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Kath and Gerry joined me for another early morning - this time at Mrs Macquarie's Chair on Sydney Harbour. It was a brisk 5:45AM start and we were left once again with cloud free skies.

We made the best of it as we could - we started to get some smattering of low cloud on the horizon and a tick over 10 minutes before sunrise we started having this crazy pink and blue banding in the sky like a fan or pin wheel coming out from where the sun was about to rise and a minute or so later it started happening in the opposite direction over the city - like huge pink searchlights pointing up into the sky. I don't know exactly what causes this effect but it only lasted a few more minutes so it was a bit of a rush to put together a composition and include the cool sky and here we have (6:20AM with Lee 0.9 ND Grad + Heliopan CPL)...



Unfortunately the rest of the sunrise compositions aren't worth anything...

After the sun rose we tried some panoramics of the city and harbour - I found 12-24 too short (at the long end) and the 70-200 far too long (even at the 70 end) so I settled on my 17-50. This was stitched from 17 vertical captures with approx 50% overlap shot at 45mm at 1/10 sec @ f/11 (although I cropped out the last 4 or 5 frames worth on the right). Frankly I like Gerry's pano better but here is mine anyway



Lastly I switched back to the UWA and borrowed Kaths new Lee BigStopper to give it a run (thanks Kath ). This one looked good even on the back of the camera (even with and possibly because of the natural vignette) and not a lot was required in post to produce this 160 second long exposure (7:18AM with the whole kitchen sink - 12mm + Lee BigStopper + Lee 0.9 ND Grad + Heliopan CPL)

I think the first image is stunning but I don't think the tonalities are quite right. I suspect it would work much better with the foreground rocks and the near harbour darker, as well as the pink clouds brighter.

Nicely done.
I've seen and photographed these crepuscular rays in the west at Sunrise only once a few years ago.

Hey Rodney, since i covered to the other two across the pond, i thought i would add a comment to the second image. The biggest gripe I have about this location is those silly 100 year old fig trees, i wish the council would just hurry up and chop them down for a better view jks.

However from a photographic point of view, i personally find these more of a distraction rather than a useful framing element, hence, for the second pano, I think shortening it up (at the expense of cramping things) to remove that tree on the left and have a unobstructed view, in every sense of the term, of the harbour and city skyline would make for a image with more impact. Some content aware fill may help there too.

Murray Foote wrote:I think the first image is stunning but I don't think the tonalities are quite right. I suspect it would work much better with the foreground rocks and the near harbour darker, as well as the pink clouds brighter.

Thanks Murray - good points (see below)

Bob G wrote:Nicely done. I've seen and photographed these crepuscular rays in the west at Sunrise only once a few years ago.

Thanks Bob - it was certainly and interesting and surprising effect

biggerry wrote:Hey Rodney, since i covered to the other two across the pond, i thought i would add a comment to the second image. However from a photographic point of view, i personally find these more of a distraction rather than a useful framing element, hence, for the second pano, I think shortening it up (at the expense of cramping things) to remove that tree on the left and have a unobstructed view, in every sense of the term, of the harbour and city skyline would make for a image with more impact. Some content aware fill may help there too.

Thanks Gerry - interesting views on the figs I also took another pano sequence which went right around to the figs on the right which I havn't looked at yet - I might process them and see if framing at both ends works - I'm not hopeful because there will be a lot of negative space on the right between the bridge/nth syd and the fig tree but who knows it may work. I'll see about content awareing the left on this pano here

#1 - I took both your's (crop) and Murray's comments onboard and did a few minor tweaks to #1 - what do you think?



I also did some minor tweaks to #3 (partly based on Gerry's suggestion):

The reworked #1 works for me, a great image all round. I have never seen those type of rays before, ot atleast not aware if I have! One further improvement would be to have a slightly lower point of view so that the branches of the trees did not interupt the skyline of those high rise buildings and create a frame around them instead.

Remorhaz wrote:I also did some minor tweaks to #3 (partly based on Gerry's suggestion):

minor crop as well? it looks pretty much the same, i am confused, which is not hard but...

The reworked #1 is good. I suspect it could be just a touch brighter overall.

Geoff M wrote:The reworked #1 works for me, a great image all round. I have never seen those type of rays before, ot atleast not aware if I have! One further improvement would be to have a slightly lower point of view so that the branches of the trees did not interupt the skyline of those high rise buildings and create a frame around them instead.

Thanks Geoff - and good idea - might not have been possible in this case - I had to jump out to a small island rock to shoot this from - could possibly have gone a touch lower but not too much without getting camera drowned

biggerry wrote:minor crop as well? it looks pretty much the same, i am confused, which is not hard but...

very minor crop - the main change was a little warming of the centre band of the image but leaving the blue sky and water as is

Damn... I'm still waiting on my Heliopan CPL !!!
I love the potential of #3.
I actually think that there is just too much noise in composition of #1... a pity as that banding formation is a cracker... I'm thinking that a composition in front of the rocks would have resulted in a cleaner more balanced image and for me the rocks and tree are just getting 'in the way'.

Mj wrote:Damn... I'm still waiting on my Heliopan CPL !!!

Hope it comes soon - I can't remember exactly how long mine took but from vague memory it was less than a week?

I love the potential of #3. I actually think that there is just too much noise in composition of #1... a pity as that banding formation is a cracker... I'm thinking that a composition in front of the rocks would have resulted in a cleaner more balanced image and for me the rocks and tree are just getting 'in the way'.

Gerry actually suggested a different crop to #1 which I think is improved, but your point definitely has merit - his pano is probably more like what you're talking about

I also stitched the other set of pano images I had taken which included the view all the way from the fig tree's on the left to the ones on the right so the figs now frame both ends - thoughts?



Yes it's tiny but you should see it when you zoom in 1:1 on this 150 megapixel monster you can just about see people in the windows of the buildings

Remorhaz wrote:you can just about see people in the windows of the buildings

Shhh... Google got into trouble over things like that

I quite like the fig framing... gives some balance and provides an 'anchor' relating to your location... it's also an image I've not (that I recall) seen before so that's a big plus.
I took an image of camp cove the other day and then spent a day checking the net that my image was at least in some way different to others I could find... otherwise I might as well just start saving images off the net and not bother with a camera... thankfully I think my image is fairly unique although it's close to some I've spotted.

Remorhaz wrote:Gerry actually suggested a different crop to #1 which I think is improved, but your point definitely has merit - his pano is probably more like what you're talking about

Rodney - for me that nails it.

I prefer the first pano. Out of all of them it looks
the most natural. The others all have beautiful
colours and perspectives, but I found them a bit
overdone in the smooth department.