Currumbin rocks sunrise

Currumbin rocks sunrise, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

This was my first visit to Currumbin and I left feeling quite pleased with the shots I'd got. I was even happier after finally getting time to process them and see how they looked.

I tried a mixture of HDR and grads individually then eventually a combination of both. I really wanted to get some movement from the waves in the bracketed exposures so I needed the 0.9 grad to force a longer exposure.

I did get some spray picked up by the sun on the grad but I was able to clone that out later on. Thank goodness :)

This was taken on a Canon EOS 40D with a 17-85mm EFS lens and a Hitec 0.9 hard grad.

HDR was from three exposures [-2,0,+2]. Processed in DPHDR.

Oh yeah and of course it's a pano too from three shots, stitched in PTGui.

Getting out to the rocks was interesting, I thought they were really sharp and jagged looking, certainly not a place one would want to fall over. It was pitch black when I arrived at about 4am and even then a fisherman beat me too it.

Definitely a spot I'll be returning too again.

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Natural Bridge

Natural Bridge, originally uploaded by greenplasticdave.

This is the amazing Natural Bridge/Arch in the Gold Coast Hinterland of Australia. It's normally really hard to expose properly but I was lucky this time. The sun was in just the right spot to get some light reflecting nicely on the roof of the cave.

Two shot HDR panorama [-2,0,+2] stitched in PTGui. HDR in DPHDR.

Taken on a Canon EOS 40D with a 17-85mm EFS lens.

Fingal Head

Just back from a nice if somewhat sleep deprived weekend on the Gold Coast.

This shot was taken at sunrise on Saturday (17th) morning after getting up at 3:30am, driving for 40 minutes then trekking through the bush in the dark (with torch) to get there it was an enjoyable jaunt even if just to watch the fishermen scrambling over the rocks :P

This is a three shot panorama taken with the camera in landscape orientation and using a 0.9 Hard grad to bring the sky down.

I had the luxury of being able to wait for nice looking waves, capturing them at each pano position and then stitching ones I liked later on. This enabled me to make a pano with nice waves entering AND leaving the little channel. The chaotic pattern of the water makes any stitching errors invisible :P

Taken on a Canon EOS 40D with a 17-85mm lens.

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Shorncliffe sunset

I saw this nice little pond on the way home from sunrise and thought it'd make a good sunset spot. I trekked out again on Sunday to get some shots and came away with this.

HDR pano from three exposures [-2,0,+2] combined in PTGui and Dynamic Photo HDR.

Taken on a Canon EOS 40D and 17-85mm EFS lens.


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Wallangarra

Still going with the processing of last weekend's images.

Just behind this building which I think was a post office is apparently Queensland's first pub.

HDR from three exposures [-2,0,+2] combined in Dynamic Photo HDR.

Taken on a Canon EOS 40D.

Wallangarra station, NSW/QLD

HDR panorama taken on the NSW/QLD border at the old Wallangarra Station.

Three exposures [-2,0,+2] taken on a Canon EOS 40D.

I got so many shots over this camping weekend that I filled up all my memory cards (13GB total) and had to dump some images on my laptop to be able to keep shooting. It was a great holiday with some great shooting opportunities.

This sunrise shoot started out quite differently with not a cloud in the sky. I was beneath the verandah shooting a 360 pano when I saw some clouds forming and raced back out to shoot this one :)

Girraween Star Trails

Got up at 2:30am for this one. I wanted to wait till the moon was out of the way :)

This is 64, 30-second exposures f/5.6 ISO-500 stacked in Photoshop.

I took 105 images in total but some clouds rolled in spoiling it a little. That particular image (with 105 shots) turned out ok but there was a big cloudy smudge obscuring some stars. In the end I preferred this one :)

Taken on a Canon EOS 40D with a 17-85mm EFS lens. Foreground lit by a 430 EXII fired manually to the left and right.

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