in the sky to my far right and moving towards setting.

Clutching Diamonds

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 37.00 sec at f/2.8, ISO 12800

The above frame was actually taken at a staggering ISO 12,800 for 37 seconds at f/2.8. On my old D600 I would never have thought of shooting at above ISO 6400 but the new D750 appears to have at least one more stop of usable ISO range. It’s crazy how technology is advancing.

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.

I setup for the arch of stars over this dead tree right up close in my foreground for my panorama composition.

My final panorama is the result of stitching seven (7) frames taken with the 14mm – 33 seconds @ f/2.8 and ISO 6400.

I’m saving this image for an exhibition I’ll be doing with the Parallaxis group next year so these teasers will have to do till then sorry :)…

Argyle Lights

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 37.00 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

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