Somersby Panorama

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Somersby Panorama - (c) Gerard Blacklock

Somersby Panorama – (c) Gerard Blacklock
12 vertical frames
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 36mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 4s
exposure comp -0.3EV
ISO 100

Wow, i just updated to the latest version of Adobe Lightroom, yeah i know I am a bit behind the times 🙂 I gotta say tho, someone really turned the wick up on the slider options, previously you could smash the slider to 100 and it would not have a huge effect, now its like they have dialed it up another 100 percent 😉

Anyway enough of that boring stuff and onto the image 🙂 I have had this one sitting around for a few weeks and finally got around to stitching it, I quite like the composition and I am really liking the challenge of approaching scenes with the idea to include some big foreground objects, like the big rock on the right. In this case the rock on the right is actually the one I am sitting on to capture the panorama, its pretty close to a 180 degrees field of view and normally without using a pano head and rail it would be quite difficult get a undistorted easy stitch, this is where I find the pano equipment is really useful.

This particular part of Somersby falls is very popular and it is easy to get to, i always find it a nice rewarding spot with plenty of options for new and different perspectives, if your passing by on the M1 motorway, be sure to swing off the fast lane and have a look.

#‎somersbyfalls‬ ‪#‎somersby‬

Exif love:
12 vertical frames
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 36mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 4s
exposure comp -0.3EV
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL

Reverse Grad Cloud

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Reverse Grad Cloud - (c) Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 1s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x) and natural reverse grad 🙂

For those who are not in the know about filters for cameras – oh yes we use those to distort reality too 😉 A reverse graduated filter is simply a filter which darkens the sky and then also has a even darker band that can be aligned with the horizon to really reduce the exposure on the sun (the brightest part of the scene) during those sunrise and sunset time, those leave one with a nicely exposed frame.

Now, i don’t have one of these since they are pretty specialised and really can only be used in a few cases anyway – you can also replicate the filter with a couple of normal graduated filters…

anyway there is a point to all that, there are some mornings when the cloud and sun gods shine upon you (hahaha did see what I did there 😉 ) and you get a scene like this where the band of cloud along the horizon provides you with a natural part of the reverse graduated filter 🙂

nicely played clouds and sun 🙂 its a bit of boring composition but I could not really find anything else nearby to jazz it up and by the time I would have climbed down the rocks the light could have been all gone 🙂

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 1s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x) and natural reverse grad 🙂

Little Tree @ Little Bay

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D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 2.5s ISO 100 Out front - Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x)

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 2.5s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x)

I love my lonely trees on hills – this one is part of the golf course at Little Bay. I was visiting there with +Rodney Campbell , +Tom Testone and +Kitten KaboodleInc and I noticed that were some pink pastels developing off to the west so a quick change of location and position I got this tree nicely silhouetted, the pastels did not really eventuate, however it was a bit of bonus to get the moon in there too.

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 2.5s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE GND (0.9x)

The opposite of long is short

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The Opposite of Little is .. (c) Gerard Blacklock

Exif love:
3 frames stitched together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 24mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 1/2s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL and Lee Graduated Filter 0.9X

big, bold and bright

The shot before this one
https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/E91Wh8Xf2Aq
slightly wider, taken as 3 shots to get a slightly wider view on things, mainly to just capture the sun in the frame as well.

Exif love:
3 frames stitched together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 24mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 1/2s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL and Lee Graduated Filter 0.9X

Side-washed

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Side Washed - (c) Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: lotsa seconds 🙂 246.8 seconds to be exact
ISO 200
Out front – Lee Bigstopper, Hoya CPLand LEE GND (0.9x)

I have a whole bunch of titles for this one, but really the only appropriate one is side-washed, ’cause I did end up getting soaked from a incoming sneaky side wave 🙂 conveniently enough, the exposure had just finished when the wave hit so this is the resultant shot, not my favorite from a long shot, but I will remember it 🙂

It did also provide a good incentive to actually give my camera bag and other non electronic items a good run thru the washing machine, so i now have a bag that smells like daisy’s, rather than stinky dad smell, as coined by Chaos 😉 ..I have to admit it did smell a bit like back sweat 😉

Cheers to the Rodney, Tom and Kitten for the company, was good to meet up and we must do it again 🙂

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: lotsa seconds 🙂 246.8 seconds to be exact
ISO 200
Out front – Lee Bigstopper, Hoya CPLand LEE GND (0.9x)

Harvested

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Harvested - (c) Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 70mm Aperture: f9 and Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and a lonely tree.

this is how my brain feels nowadays 🙂

I love a good lone tree buried in a agricultural crop of some kind… but I am thinking the average factory farm operator not so much 🙂 I think having a lone tree in the middle of their paddock does not really serve much purpose other than to cause pain when sowing and harvesting.

If I ever meet a farmer I will happily point out that having that lone tree may be a pain in the ass, but jeez they make cool photographic subjects 😉 think of the artistic merit 🙂

I wold love to come back top this spot for sunrise or sunset, rather than midday, but one must make do with what one is presented with 🙂

Exif love:
a whole bunch of frames stitched together…
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 70mm Aperture: f9 and Shutter Speed: 1/125s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and a lonely tree.

Mosquito heaven

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Mozzie Heaven - (c) Gerard Blacklock

D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: lotsa seconds 🙂 was about 4.5 minutes – 306 seconds
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

I love mangroves and particularly the lonely trees you often find, what I don’t like is the mosquito’s, I don’t think I have ever seen a swarm of mozzies like I did when was at this place.
Trying to prevent them from eating every inch of uncovered skin was hard enough, but to make matters worse lots of them just planted themselves on the front filter.
Whatever animals eat mozzies, birds? we need more of them.. lots more and they need to come out for sunrise

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: lotsa seconds 🙂 was about 4.5 minutes – 306 seconds
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

Beans

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Beans - (c) Gerard Blacklock D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/100s ISO 100

Beans – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/100s
ISO 100

Ironically, I did the shopping the other day and needed to get some beans but was bitterly disappointed at my large supermarket monopoly store when they had none left, I could have just picked a few from this field 😉

So, if you ever wanted to know what mass produced beans look like? well wonder no more, ’cause here they are, rows and rows and rows of beans which seemed to stretch endlessly into the hills.

This shot is from 5 vertical frame shots stitched together, luckily for me a cloud had just come over the field and blanketed the beanscape with some less harsh sun that was beaming down on me minutes before..

Exif love:
a whole bunch of vertical frames stitched together…
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f8 and Shutter Speed: 1/100s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and lotsa of beans

Cecil Plains

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This is the Hard Stuff - (c) Gerard Blacklock D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s ISO 100

This is the Hard Stuff – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s
ISO 100

this is where the hard stuff is made

Exif love:
a whole bunch of frames stitched together…
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f10 and Shutter Speed: 1/160s
ISO 100
Out front – CPL only and some dodgy shack and lots of croppy stuff….prolly sorghum

End of the line chaps

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End of the Line Chaps - (c) Gerard Blacklock

End of the Line Chaps – (c) Gerard Blacklock
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 273.2s
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

careful where you put those toes..

I need to have a word to the engineer who cobbled this up, firstly, ya coulda made it just that little bit wider, surely rubble ain’t that expensive 😉 – lucky i don’t suffer from vertigo (don’t fret, that’ll come
) cause i reckon i would been in the drink if I did.

Secondly, and this is probably pretty obvious, but when I do fall in its gonna be kinda hard to get out with those nicely smoothed sides.

Exif love 😉
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35 mm f4 @ 16mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 273.2s
ISO 100
Out front – Lee Bigstopper and LEE GND (0.9x)

Somersby

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When i visited here on my way home the other day i was planning to skip these upper falls… they have been photographed so much and I thought the world does not need another one wink emoticon however when i got there.. I thought i'll just take one pano here smile emoticon Now I am glad I did.
I saw on the news today that a young bloke lost his life here just the other day when he slipped and fell from the top falls, i was not not gonna bother editing this picture, however a small gesture i can make to this young guy and his family is to dedicate this picture to them. RIP mate.

‪#‎somersbyfalls‬ ‪#‎somersby‬

Exif love:
12 vertical frames stitched together, then cropped a bit 'cause I did not like all that water in the foreground 🙂
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f18 and Shutter Speed: 3s
exposure comp -0.3EV
ISO 0.3 under 100 (to get the longer shutter speed)
Out front – CPL only and a beautiful set of falls.

Some Rock in the Ocean

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with his little friend way out there

There is nothing quite like a lonely rock in the water and the sun trying to smash its way though.

It's always interesting to see the phases ones photography goes thru and how sometimes one gets stuck 😉 what I like about this image is that it manages to isolate the rock without a super long exposure and maintain that dreamy feel to the frame, the sun peaking though just topped it off. The shot is a bracketed shot since the foreground was quite dark, particularly the closest side of the rock, given the flat horizon it was a very easy blend to increase the dynamic range.

Exif love:
2 images blended together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 1/1.6s sky and 8s for teh shadows
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Transition

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Ever since starting out in photography I have pretty well used the same program (Nikon's CNX2) to edit the majority of my images , i use Photoshop a fair bit now and Lightroom even more, but given the fact that Nikon CNX has gone the way of the dodo I have been trying to ween myself off it, sadly, the more I do, the more I realise the few simple functions that CNX (and the Nik Plugins) can simply not be replaced (with the same ease) in either lightroom of Photoshop, now photoshop smashes all over CNX2 but the key point here is the ease and speed of use, for which CNX kills them (for me anyways).

So, in another step towards removing myself from the addiction with CNX2 I am trying to edit a fewlandscape/seascape image solely in Lightrrom and achieve a result that I am happy with. Now I typically use Lightroom for most of my family shots but these typically only have global adjustments and a few control points so its all good, however my landscape stuff can often have a few more complex steps involved. This image is from LIttle Austinmer which I have solely edited in LR – i now note that this has a few benefits, one of which is the reduction overall noise in the final image, I guess going from one program to the next does increase noise…

Exif love:
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 24mm Aperture: f14 and Shutter Speed: 8s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x

Ravaged

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Somersby is always a great spot to stop along the freeway, so much more rewarding that the rest stop at Ourimbah 😉 I have seen lots of images from here over the last several months, particularly during some pretty heavy rainfall periods, this has all had an effect on the area with a few of the trees coming down and changing the face of this familiar and popular waterfall. I last stopped here about may last year and pretty well too the identical image – without realising it, that's the great thing about getting old, is that you simply forget the spots and compositions you take, hence it always feels new 😉 well thats my theory and I am sticking to it 😉
The image from last year is here, check out the canopy and also the growth on that little landing rock 🙂
https://plus.google.com/+GerardBlacklock/posts/H1LvkfDKCgE
‪
#‎somersby‬ ‪#‎verticalpano‬

Exif love:
4 shot vertical panorama
D750 coupled with Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 @ 24mm Aperture: f16 and Shutter Speed: 4s
ISO 100
Out front – somersby falls with a Hoya CPL

Jetty

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long

I learnt two things from a nice old bloke who I met at the very end of this jetty. 1) you can catch some awesome prawns here smile emoticon (but don't tell anyone else 🙂 ) 2) They shipped houses over on barges to get to the suburb of 'Long Jetty' – no prizes for the reason why they called it Long Jetty.
Its always great to meet a local, they can really give a insight into a place that can't be had from reading stuff online or in tourist literature. The other interesting point he made was regarding all the weeds in the water, which extended out past the end of this jetty, apparently these are only fairly recent (that could be 20 years given the age of this bloke 😉 ) and are a result of increased nutrients in the water from surrounding suburbs.

I gotta say, these jetty's (and this one is one of the shorter ones) are really really long and looking at them from someone who has never been there before they seem kinda strange, however given that they were typically built back in the 1940's era when there was no access road to area and there was no bridge to the north it makes sense since everything was barged/boated in. It's a cool legacy to have and I bet all the local hobby fishermen love these jettys to go out and fish on.

Now that I know where this spot is now, I'll be sure to visit again, its actually not far off the freeway and makes for a great spot to spot on the way back from up the coast.

Exif love:
5 landscape orientation frames frames stitched together
D750 coupled with Nikkor 16-35mm f4 @ 35mm Aperture: f11 and Shutter Speed: 3s
ISO 100
Out front – Hoya CPL and LEE Graduated filter 0.9x