Cathedral Rocks, Jones Beach, Kiama

I was looking for something new to photograph outside of Sydney. I found

, after about an hour surfing, Cathedral Rocks at Jones Beach, Kiama, a small seaside town  about a  2 hours drive south of Sydney.

Here are some of the shots from my shoot last Thursday. I hope that you will enjoy them.

 
This HDR shot consist of 5 separate exposures (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). Tripod used, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro and tweaked in LR 2.6.


This HDR shot consist of 5 separate exposures (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). Tripod used, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro and tweaked in LR 2.6.


This HDR shot consist of 3 separate exposures (-1, 0, +1). Tripod used, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro and tweaked in LR 2.6. 


This HDR shot consist of 5 separate exposures (-2, -1, 0, +1, +2). Tripod used, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro and tweaked in LR 2.6. 

                                                       ISO 200 | f/8 | 1/200

This is a non HDR shot. It was taken with my Sigma 70-200mm.  I love the texture and details on the rock face. It may not be the sharpest lens around but I am pretty happy with it.

                                                      ISO 200 | f/16 | 30 secs

This was taken a few minutes just before the sunset. I love the glassiness of the water with the reflections of the rocks. I also love the bluish tones. For some inexplicable reason I did not do a HDR version.

                                                   ISO 200 | f/11 | 240 secs

I had to wait unit the sun was completely down for this shot. It was about 21:00 hrs (9pm). The mosquitoes were out in force. I use my LED head torch to light paint just the face of the two rocks to highlight them.


This 180° HDR Panorama consist of 8 separate panels, shot in portrait mode. Each panel contains 3 exposures (-1, 0 +1), tripod, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro, stitched together in CS4 and tweaked in LR 2.6. 

Mount Tomah – Bilpin, Blue Mountains

This is my second trip up to Mt. Tomah. Seems like every time I decided to come here it rains. Looking on the bright side there will lots of water drops on the flowers and plants.

I got some really cool macro shots. The majority of them were shot at 1:1, hand-held of course . I used my home-made macro flash rig which consists of 2 x SB-800s.

ISO 500 f/16 1/800 secs Flash

 

ISO 500 f/16 1/80 secs Flash

 

ISO 500 f/16 1/200 secs Flash

 

ISO 500 f/16 1/125 secs Flash

 

ISO 500 f/16 1/200 secs Flash            ISO 200 f/16 1/200 secs Flash

 

ISO 500 f/16 1/80 secs Flash

ISO 500 f/16 1/160 secs Flash

The macro rig, both Nikon SB-800s, the Nikon 105 macro lens and D700 was totally wet from the constant drizzle. Happily, I like to report that everything is still working.

Newport Tidal Pool

Went out to for an evening/dusk shoot at Newport Tidal Pool. I really needed to do more tests with my Cokin X-Pro filter setup. All the shots was taken using 2 x Cokin X-Pro filters stacked. My feet, socks and shoes got a thorough soaking. I just wished the swell was larger and more frequent. The long exposure wave shots would have had more oomph! Should really do this in the early morning when the tide is high.

ISO 200 18mm f10 13 secs

This was my favourite shot from the entire shoot. This was taken towards the end of the shoot. I really love how the surface of the tidal pool turned out, so smooth.

 

HDR

ISO200 24mm f22 2 secs                       ISO 200 17mm f22 2.5 secs

 

I also tried a couple of HDR shots. Each shot consists of 3 separate exposures [ -1, 0 +1 ], tripod, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro and tweaked in LR 2.5. I like to keep my HDR as realistic as possible.

ISO 200 14mm f16 4 secs

ISO 200 16mm f22 1.6 secs

There was way too much daylight when I was trying to get the long exposure shot of this wave receding. I had to stop down to f22 just to get 1.6 secs.

 

ISO 200 16mm f16 15 secs

Panorama

 

ISO 200 14mm f16 1/50 secs

This is a 180° panoramic shot of the beach and the tidal pool. I should have shot this in portrait mode like I normally do. This pano consists of 8 separate shots taken in landscape mode, stitched using CS4 and then tweaked in Adobe LR 2.5.

Newport Tidal Pool - Northern Beaches