Rodney Campbell's Blog

At the end of a very pleasant 800m walk down and along Dales Gorge we reach the end of the gorge and at the base is Circular Pool. It is so named because of the quite circular nature of this end of the gorge and the pool nestled here at the end – almost like a cul de sac.

I’d arrived early enough (8AM) to both have the whole place to myself and for the sun to still be low enough so as to not reach down here to the base of the gorge. All I was getting for the next hour was beautiful reflected light off these amazing red and orange gorge walls.

Given the location panoramic images seemed to be the order of the day. The upper gorge walls were brightly lit by the direct sun but down here 100m at the bottom we had fantastic soft light.

My first stitched panorama is the result of stitching eight (8) vertical frames taken at a very wide 18mm with the Nikon 16-35/4.

Circulating

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 4 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.

This was the dry season so the water wasn’t cascading down from above into the pool (which I’d imagine would look spectacular – and be incredibly dangerous to boot :)). The water was however still like glass and crystal clear. It’s amazing how green the water looks in the deeper areas (presumably a characteristic of the minerals at the bottom of the water) and is such a stark contrast to the golden orange and red rocks.

When I was taking the frames for my stitched panorama I made sure that one of the frames was this vertical composition with that very nice grass covered rock in the water in my foreground. Here I’ve processed it as a single frame.

Whisps of Green

NIKON D750 + 16.0-35.0 mm f/4.0 @ 18 mm, 3 sec at f/11, ISO 100

The shot below is one of my last at Circular Pool – it was now 9:05AM and the first of the tourists was just arriving so it was time to go. After packing up I helped some lovely young german backpackers out by taking some photos of them with their phones before heading out.

Flowing Greens

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 2.50 sec at f/11, ISO 100

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