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Headed down to Mrs Macquaries Chair for some sunset and twilight views over the harbour.

I found some nice rocks which when viewed from the right angle lined up nicely to allow a view towards the Opera House and Harbour Bridge and then it was just a matter of waiting for sunset and trying not to get too wet with the waves coming in from the wake of the large boats passing on the harbour (my feet/shoes and bottoms of my jeans got soaked - which was disappointing on a bitterly cold winters night in Sydney - but hey you've got to take some hits for your craft I guess ).

Another cloudless event for me (at least in the direction I was pointing) which meant no real interest other than a touch of colour in the sky. This leaves all the action from the horizon down

I tried some long exposures with the ten stop neutral density filter before sunset and then just as the sun hit the horizon - nothing worth showing unfortunately.

It was left to twilight to save the show - so with a circular polariser and both my 3 stop (0.9) and 2 stop (0.6) hard graduated neutral density filters stacked I waited till I could get exposures long enough and with colour I liked.

This first is at 5:23PM (about 25 minutes after sunset) and a 170 second exposure to get a nice eerie look to the water and the rocks (I also did a little light painting of the rocks with my LED torch - with some localised white balance adjustments of the torch light in post processing)



This one is at 5:35PM and is at about the end of the colour in the sky - I'm tossing up whether I like this square crop (which makes you feel much closer to the foreground rock) or the wider vertical aspect better... what do you think?

Gee, I like these photos. There are very blue!

The square crop works better for me. The only let down though is the leaning verticals of the buildings on the RH side. Can you try and straighten or reduce the the amount of lean?

zafra52 wrote:Gee, I like these photos. There are very blue!

That they are - Blue Hour I guess

Geoff M wrote:The square crop works better for me. The only let down though is the leaning verticals of the buildings on the RH side. Can you try and straighten or reduce the the amount of lean?

Thanks Geoff - I'll take a look

Geoff M wrote:The square crop works better for me. The only let down though is the leaning verticals of the buildings on the RH side. Can you try and straighten or reduce the the amount of lean?

and here we go - with a few other minor tweaks as well

Can't see the changes to the verticals on my iPad as I lose the RH side of the image when viewing the forum . Will take a look later on my PC.

Rodney. I usually like your work, but these leave me cold (literally). I think you've pushed the blue way too far and I just can't get past that to inspect the images themselves. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but, to me, these are well below your usual standard. Of course YMMV

stubbsy wrote:Rodney. I usually like your work, but these leave me cold (literally). I think you've pushed the blue way too far and I just can't get past that to inspect the images themselves

It does look very blue - although except for the bottom third (which I really had to blue up because of the LED torch light) - the top two thirds are close to blue as shot (esp with the second image)

Here is one I shot a little earlier (before/at sunset) with the ten stop ND to still get the long exposure, the milky water and the warmer light/tones... it wasn't really doing it for me but others may disagree...

I think the blue is good. Very nice and suitably iconic.

The last one is very nice also, but I like your blue period.
Even if it only lasted a few minutes.