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The Queen Mary 2 arrived in Sydney Harbour very very early in the morning. I was intending on joining a Flickr group for an early morning shoot from around Dawes Point as the ship came into the harbour and then do sunrise. The pilot and tugs were expected to be bringing her in around 4:30AM so I woke very early and headed down to the Rocks.

I planned to take some images from the middle of the Harbour Bridge first which would include the city around past the Opera House and then down the harbour towards the arriving QM2. So I made my way up onto the deck of the bridge and started some test shots at 4AM!. There was no QM2 in sight and the sky was clear and dark (with a small crescent moon high in the sky). I figured it was still a few hours till sunrise so I decided instead to setup for some city star trails from up high.

The following is the result of stacking 230 images shot with the 16-35/4 at 17mm with the camera set to 25 second exposures at f/4 and ISO 400. Normally for star trails I'd prefer a completely dark sky with no light pollution and use something like 60 second exposures at ISO 1600 to really bring out the stars. Here the city (and the QM2) was insanely bright so I had to reduce the exposure 3 or 4 stops just so the city and sky wasn't too nuclear. Still I wasn't all that hopeful but let her rip for an hour and forty minutes before twilight (an hour before sunrise) started really brightening the sky killing all the stars. I also took some separate twilight exposures to use to blend in at the bottom for the harbour, land, buildings, etc.

During the sequence of images my biggest concern was how much the bridge was moving up and down when trains and vehicles came across and how this was going to affect stacking - there was some but it wasn't too bad in the end I reckon.

QM2 Under the Stars


That QM2 is one massive ship - when I first saw it coming into the harbour in the distance (and it was late ) it looked tiny and I was a little disappointed - it literally took 30 minutes for the tugs to bring it down to the bridge. At this stage when it was almost below me it looked absolutely enormous - and lit up like a Christmas tree. The tugs then pushed the back of the ship 90 degrees in towards circular quay, then another 30 minutes to back the QM2 into the quay and then they pushed it slowly sideways till it was against the Overseas Passenger Terminal dock which took another 15 minutes

I took some more images from the bridge till just after 6AM and then made my way down towards Dawes Point to take some shots around sunrise

A little long exposure BigStopper work just after sunrise with the Sydney Park Hyatt and the QM2 framing the Opera House

QM2 Harbour Blues


Last shot of the morning - again with the BigStopper as the sun peeks around the edge of the Opera House sails

QM2 Sunrise Opera


and this one just so you can see how big this ship is in Circular Quay - both in length and height - remembering that I'm way up on the deck of the Harbour bridge for this shot...

The second of these really works for me Rodney.
#1 I find the star trails off putting. The photo works better if I chop out most of the sky. Did you lock down the tripod? the trails seem to be doing some crazy dance. Also the intensity seems to vary. In particular a bright spike towards the end. Did you change the exposure in some way?
#2
#3 Perhaps tone down the light hitting the bridge
#4 Can you bring up the exposure on the OH perhaps? It is not a silhouette, but not enough light to make it part of the subject either.

Rodney,

Just to acknowledge the fantastic photos and the time you put into your work.

My journey continues... ( a step at a time).

Cheers.

Mr Darcy wrote:The second of these really works for me Rodney

Thanks Grey - thats my my pick of the shots from down bottom as well

Mr Darcy wrote:#1 I find the star trails off putting. The photo works better if I chop out most of the sky. Did you lock down the tripod? the trails seem to be doing some crazy dance. Also the intensity seems to vary. In particular a bright spike towards the end. Did you change the exposure in some way?

I did - but the deck of the bridge itself was doing the dancing - bouncing up and down as trains and vehicles crossed. I could see things moving up and down and even at 17mm in the resultant frames I can see a noticable misalignment of some frames with stationary parts (e.g. the city). The exposure change was because twilight was starting to happen at the end so the sky was well and truly going from black to dark blue to purple over time. I didn't actually do anything about that in post - blending the twilight exposure with the above the horizon trails was the trickier part since the colouration there really didn't match.

I did a little more work on it here:



I may try restacking and blending from scratch some day when I have more time and much better PS skills

Mr Darcy wrote:#4 Can you bring up the exposure on the OH perhaps? It is not a silhouette, but not enough light to make it part of the subject either.

This was more of a set the scene shot - but how about this:

Victor03 wrote:Just to acknowledge the fantastic photos and the time you put into your work. My journey continues... ( a step at a time)

Thanks Victor and as is does for all of us

The effort is obvious, the boat is gigantic, the images are excellent.

One day I too will rise as some unearthly hour and photograph something.

The rework on #4 works better for me.

Shame about the dancing bridge Sometimes the dance can make an interesting shot in and of itself, but not in this case. The rework is better, but still flawed. Maybe choose another location for these long exposures (I know, I know!)

Now all I have to do is get offf my backside & get back to taking some photos myself so you can get your revenge.

You do beautiful work. I love looking at your images.