Rodney Campbell's Blog

Since our caravan was parked right at this cliff edge and I only had literally 10 feet to walk to shoot sunrise if I wished I decided to get out of bed for the sun rising over Ngumban Cliff.

Ngumban Cliff Rising

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1 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 out here were typically pretty bland from a landscape photographers point of view. We hadn’t seen any clouds in the sky (day or night) since arriving in Darwin many weeks ago. It’s the winter dry season so there just isn’t any expectation of clouds or rain. It’s pretty bizarre for me to spend days and days and weeks with completely crystal clear blue skies.

So it was I had an expectation of getting out of bed to watch the sun rising over clear skies…

I actually didn’t get out of bed till quite late – 5:50AM (for a 6:03AM sunrise). By the time I’d got up, dressed, got on location and was setup for shooting (5:54AM – I know :)) the sky was actually very bright already. Remarkably there was also some clouds in the sky!.

Up top is the view from just behind the caravan on the edge with the sun rising to my right at 6:15AM.

I also put together a few quick horizontal frames for a stitched panorama which I’ll put up in the next post.

I then went for a short stroll to the lookout and past that lone tree to a spot I’d checked out the previous day.

Golden Arrow

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/4 sec at f/11, ISO 100

This is still less than 100m from the van so the only real concern is the very spiky spinifex grass which is pretty prolific out here.

Golden Rise

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/3 sec at f/16, ISO 100

Some people just like having a view from where they sleep :).

Sleeping in the View

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 1/8 sec at f/16, ISO 100

With the sun rising right over the lip of the canyon wall at 7:00AM I waited for the sun to start revealing the near side with low raking light and interesting forms and textures over the undulating land below.

Ruffles

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 52 mm, 1/6 sec at f/20, ISO 100

and within an hour all the clouds were gone again and the skies returned to cool blue :).

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