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

Eden Gardens | North Ryde | Sydney

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nikon D700 – Low Light, High ISO Macro Photography

Decided that my hand-held macro technique needed some “brushing up” this weekend. It has been awhile since I did any macro photography and as they say practice makes perfect! I never use a tripod for macro as I find it inconvenient and I am too lazy to cart a tripod around anyway.

It was showering all Sunday morning so I just waited in the cafe sipping cappuccino until it stopped. Anyway, the shower was a bonus really with all that water droplets on the flowers makes for great macro photography!

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 320 | f/11@1/320 | No Flash

 

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 400 | f/11@1/250 | No Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1600 | f/8@1/200 | No Flash

Majority of my macros shots are 1:1, it took awhile to get the technique down pat but now I have quite a good hit rate for sharp macro shots. I need to work on my insects macro shots, especially bees. I have not gotten a bee macro that I have been totally happy with.

 

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 400 | f/16@1/500 | Flash

 
Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1600 | f/8@1/400 | No Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 640 | f/11@1/30 | No Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1600 | f/8@1/250 | No Flash

This weekend I decided to shoot at a higher ISO than normal just to see what the results would be like. I also didn’t use any flash for the majority of the shoot. I think that they were okay up until about ISO 640 after that they where a bit furry when viewed at 100%.

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro

ISO 1250 | f/9@1/640 | No Flash


Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro
ISO 400 | f/16@1/500 | Flash

Shot hand-held with Nikon D700 + Nikon 105mm f/2.8 AF Micro
ISO 320 | f/11@1/320 | No flash

Overall, I was happy the results from this weekend. I am interested in getting the Nikon R1 Close-up Speedlight Remote Kit. My current home brewed macro rig consists of 2 x SB-800s which can get pretty heavy after awhile. A lighter load would provide more stability and greatly improve my chances of obtaining sharper and crisper macros shots.

Sculpture by the Sea - 2009

Sculpture by the Sea is largest annual free-to-the-public outdoor sculpture exhibition in the world. It stretches from Tamarama Beach to Bondi Beach along the 2km Bronte to Bondi Coastal Walk. 

I attended  this year’s Sculpture By The Sea. In hindsight I should have waited a couple of weeks before attending as there way too many people. Next year, I am planning to go early, before sunrise, to capture the magical light with no crowds or other photographers in the way.

This year, I decided to bring along both my Canon G10 and Nikon D700 as I was not keen on carrying around a “heavy” Sigma 70-200mm and I didn’t really want to change lenses all day long. Besides the Canon G10 doesn’t get out much.

Canon G10

This was my favourite sculpture, it was just mesmerising. The strong wind  kept it in constant motion morphing into different shapes. The movement was both fluid and rapid so trying to frame the shot accurately was rather tricky.

 

                            Morpheus #1                                                     Morpheus #2

 

                                                                Morpheus #3

The flags were amazing, thank god the wind was so strong otherwise this display would have been a dud. I enabled ND filter on the Canon G10 to get slower shutter speed so I could get some movement with the flags rather than just freezing them.

 

What is it with storm water drain and kids? I used to do the exact thing when I was a kid many moons ago. The above series of shots were all taken with my Canon G10. I am more than  happy with the results, the colours were just amazing SOOC. By the way, all these were shot as jpeg and not raw.

Nikon D700

 

                                                                                           Dying For A Drink

3 x exposure HDR (-1, 0, +1), hand-held, tone mapped using Photomatix Pro.

Texture added in CS4 and then tweaked in Adobe LR 2.5.

The second photo only had the texture added in CS4 and then tweaked in Adobe LR 2.5.

Both t

extures were supplied by

virtually_supine - Thank you.

 

Morpheus #4 -  mesmerising visitors

 

        Transfiguration "screw" IX'                                       Subterfuge

 
 

                                A couple of hard core Canon shooters

Warped

The Nikon D700 performed flawlessly as usual. Perhaps the Nikon 24-70mm would have been more suitable for this shoot. I will just add that to my wish list.

Flickr Tags: Sculpture By The Sea,2009,Tamarama Beach,Bondi Beach,Nikon D700,Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8,Canon G10,Sculpture,Sydney,Australia