Sydney Luminous Festival - Canon G10

Went out last night, armed with my Canon G10, with a couple of photo buddies to shoot the Sydney Luminous Festival again. The weather was a bit dodgy with intermittent rain. Had quite a few shots ruined because of water on the lens.

Projectors warming up with targeting marks to ensure alignment

I really wanted to see how good my Canon G10 was for night photography at long exposures. Overall, I am pretty happy with results but I thought that they were a little noisier and definitely not as sharp as my Nikon D700.

Museum of Contemporary Art 

Sydney Opera House

Unfortunately, the maximum exposure for the G10 is only 15 secs and no bulb, so it was not always possible to shoot at f8 to increase sharpness and dof. 

Click here for more of my Canon G10 shots from the Sydney Vivid/Luminous Festival.

Sydney Opera House - Sydney Luminous Festival

The iconic sails of the Sydney Opera House is currently being used as a canvas illuminated by the artwork of Brain Eno, ex-Roxy band member, as part of a sound and light festival in the city. 

The "artwork" uses "self-generating software" to manipulate 300 of Brain Eno's drawings and projecting them onto the sails.




The inaugural Luminous festival started yesterday and runs until the 14th of June. The show starts at 17:00 hrs each night with the artwork morphing every few minutes. You need to be there a quite a long time to see all the possible incarnations.




The sails are illuminated on both sides of the Opera House but the display from the Botanical Garden end is static. The sails looks awesome with artwork projected onto them and I wished it could be like that all year round.

A marks the exact spot I was taking the shots from 

I took the shots from Sydney Cove, I arrived about 20:30 hrs and there were already quite a few photographers happily snapping away. I was very impressed with the display and I would like to back to take some shots at 17.00 hrs, the light should be fantastic just after dusk. So if you are in Sydney get down there and get some shots.






Here are some up close shots of the Opera House. It was harder to take shots here as there were people walking through your shots and the worst part is some of them were photographers who should know better.

Click here for more shots from the Sydney Vivid/Luminous Festival.

Nikon D700 - Light Painting (Night Photography)

We came across this bunker at Malabar, using Google maps, whilst searching for interesting places to shoot in Sydney.

Malabar Bunker - In Daylight

We checked it out during the day time to make sure that the bunker would be an interesting subject and it didn't disappoint. The structure was covered in graffiti both inside and out. It was definitely suitable for some light painting experiments.

Inside the bunker - Entrance

Inside the bunker - first floor

I am glad we checked it out in the daytime as it made navigating to the bunker much easier at night. Here are some of the shots from our light painting experiment.

Malabar Bunker - (Back view) Painted in Portrait

Malabar Bunker - Painted in Portrait

Malabar Bunker - Painted in Landscape

The top floor was "painted" using a Canon 430EX wrapped in purple cellophane and the second floor was "painted" using a Nikon SB-800 with a green gel over the flash head. The external walls of the bunker was "painted" using another Nikon SB-800. The camera aperture was set to f/11 with an exposure time of 3 minutes.

There were 4 of us split into 2 teams, one team would be taking the shots and "painting" the outside of the bunker whilst the other team was up in the bunker "painting" the two floors. The results were satisfactory for first timers and we learnt alot .

Lessons learnt for next time:

1. Turn head lamp off before walking around and ruining the shots.
2. Make sure that when the flash fires it is not aimed towards the camera lens.
3. Bring some real torches with more lumen so we can focus!
4. Get some proper gels instead of using cellophane for the flashes
5. Probably fire the flash with less power or less frequently when "painting" the external walls
6. Increase the exposure time so we can get extended star trails

It was a lot of fun, everyone thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We have already started making plans for another light painting shoot. All the other guys that weren't that keen to come this time are now chomping at the bit after they saw the results.