3 images edited in CNX2 and triptyched in LR
D750 coupled with 24-70mm f4 @ 24 thru to 70mm Aperture: f/6.3 (typically) and Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO 200

so you togs think ya pretty hard core?

Well, i say you got nothing on these dudes! This is a place called ‘the outer tubes’, i’ll get to that in a second, its one only a few places in the whole world where you can do Land Based Deep Sea Fishing, specifically for those big-ass fish like tuna and marlin, yep, those ones you see dudes fighting on boats for hours on end.

The outer tubes is located just within Jervis Bay, basically the only point where you can get close enough to the water to throw a line in, everywhere else is like 50 metre cliffs 🙂 This place as I understand it, is basically right on the edge of the continental shelf where the oceans real deep and cold 🙂 and where the real man fish live. The name ‘outer tubes’ has absolutely nothing to do with the natural features of the landscape, there i was looking for some cool tube like rocks lol. Rather, its called this since the location is where the outer torpedo tubes where located for defending the bay back in the days when they thought someone would sail on in 🙂 In any case there is still some remnants f the old structure and supports which now form part of this iconic fishing location.

So your thinking, yeah bunch of fisherman, how keen could they be? Well, this place is only open for a short time during the year and the headland is closed from 5:30pm to 2am in morning….yeah weird eh.. so these fisherman clock out here at.. yep 2am in the morning with all their gear for the 1km walk in. Its not a overly hard walk, but you will surely get a bit puffed with a backpack on and there are some awesome metal stairs at the end to get down onto the rock shelf.

So these guys carry it all in the morning, then carry it all out in the arvo..check it out, kiddie pools for the live bait (which they catch and refill the water every few hours), 2 stroke motor pumps, bacon and egg breakie not to mention all the fishing gear, these rods and reels are real man sized ones, and weigh accordingly! and cost a pretty penny too.

So, after a morning session out on the headland I saw the signs to the outer tubes track and was certainly intrigued by the 15 cars in the carpark all of whom obviously got there well before I did.. 2am it would appear 🙂 So i hiked on in and you can imagine my surprise to come round the corner of the rock shelf to the sight of this shelf crowded with dudes and fishing gear! I hung around for about a hour or so just to grab a few shots – the guys there are pretty friendly but pretty cagey too, as most fisherman probably are when it comes to talking about theie fishing spots and techniques, luckily for me its pretty obviously i had no clue so i clearly was no threat lol 🙂

I banged off quite a few shots and it was actually pretty difficult shooting, the dynamic range was huge, the rock shelf is in full shade and the sun was pretty well blaring out in the sky and opposing headland! hence its a small triptych to show the location and people. The fish in the middle image was a tuna I think, probably as long as the dudes leg, these fish they basically cut up and reused as bait and burlie! these are bigger than the fish you see in the fish markets! However if they carried out all the fish they caught, it would be a long walk out 🙂 and really, they are only after one fish… Marlin

To give you an idea of some the fish caught here…just check out this link…trust have a look and have a read
http://www.shimanofish.com.au/articles/land-based-game-fishing-.html

and this one… this is a great read, dudes jumping off the cliff in their undies and tied to a rope to pull fish in!
http://albaa.com.au/graveyard_jf1.htm

Now, onto the photography side – what has impressed me here was the Nikon D750’s dynamic range, I turned on the active d-lighting function (to high) to see what it could do, quite impressive, these are all single images no HDR (bracketing). Another interestign point is that I processed the images in both CNX2 (RAW2NEF) and Lightroom and whilst its not really a fair comparsion (i’ll explain further) the processing and end result from the CNX2 software, which imo is better, not by a tiny bit, but by quite a bit. The qualifier here.. I am by no means a expert in LR, I would actually classify myself as a novice, however I really feel limited by lightroom in its editing ability – possibly due to my ignorance. Ie one simple aspect is automatically correcting the colour cast – LR really struggles to get the colour cast right, using either auto or other wise (WB adjustment) I often find myself fiddling with the sliders until I get what I like and the sliders are so sensitive (WB and exposure but not others like the vibrance) its quite hard to get a consistent nice result. CNX2 is pretty good with the Auto Levels and colour cast correction. The other big one is the big one is the masking and control points, CNX2 and the colorefex plugins, even being a few years old just smash the masking and control point in LR, simply things like being able to ‘paint’ on and off effects (or control points or vignetting) seems difficult when compared to CNX2 or PS for that matter… Anyways, onto the picture,

Exif/setup love:
3 images edited in CNX2 and triptyched in LR
D750 coupled with 24-70mm f4 @ 24 thru to 70mm Aperture: f/6.3 (typically) and Shutter Speed: 1/60s
ISO 200
out front – Hoya Circular Polariser