I joined a walk organised by our walk leader Philip Johnson which started at the top of Macquarie Street in the city and worked it’s way down the street and into Sydneys Royal Botanic Gardens and then across to Circular Quay for lunch.

Just before I joined the walk start I took some shots with my Ultra Wide Angle lens at St Mary’s Cathedral (something I had planned to do last time I was here – but it had started to rain back then).

The following is a HDR image taken at the main steps of St Mary’s Cathedral and merged from three bracketed exposures at -2, 0 and +2EV.

“Steps to Heaven”

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 1/60 sec at f/11, ISO 250

Hyde Park Baracks – “Stools”

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 105mm, 1/100 sec at f/7.1, ISO 200

The Hyde Park Barracks are at the southern end of Macquarie Street. The barracks are located near the north-east corner of Hyde Park, opposite Queens Square and beside the Sydney Mint. Hyde Park Barracks were designed and built by the convict architect Francis Greenway between 1818 and 1819. Today it is managed by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales as a museum.

Walking down Macquarie Street:

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 150mm, 1/250 sec at f/7.1, ISO 200

Morshead Fountain inside the Royal Botanical Gardens – in memory of Lieutenant-General Sir Lesley Morshead (knighted for his defence of Tobruk in World War II) and the men who served with him, 1966:

D90 + Tamron 90mm, 1/2500 sec at f/5, ISO 200

“Birth”

D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/125 sec at f/9, ISO 200

I was lucky enough to have this Ibis land in one of the pieces of art/sculpture right next to me and start to drink from the bowl at the top and this allowed me to get some close up shots (with the lens I happened to have on the camera at the time) from only a metre or two away before flying off:

D90 + Tamron 90mm, 1/500 sec at f/9, ISO 200

Some very interesting leaves (I was attracted to the textures and colours) on some plants in the gardens:

D90 + Tamron 90mm, 1/1000 sec at f/4, ISO 200

It’s Australia so we have to have eucalyptus :

D90 + Tamron 90mm, 1/125 sec at f/9, ISO 200

NSW Government House located in the Domain and overlooking the Royal Botanic Gardens and Sydney Opera House, is the most sophisticated example of a Gothic Revival building in New South Wales. It was built between 1837 and 1843.

I think the last time I was here was probably at the Queens Scout Award ceremony back when the governor general lived here and held the ceremony in the grounds out back.

“Old and New”

D90 + Tamron 90mm, 1/125 sec at f/11, ISO 200

The following is a HDR image of the rear of government house merged from three bracketed exposures at -2, 0 and +2EV.

“Grand Colonial Daze”

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 1/200 sec at f/9, ISO 200

“The Lily Pond”, in the grounds of government house:

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Note: Click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

It was another very chilly 5:30AM start in total darkness at the carpark at Long Reef (behind the Golf Club) at Collaroy – scrambling over a couple hundred metres of extremely slippery rocks and low water in the pitch dark to get to the edge of the reef was “invigorating”.

I should note that I don’t own any of the essential tools of choice of seasoned landscape and seascape shooters (ND’s or GND’s – Neutral Density and Graduated Neutral Density filters) (and there is no filter thread on my Ultra Wide Angle lens so it would have to be handheld even if I did) so I have to make do with what I can. I also discovered the gradient tool thingy in Adobe Lightroom so had a bit of a play and got much better results adjusting the single RAW exposures (rather than using HDR).

Firstly Way Pre Dawn – this is a 3 minute exposure I took looking back towards the City – so the ambient light in the sky is coming from the main city. I didn’t have my remote with me so this is a three minute hand hold the shutter button down – not ideal but it appears to have basically worked although I did have to heavily post process this image to bring it back…

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 16mm, 177 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Pre Dawn (the very long shutter speed misty water look) [6:20AM]:

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 30 sec at f/11, ISO 200

The next two shots are the slower shutter speed flowing water shots – the first at 6:35AM and the second just after 7AM:

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 12mm, 2 sec at f/13, ISO 200

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D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 13mm, 1/13 sec at f/16, ISO 200

Looking Back (this is the headland we walked down and the rocky reef we walked across in the darkness) [7:15AM]:

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 12mm, 1/25 sec at f/16, ISO 200

The edge of the reef in the early morning light [7:35AM]:

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 31mm, 1/80 sec at f/9, ISO 200

A Panoramic shot of the headland and beach (this is a single ultra wide shot cropped):

D90 + Sigma 8-16mm @ 8mm, 1/200 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Note: Click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

I loved the colours and the way the reflected light was falling onto this old building in the city (near Town Hall):

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 29mm, 1/60 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Just at the entrance to Cockle Bay I saw these poles sticking up into the sky and had to frame this shot against the sparkling blue skies:

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 56mm, 1/100 sec at f/8, ISO 200, CPL

At the end of Cockle Bay wharf there was this interesting little jetty with nicely lined up poles and as luck would have it a seagull arrived on cue :

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 50mm, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200, CPL

Finally on the way back to the office we have this shot of the clock tower on Sydney’s Town Hall in the early afternoon sun:

D90 + Nikon 18-200mm @ 56mm, 1/160 sec at f/9, ISO 200, CPL

Note: Click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

Now first things first – I’ve never done this type of photography before so I was sort of making this up as I go along. Secondly Macro photography is close-up photography – the classical definition is that the image projected on the “film plane” (i.e. the digital sensor) is the same size as the subject – i.e. 1 to 1. That way when you view it on screen or in print the images appear much larger than real life.

It’s night and it’s indoors so I figured I needed some form of vaguely evenly diffused lighting to light my tiny subjects – so I cobbled together this sort of crazy makeshift “lightbox” of sorts in an attempt to have light from all around the objects.

Thats my D90 with my Tamron 90mm f/2.8 1:1 Macro lens to the right on my tripod. To the left is my SB-600 flash pointing mainly upwards with a dome diffuser on and some tissues thrown over it for good measure which I’m wirelessly triggering from my camera through the magic of Nikons Creative Lighting System (CLS). I’ve also got a diffuser on the cameras built in flash because whilst it isn’t being used to provide any of the flash light (I set it to commander mode only) I had noticed that the preflashes it generates to talk to the slave SB-600 still caused some bright reflections on the shiny objects I’m photographing. At the back and side are some white cardboard boxes standing up as reflective walls and to the right of that I have some simple white A4 paper being stood up by my Joby Gorillapod. Over the top I’ve got a large piece of my childrens white craft cardboard and finally on the bottom to provide a neutral background I’ve either got the black cardboard or a bunch of white A4 paper.

After mucking around with a few shots to begin with and playing around with the light (I ended up having to move my flash to different positions and change the angle of the bounce for certain shots as I went along) – I decided to shoot in Manual mode and lock the ISO in at the Nikon default of 200, the Aperture at f/11 and the Shutter Speed at 1/160 sec and let the TTL flash do the rest of the work. I did find that for some objects and shots I had to apply some minimal flash exposure compensation (between -1 and +1 EV). I also used manual focus for all of this – at the start I used the viewfinder and then later started using liveview on the rear LCD. I’m not sure if this is the “right” or most appropriate way of doing things but hey it’s all one big learning experience

OK without further ado here are some of the results (feel free to guess what they each are ) and I’ll post some more at a later stage.

Note: Click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

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D90 + Tamron 90mm Macro, 1/160 sec at f/11, ISO 200

So I learnt a little about lighting using a strobe and a makeshift set of light modifiers, diffusers and reflectors and had some fun along the way.

Another thing I only discovered after loading the photos on my computer is that even though the exposure looked correct and for some even slightly over exposed on my cameras small LCD screen once those photos were opened up in Adobe Lightroom most of them were slightly underexposed (to the tune of around a half to just over a stop) – possibly about the amount of negative flash exposure compensation I was applying?

The white background also didn’t look so pure white or so evenly exposed which I was able to partially correct in some of the shots but likely also means my makeshift lightbox was by no means anywhere near perfect.

I took these with my Nikon D90 and Tamron 90mm f/2.8 lens on Manfrotto tripod.

Note: Click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay gallery viewer.

First a colour view towards the cathedral itself:

1/2000 sec at f/2.8, ISO 560, 90mm

and then one looking away (towards the Museum) which I’ve applied the antique black and white processing to:

1/4000 sec at f/2.8, ISO 1100, 90mm

We spent the day in the city introducing some culture to my three girls.

We visited two exhibitions at the Art Gallery of NSW:

• Paths to Abstraction

and

• Alfred Stieglitz the Lake George Years.

Then we made our way through the Domain to the State Library of New South Wales and took a look at two free photographic exhibitions there:

• World Press Photo 2010

and

• 1440

Of course I took my camera with me and captured a few images along the way

I wish I’d taken the following at an even higher shutter speed – unfortunately I was already at wide open with the lens I had and didn’t think to bump ISO at the time. I’ve converted the shot to black and white and given it an antique greyscale look and a bit of vignetting in the corners and think it looks better this way:

1/400 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200, 112mm

The following is a series of photos taken of St Mary’s Cathedral – some also converted to Black and White:

1/320 sec at f/8, ISO 200, 24mm

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1/80 sec at f/8, ISO 200, 18mm

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1/400 sec at f/4.5, ISO 200, 40mm

The following is an HDR of a huge old tree in the Domain taken at 0, -2 and +2 EV:

1/60 sec at f/8, ISO 450, 18mm

Finally at the end of the day – a shot of my eldest and youngest in Hyde Park:

1/250 sec at f/4, ISO 2000, 50mm

It was a 5:30AM meetup at the southern end of the beach (which meant getting up at 3:45AM and leaving home around 4:30AM).

There were about ten of us who braved the bitter cold and darkness to scramble around the rocky coastline for about twenty minutes till we reached the place dubbed Devils Cauldron at the southern end of Dolphin Bay.

As a mere amateur amongst a number of seasoned landscape and seascape shooters I think I was a little out of my league; however it was a good experience to see how others approach their craft. I think pretty much everyone else there had much more serious kit than I, including the all important Graduated Neutral Density (Grad ND) Filters. These are very important items to have when photographing the sky and ground when there’s a vast difference in exposure – which is significantly so when photographing landscape/seascape during sunrise. I of course didn’t have one so I had to make do – so my methods below were to either post adjust a shot in Lightroom via exposure, recovery, fill and the simulated graduated filter or to bracket a number of exposures (generally at 0, -2 and +2 EV) so that I had shots that at least half attempted to expose either the sky or ground somewhere near correctly and then either merge the multiple photos using High Dynamic Range (HDR) techniques or by layering of the different shots and blending them (e.g. by using the sky from one shot and the ground/sea from another).

This first shot was taken pre dawn during morning twilight (it was basically still very dark to the naked eye – 6:30AM). It was taken with my Sigma 8-16mm Ultra Wide Angle lens at 8mm to include both the moon (top left) and the hint of sunrise on the middle right and involved the blending of three shots. This is probably one of my two favourite shots:

30 sec at f/11, ISO 200, 8mm

The next shot is an HDR taken pointing up Devils River (sunrise is happening off to the left which bathes the rocky cliff face to the right in early golden orange light – it’s 6:42AM) – again with the Sigma 8-16mm lens at 16mm this time using three shots at 3, 0.5 and 10 seconds:

3 sec at f/16, ISO 200, 16mm

This is Devils Cauldron itself (6:52AM) and is probably my other favourite shot (the sun is still not over the horizon and is just to the left of the frame), another HDR with the same lens at 1/4, 1/20 and 1 second:

1/4 sec at f/16, ISO 200, 16mm

This is on the walk back to the beach – I stopped to try a very wide HDR looking pretty much straight at the risen sun (behind the clouds) – it’s 7:41AM – again with the Sigma 8-16mm at 8mm at 1/40, 1/160 and 1/10 of a second:

1/40 sec at f/11, ISO 200, 8mm

The following is a 360 degree panorama I shot at the same point using 8 vertical shots taken at 45 degree angles (50% overlapped) on a tripod. If you’d like to view the panorama “as if you were there” then click on the link or the image below to view it as a fully interactive 360° virtual reality view that you can pan around and up and down as well as zoom in and out of as if you were standing at the centre of the scene.

1/60 sec at f/8, ISO 200, 8mm

Lastly a simple shot of Whale Beach after breakfast just as we are about to leave – that headland you can see in the distance is where we walked around the coastline to to take the pre dawn shots:

1/250 sec at f/8, ISO 200, 22mm

Never one to miss a potential photo op I grabbed the D90 and whacked on the Tamron 90mm f/2.8 lens and grabbed some shots.

Frozen blades of grass:

1/125 sec at f/3.2, ISO 200, 90mm

a lonely little tree in a sea of white in our neighbours front lawn:

1/200 sec at f/2.8, ISO 200, 90mm

This time I took my sharpest longish lens (my Tamron 90mm f/2.8) and setup my Nikon D90 on the Manfrotto tripod at the window and started taking some shots.

I took my first test shot in Aperture priority mode (1/4 sec @ f/4.0, ISO 200) – however since my camera was still in Matrix Metering mode the moon was massively overexposed with a huge halo around it so all I ended up with was a large blurry white fireball to burn out my retinas – plus the moon appears to move fairly quickly across the sky (you only notice this when you’re pointing a zoomed camera at the moon on a tripod and notice that it moves between shots and you have to reframe) so even at 1/4 sec I expect we’ll see the movement.

OK brain kicked into gear – of course with a smallish bright object surrounded with dark black the camera was going to try and average the scene brightness to get the exposure.

I then set my camera to Spot Metering and again focused on the moon and took the shot (1/200 sec @ f/4.0 and 1/25 sec @ f/11) – better but it’s still just a solid white ball – at least the edges look sharp now.

OK time for some exposure compensation. I started at first with -2EV (1/100 sec @ f/11) and then the following at -3EV (1/250 sec @ f/11):

1/250 sec at f/11, ISO 200, 90mm

and then finally -4EV (1/500 sec @ f/11 and 1/3200 sec @ f/4):

1/500 sec at f/11, ISO 200, 90mm

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1/3200 sec at f/4, ISO 200, 90mm

I havn’t post processed any of the above images other than to crop them – I’m pretty happy with how they turned out given it was my first attempt at shooting the moon.

Oh and that skyline with the cool looking clouds lit by the moonlight that drew me to this in the first place – this is the view looking across at Chatswood city and this shot from memory pretty much approximates how it looked to the naked eye:

2.5 sec at f/4, ISO 200, 90mm

and finally – playing with a bit of Bokeh – I manually focused my lens and purposely moved it a fair bit out of focus whilst pointing at the lights of Chatswood in the distance to see what I’d get and…

1 sec at f/3.2, ISO 200, 90mm