Rodney Campbell's Blog

50 Years Young

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 24-120mm f/4 S @ 43 mm, 62 sec at f/9, ISO 64

The Opera House is celebrating it’s 50th Birthday

I was meeting Gerry and Melinda for a sunrise shoot at Dawes Point. Someone… cough… slept in…

This is my first frame of the morning. A natural long exposure at 10 minutes to 6AM (a bit over half an hour till sunrise). Right before a huge cruise ship rolled in and blocked the view 🙂

We were promised 70%+ high clouds – which could have been epic had it actually happened. Alas we just had a bunch of lower cloud blocking the far horizon 🙁

Still it was great to get out and shoot a sunrise after having not done so for months. Plus the long breaky catchup with Gerry and Melinda who was visiting Sydney again was worth it

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

The Bug

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S @ 105 mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 200

More tiny bug goodness with the Cygnustech macro flash diffuser along with the swanky new Nikkor Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S macro lens

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S @ 105 mm, 1/200 sec at f/20, ISO 200

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S @ 105 mm, 1/200 sec at f/20, ISO 200

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S @ 105 mm, 1/200 sec at f/20, ISO 200

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger. To see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer click any of the images.

Steaks of Light

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S @ 20 mm, 10 sec at f/1.8, ISO 3200 x 5 Frames

A five frame vertical panorama with the crazy good (for astro) Nikkor Z 20/1.8

Uninvited Guest

NIKON Z 7 + NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S @ 105 mm, 1/200 sec at f/16, ISO 200

We had an uninvited guest tag along with a bunch of mandarins my parents brought us to eat

A small but beautiful green bug was the perfect opportunity to try out two pieces of new kit I’d recently purchased

The first was the excellent Nikkor Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S lens. I already owned a macro lens which was one of the first lenses I bought for my Nikon D90 D-SLR 15 years ago. It was the extremely affordable (read cheap) but really quite excellent Tamron SP AF 90mm F/2.8 Di Macro 272E. It was optically excellent but really quite klunky to use and was Nikon F-Mount

The RRP for the new Z mount Nikkor 105 macro is AUD$1800 here in Australia so I wouldn’t normally drop that on what is essentially a single purpose lens that I might rarely use. However I managed to snag it for $1099 during an Amazon Prime sale

The second new piece of kit was a macro flash diffuser – the Cygnustech macro diffuser which is hand made by a local macro photographer here in Australia

Spotto

DJI Mini 3 Pro FC3582 + 6.7 mm f/1.7 @ 6.72 mm, 1/2500 sec at f/1.7, ISO 130