Rodney Campbell’s Blog

I really wasn’t happy with the shot of the water fountain in front of St Mary’s Cathedral that I took the other day (see next blog entry) so took my camera gear to work yesterday and during lunch I though I’d see if I could do a better job. The light wasn’t particularly good (it was extremely overcast and very dull – and then it started to rain) which made it more difficult to achieve the very high shutter speed I wanted to use to freeze the water (I shot in Manual mode and used ISO to compensate for exposure). However I think these shots better represent the vision I had in my head when I took the first…

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

My parents are staying with us for a few days before heading off on their annual trip north for a few months.

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

.

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

.

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

I joined a number of other keen photographers from a couple of Australian digital SLR photography forums for a VERY early morning sunrise photoshoot at Whale Beach on the Palm Beach peninsula on the far northern beaches of Sydney.

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

Woke up this morning and during breakfast noticed that our back lawn appeared to be a winter wonderland (we don’t get snow in Sydney!) – the girls were very impressed with the scene. No wonder it felt super chilly – apparently it was the coldest morning in Sydney since 1998.

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

Last night I noticed that we had a very full moon in the sky and what I had initially noticed was that the clouds on the horizon as seen from my window were very lit up (by the strong moonlight) even to the naked eye. I looked up and saw the moon above in full glory so decided to grab the camera and tripod and take a few shots.

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

.

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