Posted on December 8, 2013December 15, 2013 by Alex Wise — 8 Comments

Weekend Trip down the Great Ocean Road

Exploring the Great Ocean Road

After living in Melbourne for almost 3 years it didn’t feel right that I hadn’t been down to the Great Ocean Road since moving over. Hyped for its stunning coast line and beautiful waterfalls I had been itching to get down there and take some photos. After planning it for a while now, I finally made my way down to the Great Ocean Road and the Great Otways National Park headed towards Wye River with some friends and it did not disappoint.

As much as I love living in inner city Melbourne, I do miss being able to jump in the car and get to great coastline within 30-45 minutes like I would previously when living in Hobart and fire off some photos. So whenever an opportunity arises to get out and photograph some of Victoria’s coastline I’m always eager to go. A while ago now two friends and I decided to plan for a weekend trip down to the area for a lazy weekend and photography.

Jan Juc

We decided to leave after work on Friday night and Melbourne being Melbourne quickly got caught in peak hour traffic. Rather than let the night go to waste we took a little detour to get some photos of the sunset as we made our way down. A quick look on Google Maps and we settled on Jan Juc. I’m pretty sure the decision was made on name alone. But luckily for us, the beach didn’t disappoint and was topped off with a stunning sunset.

The first photo was captured with a set up of the Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, tripod, B+W 110 10 stop filter and a .9 Cokin Z-Pro neutral density filter to darken the sky. One downside to using the Cokin graduated filters (other than the slight colour cast) is that you have to be careful where you position the filter. For this shot I positioned the filter on an angle (think 10pm on a clock) to have the filter coming down from the corner. This avoided the cliffs being gradually darkened which would of occured if placed at the 12 oclock position and going directly from top to bottom. For this reason graduated neutral density filters while great, definitely have their short comings and something you may want to consider if looking to purchase some.

Jan Juc Sunset — Sunset at Jan Juc (5 minute long exposure)

Ronnie Ling — Ronnie shooting at Jan Juc (Taken with my Fujifilm X100)

You have to kill time waiting for the sunset somehow right?

Wye River

As we continued down further we eventually made our way to Wye River a little later than originally planned. Wye River is a quiet little town situated along the Great Ocean Road that’s less touristy and more relaxed. I much prefer it over Apollo Bay which is often swamped with tourists.

Wye River has a stunning beach, pub, cafe and makes a great spot to situate yourself for exploring the rest of the Great Ocean Road. Our plan for the weekend was to shoot some seascapes around the area and explore inland with a trip to the Great Otway National Park which is home to Beauchamp Falls and Hopetoun Falls. Both waterfalls I had been wanting to get to for sometime now but being around 3 hours from Melbourne are a little too far for a day trip.

DSCF0171 — Jon capturing the sunset at Wye River

Sunrise reflections at Wye River (3 minute long exposure)

The Great Otways National Park

After waking up early to shoot the sunrise at Wye River, we decided to grab a coffee and make our way more inland towards Hopetoun Falls and Beauchamp Falls. I had seen the two locations photographed many times before so I was keen to get down there and photograph them myself.

It was a cloudy morning as wet set off from Wye River but unfortunately on arrival to the Great Otway National Park, the sun began to slowly rise through the clouds and create patchy light over the waterfalls. While not ideal, I find if you are shooting with patchy sunlight that shooting slightly under exposed is a great way to avoid over exposure and provide you with a more even exposure. For some photos where there was patchy sun light in the photograph, I used the adjustment brush within Lightroom with the highlights and exposure decreased slightly and painted over the sun lit areas. It works well to create a more evenly lit scene. Once again, not ideal and I’d much prefer to be shooting in overlight conditions where the light is even but you have to make the most of what you’re given on the day right?

A while ago now I put together an article on waterfall photography. If you haven’t shot waterfalls before and looking to get started you may want to give it a read to get started. It’s nothing fancy but just goes through the basics on how I photograph waterfalls with some examples of shutter speed and some basic tips.

Hopetoun Falls - Alex Wise — Hopetoun Falls (2.5 sec long exposure)

Jon and Ronnie photographing Hopetoun Falls

Conditions were patchy at Hopetoun Falls with some harsh sunlight at times. It wasn't ideal but lucky for us the sun made way at times allowing for some photos — Conditions were patchy at Hopetoun Falls with some harsh sunlight at times. It wasn’t ideal but lucky for us the sun made way at times allowing for some photos

Doing my best to avoid the sun with this stream photo of Hopetoun Falls

Star Trails at Wye River

As part of getting down to Wye River we were also keen to shoot some star trails (a plan that was always pending what the weather had in store for us). Lucky for us, the weather and conditions were perfect for star trail photography. Generally star trails are best photographed around the new moon of every month. While not exactly the day of the new moon, our time at Wye River was a few days after the new moon (this sounds like a Twilight novel or something…) and the sky was clear which created great conditions for star trail photography.

I must admit, star trail photography is something I struggle with. I’m not sure whether it’s the impatience of waiting around for the exposure to complete (in this case 90 minutes) or just the bashing around in the pitch black dark but this time I didn’t want to let past experiences deter me so I set up on blue hour near ruins of an old jetty at Wye River. The plan was to take 10 minute exposures at F5 at ISO 100. Through taking 9 exposures at 10 minutes I then opened them as layers in Photoshop and set the layer modes to ‘Lighten’ which combines all the images and only keeps the lightest part of the images.

In hindsight I wish I shot for another 90 minutes to capture more of the star trails but with episodes of The Newsroom running low on my Nexus 7 (great show by the way!) and sitting alone in the dark I decided to call it a night with this being the final result. The beach is situated below the Great Ocean Road which created ambient light over the rocks and pylons which worked quite well.

Wye River Star Trails — Star trails at Wye River (90 minute long exposure)

Thanks

Apologies for the Great Ocean Road and Great Otways National Park image overload!

If you’re ever down this way I’d recommend you make the trip down. Most flock down this way to see the 12 Apostles but I’d take your time driving down as there’s a lot more to see along the Great Ocean Road beyond the 12 Apostles. I do hope to photograph the 12 Apostles one day but for the moment other parts of the Great Ocean Road have me tempted to further explore. Time to get another weekend organised I think…!

Hope you had a good weekend and thanks for reading.

– Alex

Posted on April 25, 2013August 24, 2013 by Alex Wise — 6 Comments

My new daily carry camera – Fujifilm X100

For a while now I’ve been feeling a little anxious about not shooting as much as I’d like. Before moving to Melbourne from Hobart I was a student with all the time in the world living close to coastline and lush waterfalls. Living in inner city Melbourne it can be a little difficult trying to balance photography around full time work as I’m often leaving for work when the sun is rising and leaving just as the sun is about to set. I then had an idea. If I’m riding to and from work every day why not carry a camera and make the most of sunset and sunrise light? So I did.

After much procrastinating I thought the Pansonic Lumix LX7 camera was the camera for me so ordered it. Although a nice camera, it wasn’t the one for me so I sold it on Gumtree for about what i paid. A few days later I noticed a Fujifilm X100 pop up for sale on a forum I frequent. I couldn’t resist the price and from all accounts even with a few niggles, it’s a great little camera.

Since purchasing I’ve started carrying the camera every day and have found it a great little camera to use. Sure there’s a few little issues with the camera but hey, no camera is perfect and I can tolerate any slight niggles. The camera is a great ‘daily carry’ camera as it fits nicely into my bike bag and isn’t too cumbersome to carry if I’m out and about of a weekend. If you’re in the market for something more portable than your DSLR I’d recommend you seriously consider a X100 (or X100S if budget permits!). I still plan on using my DSLR for long exposures, my baking blog and other bits but why not have something you can easily carry and still get some great shots?

Here’s a collection of some of my favourite photos since purchasing the camera a month ago. All images are captured around Melbourme with most being on my way to and from work. I spend half my time riding keeping an eye out for things to photo. Sometimes it means I’m a little late for work but the results are worth it. In case you’re wondering, I went for a slight film look to the photos which was achieved by using Adobe Lightroom and the VSCO plugin. I’ve been a little skeptical of the plugin in the past but for some reason it just works perfectly for the style of images I’ve been shooting with the X100. I guess in the past it wasn’t appropriate for long exposures and landscape photos where accurate colour rendition of the scene is crucial. If you’re after a plugin for Lightroom that imitates film well, I can’t recommend VSCO highly enough. It’s great!

I can’t wait to give it a test run for some long exposures of waterfalls and seascapes. David from Flixelpix has posted some beautiful long exposures using the X100 on his blog so it’s definitely achievable.

PS, Sorry for overwhelming you with a ton of photos 😉

– Alex

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Posted on January 23, 2013August 24, 2013 by Alex Wise — 12 Comments

2012 Retrospective

It’s hard to believe another year has already rolled around. It doesn’t feel that long ago that I was writing a post this time last year with photos from 2011.

This year my photography increased quite a bit over the previous year partly due to a little side project called the Art of Baking that I’ve setup with my girlfriend (more on this towards the end). I’m happy with the direction my photography is going in. Probably like you, I’m never happy with my photography and there’s always a little thing or two that bugs me when I go to look back as the months pass. But finally I feel that I have a grip on the processing and composition where it’s feeling natural and isn’t just riding the current trend like others are known for. I love with photography that there’s always room for improvement and we’re constantly learning and developing. This is what keeps me coming back to apply new things and styles I’ve learnt.

Some of these things I’ve learnt throughout the years I’ve tried to document in various articles on this blog. Just in case you missed any here’s a recap with links through to the articles:

Bay of Fires, Tasmania

The year started off on a huge high for me photographically speaking. I’d spent a lot of time as a kid around the St Helen’s/Bay of Fires area when I wasn’t into photography so it was always high on my list to take some photos around there with nice light and colour in the sky. My family booked a holiday house up there after the New Year and we spent a few days up there. We spent a lot of time as kids around Beerbarrel Beach catching waves on our foam boogie boards at the time. It’s some of my favourite memories so it was nice to go back with camera in hand and get some photos. This was the result from a spectacular sunset one evening.

Aami Park

After coming home from a few weeks in Tasmania over the New Year, I was itching to take a photo of Aami Park on sunset when an A-League soccer (err… football rather) game was on to capture the stadium all lit up. Lucky for me I didn’t realise they used fireworks upon a goal being scored. It was a nice way to start the year shooting in Melbourne.

Docklands, Melbourne

Photo Mingling

Last year I tried to make an effort to meet new photographers as it’s always nice to meet others that share our odd obsession for standing around as our cameras expose for a long exposure. After many emails back and forth I met Jon Sander, a talented designer from Melbourne. We shot a few times throughout the year and are hoping to pull our socks up and do it at least once a month over 2013. Here’s hoping! PS, you owe me a beer Jon 😉

Daily Carry

This year I tried to make an effort to carry my camera when riding to work or visiting friends for lunch of a weekend to capture things I might normally capture with my iPhone/Galaxy S3 on Instagram. These were a couple of my favourite photos captured from randomly carrying my camera over the year.

Double Exposure Blending Tutorial

I’m always eager to read about new techniques whether it be in camera or in photoshop. One of these techniques was creating a double exposure blend which I created a tutorial about on YouTube. It’s a neat little trick that is worth a try if you have a close up photo of yourself and an image to blend over the top.

Landscapes and a Slight Mishap…

I also shot quite a bit with Ben Jensz over the year. Ben is someone I met when I first moved to Melbourne. We’ve tried to get around recent ish places to Melbourne as much as we can and this year was no exception. Although not shooting as much we would have liked, we got some photos in at Cape Schanck and various water falls around Victoria.

But there was one slight hiccup for me this year. The day my camera fell and went for a swim. It was all set up ready to capture a photo of Turpin Falls and was exposing for the minute until mid way through the exposure it somehow moved and fell into the water. As you can imagine I was devastated and had the camera inspected by Canon who declared it dead. Cutting my losses I quickly bought another Canon 5D Mark II to replace the camera so I could get back out shooting again and put the loss behind me. Sucks.

This was a photo of Turpin Falls captured just before the camera slipped and fell into the water…

But as I said, a replacement camera wasn’t far away and I quickly made sure to order a new one. Here I am with my baby 😉

Last Couple of the Year

Unfortunately there wasn’t a whole lot of shooting towards the end of the year and here’s a couple from December at Park Beach and Clifton Beach both in Tasmania.

Art of Baking

We’ve had a lot of fun with the project with a rising amount of traffic coming through and features in a couple of local magazines. I’ve found it quite challenging shooting with lights due to the obvious difference over my normal style of long exposure photography. But for the most part it’s been a fun project that I’ve really enjoyed doing with Rani. Without her baking prowess it would be nothing. I’ve tried to separate the baking photos by presenting them at the end. Be sure to check out our little blog.

Thanks!

And that’s it for another year. Thanks for all your continual support over the year. It never goes unnoticed and I appreciate it a lot. I hope you had a great year.

You might also be interested in my 2010 Retrospective and 2011 Retrospective posts from previous years.

If you have any comments or just feel like saying hi, be sure to drop a line. I always look forward to hearing from people so don’t be a stranger.

Thanks,

– Alex

Posted on December 6, 2012August 24, 2013 by Alex Wise — 6 Comments

Melbourne – 2012

Looking through Lightroom I noticed a few photos taken over 2012 in the Melbourne CBD that I never got around to posting. Some I’m fond of and others I’m still a little undecided. Looking over the series though it makes me half tempted to purchase a small point and shoot to permanently carry around in my bag like a Canon S100. So very tempting.

Also I don’t normally post photos of my food here (embarrassingly a bit of that ends up on Instagram) but I couldn’t resist a photo or two from the delightful Chin Chin. If you’re ever in Melbourne be sure to pop in for a visit. WIth such a large menu I’ve gone back a few times and haven’t been disappointed. Oh so good.

Curious to hear what people think especially of the first image with some processing that is slightly different to how I process my images.

Posted on January 20, 2012June 10, 2012 by Alex Wise — 7 Comments

Park Beach – Seascape Long Exposure (Includes Before/After)

A photograph from my recent trip home to Tasmania for Christmas. This long exposure photograph was captured at Park Beach, Tasmania just after sunset. This is one of my favourite coastlines to photograph in the Hobart area even if it is quite limited on sunset. Unfortunately you’re limited to shooting in this direction if you wish to capture any colour in the sky, ignoring all the interesting rock formation that faces the opposite direction.

This is a 10 minute long exposure that was captured with a Canon 5D Mark II, Canon 17-40, B+W 110 and tripod.

Before and After

And for something different, this is the before and after images from Lightroom. The image is around a stop over exposed which was both good and bad. The reason for it being good is that it brought out a lot of detail in the dark area of the rocks which can easily be lost in a regular exposure due to the area having strong shadows. But on the other hand, I also lost a lot of sky straight out of camera. Fortunately the Canon 5D Mark II retains a lot of detail and I was able to save the sky.

The edit was actually quick and probably only took around 2 minutes. In Lightroom I dropped the exposure considerably which brought back the sky but darkened the rocks. Rather than keep the rocks under exposed, I used the adjustment brush with a +1.00 exposure to bring the rocks back out. After that I adjusted the temperature of the image (cooling it) and selectively adjusting the saturation points of parts of the image until happy. Finally sharpening the image in Photoshop with the unsharpen mask.

Update 10/06/2012 – I’ve since created a tutorial video on how I went about editing this photograph. Granted the final image doesn’t come out exactly the same as the image used in this post but it should give you a good idea of how the I went from the before shot above to the final image. The key things to note is the graduated filter and adjustment brush make all the difference and allow you to make the majority of your edits without needing to open up Photoshop. Be careful though. It’s easy to over do the editing when using these tools and I think the final image is starting to reach that.

Direct link to this Adobe Lightroom Tutorial Clip