Long Reef Dawn Seascapes @ Collaroy - Aka Cloudless Skies...

[Remorhaz]

My local camera club had an early morning outing to Long Reef at Collaroy here in Sydney for a dawn and sunrise photoshoot followed by a breakfast bbq over the weekend.

It has been almost exactly a year since I last shot at Long Reef. We had a very early 5:30AM start in the carpark at Long Reef Golf Club for the walk around the course and headland, and then down the ridge to the ocean and reef. Sunrise was due to arrive at 6:45AM however the best light for seascapes is generally that hour long period before sunrise and then perhaps some time afterwards depending on the clouds and conditions.

There are a couple of things a photographer really desires for a good seascape shoot:
- no rain
- a sunrise
- clouds - some but not too much so you get great colour in the sky and clouds
- not too much wind and sea spray (although moving clouds is nice during the really long exposures)
- you will also be concerned with the tides (depending on whether you want low, still water, high, lots of wave action, etc)

Unfortunately whilst we had the first two (it was glorious weather for winter) we had absolutely no clouds at all and the skies were perfectly clear which makes things rather difficult for typical seascape compositions.

Given the conditions (it was also low tide which left most of the reef exposed with lots of pools of nice still water for reflections) I decided to try my hand at light painting rocks on the reef shelf before sunrise and then opted for some slow moving water compositions after sunrise.

I'd appreciate any comments you have, good or bad - on composition, technique, whatever


6AM (about 45 minutes before sunrise). For this image I'm facing away from where the sun would be rising and back towards the city with an ultra wide angle (@8mm), no filters, etc. This was pretty much a guess of the exposure of 3 minutes @ f/8 (and almost nailed it - lucky) and I painted the rock with a torch during some of the exposure (again a guess as to how long). I over painted the front of the rock and the ground in front which I've adjusted in post but other than some minor work this is pretty much as shot
Purple Dreams


6:20AM - switched to the 17-50mm so I could use my Lee filter and 3 stop hard ND Grad and tried one more facing towards where the sun will rise - even with the grad to darken down the sky you can see it's much lighter now with a 15 second exposure at f/16 and my rock painting had to be much brighter (used two torches) and quicker during this relatively short exposure
Blue Reef


6:25AM - by this time I'm struggling to control the light and everything after this was basically too bright even with the grad
Solitude


6:46AM (sunrise). I was lucky enough to find this spot with a nice break in the reef edge along with these nice setos of rocks (one close and one off in the distance) all nicely lined up with the sun as it peeks over the horizon. Sometimes luck plays it's role as I'm scrambling to setup in time as the sun just hits the horizon (within two minutes the whole show is over and the sun is up)
Rays of Dawn


7:15AM (30 minutes after sunrise). I shot the following with both the 3 stop hard Lee Grad ND stacked with a 4 stop (HiTech) ND which Ray kindly lent me which allowed me to reduce my shutter speed to a more useful 1/3 second @ f/16 rather than having to shoot at f/32+
The Wash

[gstark]

Hi Rodney,

Isn't there a law against getting up that early?

In the first image, the rock does nothing for me. To the point where I'd probably crop it completely out of this image, cropping it somewhat square, and having something more than a sliver of the cityscape at the bottom.

Cheers.

[Remorhaz]

Isn't there a law against getting up that early?

There probably should be - woke up soon after 4AM

In the first image, the rock does nothing for me. To the point where I'd probably crop it completely out of this image, cropping it somewhat square, and having something more than a sliver of the cityscape at the bottom.

Thanks - when I was doing PP I wished the glassy water reflection went all the way to the bottom of the frame. I tried the square crop of the top left of the frame (basically cutting where that bright light is on the right).

[gstark]

I tried the square crop of the top left of the frame (basically cutting where that bright light is on the right).

I'd go a little further down.

If you look at the lower section of the image, there's an area where the dark foreground above the rock turns to purple. Use that region as the starting point, but go a little higher, so that the black section is not included.

If you look closely, you'll see two bright but very small reflection spots from that bright light, on the rh side, around the area I'm suggesting. That's about where I think the crop should be.

[aim54x]

Rodney, great to see the pictures, this reassures me that you survived the trip!

I am not a fan of the rocks....the LED light just does not mix with the ambient light...it has a colder look to it than the natural light.

#1, square cropped does have some merit in it...but then you are left with a very blank sky as well.

#2 and #3, nice composition...maybe try a flash or a xenon next time to see if you can mix the light in better

#4, serendipitous positioning has really created a nice image. Although I would never process to this contrast laden look, it works very well here. The water looks glassy and surreal but it works.

#5....nicely done!

[Remorhaz]

I tried the square crop of the top left of the frame (basically cutting where that bright light is on the right).

I'd go a little further down.
If you look at the lower section of the image, there's an area where the dark foreground above the rock turns to purple. Use that region as the starting point, but go a little higher, so that the black section is not included.
If you look closely, you'll see two bright but very small reflection spots from that bright light, on the rh side, around the area I'm suggesting. That's about where I think the crop should be.

Oh - I think you might have misunderstood me - I didn't crop at the horizon - I had cropped square but so that the right side ends where the bright spot is and as you say at the bottom end up just above the very dark area.

I should have just posted it instead ... hang on

[Remorhaz]

Rodney, great to see the pictures, this reassures me that you survived the trip!

Thanks Cam - not much fear of that this day - wasn't all that much action going on

I am not a fan of the rocks....the LED light just does not mix with the ambient light...it has a colder look to it than the natural light.

#1, square cropped does have some merit in it...but then you are left with a very blank sky as well.

#2 and #3, nice composition...maybe try a flash or a xenon next time to see if you can mix the light in better

Thanks - I'm still ambivalent on #1 (both versions) - although the vast negative space in the square #1 is growing on me and I am sucked in by the colours

#4, serendipitous positioning has really created a nice image. Although I would never process to this contrast laden look, it works very well here. The water looks glassy and surreal but it works.

Yep - I went heavy with the clarity (midtone contrast I guess) with the aim of getting more texture in the water - I think this is probably my favourite image of the set?

#5....nicely done!

Will have to thank Ray for this one

[gstark]

Oh - I think you might have misunderstood me

Indeed I did.

Ok, could you also then redo this (humour me please) but keep the full width, including the bright light, and keeping the lower crop point where you have it in this image?

[Remorhaz]

Ok, could you also then redo this (humour me please) but keep the full width, including the bright light, and keeping the lower crop point where you have it in this image?

OK humour mode on (I actually cropped this 4x5 so I'd end up with a standardish aspect - this resulted in only loosing a tiny tiny strip at the top)

[ozimax]

I can't see any photos??

[Remorhaz]

I can't see any photos??

Ooops - yeah - I was building myself a new dedicated server and I was working on transferring a point in time copy of my content across to the new server this afternoon - to make life easier and shorter when the real cutover comes

[dviv]

I like the latest crop

[gstark]

OK humour mode on

Thanks. This crop does work, at least in my eyes.

[biggerry]

yeah i got no images here

[Remorhaz]

yeah i got no images here

Big Ooops

I've now moved to my new server and accidentally deleted some recent files whilst I was getting permissions right... I've reuploaded the relevant images - thanks

[zafra52]

I think I prefer the last version to the first.
Although I like the vivid colours in all of them.