Our spot had views of the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour, with a tiny bit of the Opera House. It was a great spot considering I live about just 10 minutes away, not having to brush shoulders with strangers all night and having worry about our camera equipment We were just next to the spot we were at last year but I think the fireworks this year was better. There was something different about it and it felt more ‘special’. Either that or I’m just getting old and content The fireworks lasted for about 14 minutes and I managed to cut the footage down to about 8 minutes to include the best parts. This will by my first all video production and I must say I really enjoyed it! I will definitely be doing more video in the future but for now, here’s the clip. If you want to watch a larger and higher quality version click on Vimeo.

Sydney has never looked this beautiful. 2010 marks the 7th year living here and after editing the footage and watching the final product, I couldn’t help but feel slightly nostalgic. Watching the Sydney skies exploding with bright colors somehow just brought back many memories. It was also a great reminder for me to never take anything for granted.

This is the aftermath of the fireworks. The wind cleared the smoke from the fireworks rather quickly.

For the technically inclined, video was shot using the Canon 5D Mark II in Full HD and also using the onboard mic. I used a regular tripod head so the movements are a little jerky. Time to invest in a dedicated video tripod head and external mic perhaps? The final product was put together using iMovie 09 on my MBP.

Thanks so much for watching! Feel free to share and pass this link on to anyone else you know who might enjoy this This one is for all my dear readers out there so I hope you guys enjoyed it as much as I did producing this piece!

Take care and all the best in 2010!

Best regards,
Justin Oh
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As I was reminiscing, this crazy idea popped into my head – why not walk back home via the Harbour Bridge?? I’ve always wanted to do it and I had all of my equipment with me including my Xpan anyway!! So, right in front of the majestic St Mary’s Cathedral, I loaded a new roll of B&W film into my Xpan and replaced the memory card in my DSLR. Before I knew it, I was making my way down Macquarie St towards the Opera House. From there, the journey began

This was the first photo along the way, off the Eastern Distributor. At this point, I felt maybe I made a mistake deciding to walk home across the Harbour Bridge. I had 4 lenses, my 5D Mark II with the battery grip on, 2 flashes, my Xpan film camera and spare batteries – a total of about 10Kg’s on my back. 10Kg’s doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it gets heavier and heavier every step. Then again, at this point there was no turning back

I pushed on and when I got to the south pylon, I was getting excited again as I’ve always wanted to get up there for some photos. The build up of lactic acid in my calves and thighs slowly dissipated. As I went in, I was greeted by another flight of steps but I thought nevermind, almost there! When I got to the ticket counter, I had to catch my breath and my legs were slightly jelly-ish at this point. I greeted the guy at the counter, “Whoa, that was quite a climb!”, only to have him reply ” Oh mate, you’re only a quarter way up to the top!”

Anyway, I got to the top eventually – sweating in my suit, I almost couldn’t feel my legs anymore, gasping to refill my lungs with much needed oxygen! Then I saw the view… Wow, this is so worth it

This is a 4 image, vertical stitch done in Photoshop CS4. The total pixels in this: 9363X3457. This really has to be seen large to fully appreciate the amount of detail in it

I generally process my landscapes or in this case, cityscapes to best depict the actual scene/color of my subjects. The Harbour Bridge and Opera House have been photographed billions of times before so I wanted to try something different with it. I decreased the dynamic range of the shots above so the highlights were blown and shadows were black – an attempt to emulate the limited exposure range of film.

The pictures below however are the true colors of Australia’s skies and too beautiful to manipulate otherwise. When I think about it, I only started photography when I moved to Australia – perhaps the blue skies and awesome sunrise/sunsets have something to do with it

I continued my walk across the bridge and as the sun was setting, this was the view through the rails. I shot this handheld at 1/13 sec, f/16, ISO1600.

On the other side, this was the view where the sun was setting.

This shot below is the same stitch from above. I only edited it differently for a natural look.

For those interested to get up the pylon, there is a $9.50 fee and it closes at 5pm. Now that it’s still winter, you might get lucky and have some beautiful golden light while you’re up there. Otherwise, you’d have to wait till next winter. Also, don’t forget to travel light and bring some water along with you. I did neither so please don’t repeat my mistakes

I have photographed the Harbour Bridge and Opera House countless times now since I started photography several years ago. In fact one of my first few large prints were of these 2 Sydney landmarks. As more and more of my friends got into photography, we were shooting the same landmarks over and over again. It doesn’t help that I live 5 mins away from the view at Milson’s Point so whenever I wanted to test any new equipment I’d head there. It was almost like being in a photography rut as I was not shooting anything else for quite some time.

Although, during my walk back I had plenty of time to think about a lot of things. My family, my friends, living in Sydney, my business progression. I thought about how lucky I am to have all these people around me, a great life here and simply, just doing what I love doing most. This reminded me again of something we all forget from time to time – to enjoy even the simplest things in life and to never take things for granted.

The walk from St Mary’s to my place took about 3 1/2 hours, approx 9Km’s of hills to climb and descend along the way. When I finally got home it was cold and dark. I was exhausted, my shoulder and knees hurt but then, it was so worth it and I’m glad I finally did it

The journey there took us about 3 1/2 hours with several breaks from Sydney. We left dark and early that morning only to be greeted with some pretty heavy rain along the way. Midway on the M5 there was a pretty bad accident too where a 4WD vehicle ploughed through the concrete barrier from the opposite side of the road and resulted in a 5-6 car pile up on our lane. I imagine the pile up would be worse if it happened during peak hour. I hope no one was seriously injured

After dropping off the passports we went to get a big breakfast just outside Canberra Centre. What a bad choice it was, microwaved scrambled eggs and rubber-y bacon anyone? Anyway, after breakfast we decided to head to the Parliament House since we had several hours to kill. Here are some pics

Main entrance was on the right in the picture. There is another set of stairs opposite this one

Up one level, here is the foyer view from above. Quite an interesting building

The Great Hall. At the end of the hall is a tapestry based on a painting featuring a eucalyptus forest measuring 20 X 9 meters. It is one of the largest tapestries in the world which took a team of 13 weavers and 2 1/2 years to complete!

After walking around for a bit and with some directions from the friendly guards I found what I was looking for, the House of Representatives

On the other side of the building, House of Senate. If only I could be there to snap a pic with a proceeding going on

On the roof of the Parliament House, a 81 meter high stainless steel flagpole. The Australian flag attached to it is 12.8 X 6.4 meters, approximately the size of a double decker bus!

On the way to Canberra in the morning I noticed the windmills and luckily enough, it was still bright enough for photos when we were on our way back. I believe the view here is part of the Southern Highlands. It was ridiculously cold out there due to the strong wind too.

The pano above is a stitch of 5 photos, taken with the 70-200 at 200mm as the view was pretty much on the horizon. The 5DII and 70-200 2.8 IS proved to be too heavy a combo for the 141RC tripod head as it was shaking a little when I was looking through the viewfinder! 

While in Canberra, I couldn’t help but notice the slower pace compared to Sydney. Obviously its nowhere as big or as busy as Sydney city but I couldn’t help but notice how slow they drive too! It seemed like everyone was driving at 50km/h in 70km/h zones!

Anyway, we got our passports renewed on time as promised and more importantly, we made it back in one piece Don’t forget to CLICK on the pictures for larger versions

This time the weapon of choice was of course the 5D Mark II and 16-35mm II combo I have a set of Lee graduated filters but I don’t have the ring adapter to fit the lens which resulted in overblown skies in some of the shots. Perhaps it is time to consider purchasing the 82mm wide angle ring adapter and 105mm Circular Polarizer to stack along with the graduated filters.

We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful sunrise that day. The colors were simply amazing, the wind wasn’t too strong and I went home not only with dry feet but amazing photos. Don’t forget to CLICK for larger versions. Enjoy!

By the way, see if you can spot me in the photos – except in the group shot of course!

I call this one “Vortex”

“Vortex” and this one would be my favourites from the day

You can see from this shot here the tide was rising real quick! I was extremely lucky as a huge wave hit the spot I was at just after I left!

Didn’t get to take many behind the scene photos this time as I was kept busy keeping my shoes dry

Can’t leave without a group shot from a great day with friends The group was smaller this time as the previous sunrise shoots must’ve taken a toll on them

Big breakfast this time included scrambled eggs on sourdough toast, sausages, mushrooms, spinach and a freshly squeezed orange juice. Hope you guys enjoyed this series!

We got there at first light, quickly parked the cars and hastily made our way to the spot via a short but tiring walk on the sand. It doesn’t help when you’re carrying almost 10kg’s worth of equipment either

I was of course excited since this is my first outing with the 5D Mark II and 16-35 lens. Here are the shots from the shoot

First light

Same scene, different exposure and a cooler post processing method

More clouds would’ve been better but a great location and a great sunrise nevertheless

Pink clouds, my favourite in any sunrise or sunset

This is probably my favourite shot, full of drama

Behind the scene

The sun above the horizon

I like how the golden light paints the rocks

Jeff emptying his shoe full of sand

My lonely tripod

Jeff and Alex posing for the camera

The tide rising!

More behind the scenes

As the tide rose, the water started making its way inwards separating us from the group!

Then I thought why not take more photos while waiting till the water is low enough to pass through

Jeff trying out different compositions

While exploring I found this puddle of water

After awhile Jeff and I rejoined the group. You can see here how much water made its way through from the edge of the rocks

Picture of me setting up the tripod for a group shot

As always, a group shot for every outing Thankfully I brought the flash out for some much needed fill in lighting. I exposed for the background and flash manually set to 1/2 power to fill the foreground

Definitely another great day out shooting! Now that the group has expanded the shoots are getting much more fun with more of us around. Thanks guys for making it such a fun trip! It made it so trivial getting my whole left foot covered in water and having endure it the whole 1 1/2 hour drive back to Sydney. As per our tradition, big breakfast all round was next

A brief review on the 16-35 II combo with the 5D Mark II:

The 21.1mp sensor on the 5D II is remarkable and the amount of detail captured is just astounding. Definitely a huge difference from my 40D and 10-22 combo. I guess I finally understood why those who made the move to a Full Frame sensor never look back. The 16-35 II is very sharp and reproduces nice, contrasty colors. My only gripe about the lens is the drop of sharpness around the corners but it’s something I can live with. I spent a good amount of time looking through the images at 100% and I’m constantly amazed with the amount of detail captured. The jpeg images posted up here really don’t do it any justice at all.

These were taken in November 2008. We decided to revisit Narrabeen as the placed offered plenty of great opportunities for great landscape photos. We got there way before sunrise but decided to explore the area for other landscape opportunities and as a result, we didn’t quite get to catch the sun rising. Most of the photos here were taken after sunrise and resulted in some pretty harsh direct sunlight. Luckily, we did manage to get some good photos though

The photography started form this location, just at the corner of the beach with plenty of rocks. Here’s a silhouette of me taken by Aaron

From that location I got this, shot taken handheld

Here’s the view to the left, beyond the rocks

And a view from the right, as we were about to leave that spot for another location

Then we started heading to the other side of the beach, in hopes of finding another spot. It was a fair drive to get here from North Sydney so we wanted to make the most of it, and of course the early rise in the morning sacrificing sleep

We got lucky and found some really cool rocks with heaps of moss on it. Pity about the light though as it was pretty harsh by then

This was the shot I believe I was taking in the pic above. Due to the harsh light, I decided to take a different approach with post processing the image to make the best out of it. The sun was pretty high up already so I went for a very high contrast shot – the movie 300 style.

This shot was a slightly toned down ’300′ version of a slightly different scene but around the same area

Tide was pretty high that day!

And one last ‘behind the scenes’ shot. Strapped around me is my Xpan

I didn’t bring the dinosaur with me this time around as I wanted to travel light while exploring for new locations. I will most certainly revisit this spot again fully armed

Some of you may wonder if I use HDR to process my shots. The answer is No because I like to have total control over the whole process. While HDR helps a lot with increasing dynamic range I sometimes feel that it makes the shot look somewhat unnatural. That or i’m just plain lousy with HDR processing

What I prefer to use and also have more control over is the Graduated Tool in the Develop module in Lightroom

This tool replicates an actual Graduated Neutral Density filter and can really help recover blown skies and also apply color tints should you choose to do so. I highly recommend this tool for landscape shots so have a go with it! This tool may very well save you a couple of hundred from investing in GND filters which can be quite costly.

Feel free to ask questions if you need clarification on how to use this very powerful tool

P/s: Behind the scene shots were taken by my buddy Aaron, another great photographer in the making

]]> http://www.justin-oh.com/blog/2009/01/revisiting-narrabeen-graduated-tool/feed/ 1 http://www.justin-oh.com/blog/2008/12/trip-to-the-central-coast/ http://www.justin-oh.com/blog/2008/12/trip-to-the-central-coast/#comments Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:00:45 +0000 Justin Oh http://www.justin-oh.com/blog/?p=116 On Wednesday, Aaron, Alex and I made a trip to the Central Coast to have a look at Ken Duncan‘s gallery. These panoramic images have to be viewed on large prints to be appreciated well enough. So much detail is captured that even while standing right in front of the print everything still looks pin sharp! The crappy jpeg’s for viewing online does nothing in terms of representing its true quality and grandeur.

After spending some time viewing Ken’s work and chatting with the friendly staff, our next stop was the Created for Life (CFL) framing studio which happens to be owned by Ken too. All of his work is done exclusively by CFL(naturally) with perhaps the best in printing and framing technology. Prints are done with Fujiflex Crystal Archival paper which are then mounted using Archival Gold to ensure maximum longevity.

I wanted to make a stop there to enquire about the products they offer and to see first hand the range of frames available. I had a really great time picking out the frames I will be using for my landscape prints. I felt like I was a kid in a candy store and I was so happy that they had everything I had in mind. Here’s the 6 frames I chose

You can probably tell i’m biased towards wood with the aluminium frame left out in the first 2 pictures. Anyway, I posted these 3 different shots to show how they’d look like under slightly different lighting conditions and angles. I particularly like the 2 darker ones as they look almost black but actually have a very subtle shade in brighter conditions. The mahogany one looks really sexy too I can’t wait for my own samples to arrive so I can match them to my own work.

It was already almost 5.30pm and the print lab was closed when we were done at the framing studio so we’ll have to come back another day – hopefully it will be to pick up some of my work! By the way, CFL does both printing and framing although they’re at 2 different locations.

With the help of our British accent GPS lady we decided to head to Norah Head Lighthouse to catch the sunset, about 30 mins from where we were. Got there ahead of time so we scouted the area for the best location. The sky was clear without much clouds which resulted in a pretty bland sunset.

I shot mostly with the 617 and X-Pan but I did get to squeeze in a digital proof on the 40D. I’m hoping the ones on film will turn out better. Here’s the shot.

We stayed on till the sun was down and made our way back up to the car. It was quite a long climb up the stairs and man did my thigh and calf muscles burn! My camera bag loaded with 3 cameras and accessories didn’t help either. You think taking photos is an easy thing to do, think again!

Eventually we got back to the car, relieved of the muscle burning and back to the luxuries of air conditioning, only to find the gate LOCKED on our way out! We then noticed a sign that says gate will be locked an HOUR after sunset! Luckily there was a number we could call for help to open up the gates but at a price of $55. Eventually someone came after the call and according to him the gates actually close at 6.30pm. Great job of putting up a useless sign post fellas, perhaps a fixed time would be better??? When I paid him the unlock fee the guard actually said “Just $50 will do”, which really makes me wonder if he just pocketed the money. No forms were filled and not even a receipt was given.

Anyway, we got back to Sydney around midnight and we were starving by then! Superbowl came to the rescue as usual for any late night chomping.

I have shot about 16 rolls of Velvia to develop so i’ll be dropping them by the lab tomorrow. I really hope the shots turned out great otherwise the trip to Norah Head Lighthouse would’ve been a huge waste of time and money. Do check back in a couple of days as i’ll be uploading those shots as soon as I get them scanned.

Lesson learnt: Make sure to take note of any gate closures before parking inside or park somewhere else!

Anyway, when we got there we were greeted by strong winds and the sky full of clouds. I was rather dissapointed as I knew we wouldn’t be able to catch the morning rays. We were there before sunrise so I started with the rock pool, lit by sodium lights which produced an awful color cast hence decided to go B&W with this shot.

I got bored quickly since the last sunrise I did involved rock pools too. I did however spend more time with the Xpan, and dissapointingly found it wasn’t quite wide enough We decided to move on and headed towards the sea and got THIS!

The shot above almost cost me my camera and getting wet on a cold and windy morning. I was almost hit by  the waves which went up several feet high when it smashed against the rocks. Took me a good 10-15 mins to get one shot as I ran for life and camera many times, almost slipping and falling over the puddles of water and mass of moss on the rocks.

It got a little annoying after awhile as each time I composed for the shot and ready to click the shutter, I had to run and recompose again the next time.

Here’s another one in portrait format but as with the shot above, tried not to expose the shot for too long to prevent the ‘sea mist’ effect. The sea was rather violent with the strong winds that day and I wanted to show it in the photos.

After I was happy with that shot, I started wandering around the area and caught a glimpse of the sun peeking through the clouds. I quickly planted the tripod and got THIS!

In the pic above you can also catch a glimpse of sea spray just beyond the rocks. I wandered around a bit more, almost slipping on the slippery rocks and moss and found more moss! Obviously I couldn’t resist

By this time I thought, enough of moss for today. Why not take a pic of a rock instead!

And another one here to show the great contrast from one area to the other in this almost desert like terrain

All in all, it turned out to be a great shoot, and one I was quite happy with. As with all sunrise shoots, it is always followed by a nice and hearty big breakfast

Hope you all enjoyed this set!