Here’s a photo I shot recently for Robyn Smith of the Gold Coast Queensland for her soon to be released CD, The Sound of a Different Drummer.
Shot in the late afternoon sun at Currumbin Beach, Gold Coast
A good friend Leigh Diprose called me yesterday and asked if I was photographing the eclipse. I’m in the Gold Coast so it wasn’t going to be a full eclipse from here. After Googling the times for the eclipse I dragged myself out of bed, I prefer sunsets cause I’m already awake. I was hoping for cloud cover so I could go back to bed, Bummer it was clear blue sky. I Drove to the top of the hill at Nerang. Fortunately I took my deck chair and a good book. I would compare a partial eclipse to watching grass growing or cricket. I think watching grass is the winner. It doesn’t burn your eyes.
So after a bit of polishing in computer this is what I came up with. OK it was a lot of polishing. Shot with a Canon 650D and a Canon 100-400. The smaller sensor compared to my 1DsMK111 gives you the equivalent of a 640mm lens. My brain wasn’t switched on so my images were captured as jpg not RAW. Which would have allowed a little more exposure correction in adobe Lightroom.
I tried using 2 polarising filters at first to cut back the light but that just created reflections between the 2 filters and I ended up with double images. Why 2 filters? because I couldn’t find my ND filter.
Eclipse over the Gold Coast, Queensland
It’s a bit like God looking down from heaven and giving us a sideways smiley face. 🙂
Sometimes just going out to enjoy life can put you in the right place at the right time. Went with the Family to the top of Mt Melville when I was back in town a few weeks ago, Bought Fish and Chips at Albany Fish and Chips on Albany Hwy and went to watch the sunset over the harbour. (Took the camera just in case). I wanted to get an updated shot of the harbour and marina. The bonus was, there was a ship departing so I captured this image. So the chances of having a ship leave just on dusk is on the rare side.
Here are a few more from Tuesday’s big swell and waves on the Gold Coast,
Here’s a tip on rating your photos after a big day of shooting when you come back with several hundred images. As your importing you can begin to view your images and apply a rating. You don’t need to wait for them to all be imported. For me, 5 star is my best and 4 star is a possible, Lets face it, under that is probably not worth rating and just gets confusing trying to give a 2 or a 3 star. I usually give the crap shots a 1 star or just hit delete straight away, Who wants to be reminded of a dud shot?. This makes it easier to find all the ones you want to delete in one go.
So as they import, the keyboard short cut to rate them is simply hit any number key between 1 and 5. Guess what star rating is applied when you hit 5? When importing has finished you can choose to display just the 5 star images and begin the process of editing and having a closer look at them. At this stage you may want to re rate them and that is simply hitting the number you want to change the rating to.
When I’m happy with editing my 5 star images, I then will display just my 4 star images and have a closer look at them. At this stage I may up the rating to 5, hit delete, or remove any rating. I then begin to edit these.
When you have shot so many and there is quite a few 5 stare images you are happy with, to cull it further or to start comparing, I will go through them further apply a colour rating, Numbers 6-9 will apply a colour. remember keep it simply and standardize how you like to do it. So i apply the colour red to my very best shots, I can then choose to display just the reds and have a closer look and select what I think is the best shots.
Hope that helps or gives you some ideas on rating photos in Adobe Lightroom
Some big swell rolled in to the coast the last few days, So I spent most of the day Tuesday driving around. From Rainbow Bay at Coolangatta to Burleigh Heads and Currumbin. The beaches were closed, but there were still a few nutters that had a surf when it calmed down a little. It’s the most pics I have shot in a day for a long time. Apparently the swell got to about 5.7 metres. With a strong off shore breeze blowing the tops off the waves.
Vikings Surf Club at Currumbin offered coffee’s with salt spray and when it dried you could sprinkle it on your chips or just lick your lips
All this while Cape Naturalist in the SW of WA had 6m swell and 3 metre seas and it peaked at 53 knot winds. I’ll reserve my opinion till I see the Gold Coast in a cyclone
Here’s a few from the day
Big swell roll in at Burleigh Heads with Surfers paradise in the background
The first and the last shot show how the same place can look so different at different times of day. Photography is all about the light. More to come, Just don’t want to overload you. The best bit was there was always a cafe close by with ocean views.
I remember watching a cooking program with Peter Russel Clarke once and He said the quickest way to tell if there was enough fibre in your diet was to see if the logs floated. You know, have a look back when the performance is over. Now I don’t know how true that is, maybe someone can confirm or deny that.
So I dont think this log was produced with enough fibre, either that or it was water logged. Or maybe even stuck in the sand, But I found this washed up on the Currumbin Beach.
Just don’t be afraid to get your toes wet, Fortunately the Carbon fibre in my Gitzo Tripod doesn’t rust in the salt water. Just allow the first wave or 2 to help settle the tripod into the sand with a bit of help, Like push down and wiggle, or your camera will start sinking during exposure, Which is not the desired effect that you would be chasing.
Anyway hope you like it.
Need more fibre
Now, I haven’t researched why they call it the Gold Coast, I’ll google that later. But today I think I found out why. It’s the colour the sky goes at sunset just before it’s about bucket with rain. Missed a fantastic rainbow, I now realise you have to factor in traffic lights slowing you down while trying to get to the location to shoot, So I got the dregs of the rainbow and then did a runner just as this front was approaching.
This was taken from Miami lookout near the North Burleigh Surf Club, Shot with my Canon 1Ds MK111 and a 17-40
Heavy rainclouds approach the coast at sunset viewed from Miami Heads lookout
Now I enjoy a walk in the rain forest but I’m not into tree hugging, Just doesn’t do it for me, There’s something that’s just not right if people get excited when they hug a tree, What’s missing in there life?????
But here’s a strange twist, A tree hugging a rock. This is on the track to Elabana Falls in the Lamington Ranges in the Gold Coast hinterland. Must get a bit lonely for the trees so they have to start hugging rocks. So let nature be your guide and go hug a rock 🙂
Rocks need love too
In the RAW at Sunset, Currumbin, Gold Coast
Shot as a RAW file on My Canon 1Ds MK111 and a 17-40mm lens. Sitting on a Gitzo tripod, (love my Gitzo) then a little bit of touch up. OK, well a lot of touching up.
The beauty of shooting in RAW is the latitude in exposure that you have to work with. More Shadow and highlight detail. To the purists, Look away now. Check the histogram on playback to check that exposure is in range or that the clipping is to excessive. The histogram shows you what the jpg file would look like, But the RAW file has up to about 2 stops of extra exposure either side of what the histogram is showing that you can use in your editing in a RAW file conversion program like Lightroom.
Heres the finished file or near on finished image and the original untouched file.
I chose Landscape profile in Adobe Lightroom and then some dodging and burning using the adjustment brush. Then finish off with a push and a shove with Tone curves.
Before you condemn me to the gallows for altering an image, You still need to know how to use a camera and a creative license in Adobe Lightroom. 🙂
Famous saying: No matter how much you polish a turd, It’s always a turd. Modern translation of that is. Get it right in camera and don’t rely on your computer. If you do a bit of polishing and it looks good, then maybe it wasn’t a turd after all
Here’s some shots from today at Currumbin. Shot with my 70-200 f2.8 Love that lens. When the light gets low you can still shoot hand held, excellent image stabilisation. Remember. set IS to 1 for Image stabilization in both up and down movement and set it to 2 when you want to do panning, otherwise it tries to stabilize your panning which is not what you want. Oh and if your using a tripod, always turn IS off. Mirror vibration triggers IS to start during exposure and you’ll get a soft image.
This is a good place for surfers to practise there skills, They spend most of the time trying to miss other surfers while screaming down a wave. Check out the surfer doing a rapid dive, His butt sticking up about to get run over. I wonder what was going through his mind? I know what was about to run over his ass. It ended well.
The swell is forecast to be about 4 metres on Tuesday, Think I might head back here for some action shots
Andrew Halsall Photography Blog 