Iconic Sydney - Australia

Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

I hadn't taken any photographs for sometime so decided to get out with the camera over the weekend. I drove down to Milson's Point to photograph the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. My shot list for the night included a panoramic photograph of both icons. I also tried a new 2:1 ratio on the photograph above and thought it came out pretty well.

More photographs inside.

Harbour Bridge and Opera House - Sydney, Australia

I got there at dusk hoping to be able to include a clear blue sky in the photographs but it was cloudy and grey. However, I liked the fact that the setting sun brought out the details on the underside of the bridge. Fortunately there weren't any people around to walk into the frame and I manged to fire off a few "keepers".

Harbour Bridge and Opera House - Sydney, Australia

The panorama above was a 4 or 5 image stitch. I would have liked the left hand side of the image to be a bit brighter but short of getting there earlier, there wasn't anything I could do. Maybe another drive down to Milson's Point is in order?

 Opera House - Sydney, Australia

These photographs were taken with the Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. I also used a tripod for all these shots. An aperture of f14-16 and a shutter speed between 20 seconds and 30 seconds was used for all of these.

Around Sydney - Australia

The Skyline - Sydney, Australia

I hadn't been out in the city with the camera for sometime so decided to go for a bit of a walk last night. I started off near Mrs Macquarie's chair near the open air cinema but didn't have any particular route in mind. I wasn't after any specific shots last night, just a walk and an an intention to photograph whatever came up.

More photographs inside.

The Opera House & Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

The next subjects were the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I'd been to this location to photograph them before (to take this photograph) but the light conditions were very different. This time I got there after sunset and the sky was a rich blue in colour.

The Opera House & Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

I would have preferred to have used a longer lens for the photograph above but unfortunately, I only had the 24-105mm lens with me. I was surprised that the smaller sails of the opera house were not lit up. That resulted in the main sail being a lot brighter than the others.

Cahill Expressway - Sydney, Australia

The next stop was a bridge overlooking the Cahill Expressway. Being a Saturday night there wasn't a lot of traffic on the road but a 30 second exposure was sufficient to photograph a few light trails as cars moved to and from the city.

Chaos on William Street - Sydney, Australia

Heading up along William Street towards Kings Cross on a Saturday night is probably the worst place to drive in Sydney. Kings Cross, the red light district in Sydney, is a hive of activity with thousands of people hitting the clubs in the area. The ever present hoons add a level of stupidity to the whole experience.

The Archibald Fountain - Sydney, Australia

The Archibald Fountain in Hyde park was the last stop on my walk. Built in 1932 , the fountain was a gift to the city bequeathed in the will of J. F. Archibald. It is intended to commemorate the association between Australia and France in World War 1 and is the work of French sculptor Francois Sicard.

All photographs on this post were taken with the Canon 7D and the 24-105mm lens. I also used a tripod for these photographs.  

Opera House and Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

The Opera House and Harbour Bridge - Sydney, Australia

The weather hasn't been the best over the Australian summer and today was no exception. We woke up to another gloomy, wet day with showers forecast. From a photographic point of view, I had been waiting for one of these days to take some close ups of the Opera House with moody gray clouds in the background. I hopped on a train at around 2.00PM for the ten minute trip into the CBD and wandered down to Circular Quay.

More photographs from today's shoot, inside.

 

The Sails of the Opera house - Sydney, Australia

I got down to the Overseas Passenger Terminal to find a massive cruise liner docked at the terminal and blocking the view of the Opera House completely. I was a bit annoyed with my luck but decided to make the most of the day and walk around to Mrs Macquarie's Chair for some shots of the other side of the Opera House. I hadn't planned on shooting from here and I only had my 24-105mm lens with me. As a result I had to shoot and crop the images slightly to get the shots I wanted. I'll head down there with the 100-400mm at some point and re-shoot these images.

 

The Opera House - Sydney, Australia

On my way back to the station I heard the horn(?) of the ship and thought I'd go back to Circular Quay and check if it was moving. I arrived at the Overseas Passenger Terminal to find the ship heading off and the Opera House appearing from behind it. I spent another 20 minutes taking more shots of the Opera House before heading off.

 

The Sails of the Opera House - Sydney, Australia

All images on this post were captured with a Canon 7D and the 24-105mm combo.

Sydney Opera House and CBD

The Sydney Opera House and CBD

I hadn't been out with the camera for a while and since I had some free time on Sunday, I headed down to Milsons Point, on the north shore of Sydney Harbour. I timed my trip to get down there at around sunset as I wanted to have a bit of time to set up before the colour of the sky changed to that special shade of blue. Unfortunately the weather in Sydney hasn't been good and the sky was cloudy. Not a real surprise considering it is the middle of winter!

More info after the jump.

I set up the tripod on the wharf and started capturing the photographs which I needed to create the panorama above. The wind was not too strong but I found that the Tripod was shaking and, as a result, the images were not too sharp. In order to get around this, I had to stand next to the camera and block the wind. Thankfully it was a quick fix and seemed to resolve the problem. I zoomed in on the back of the camera a number of times to make sure the images were tack sharp.

I captured seven images to use for the panorama above. Once I got home all I had to do was process them using the identical settings and stitch them up to produce the final image. The panorama has to be viewed large to see the detail in the buildings. The version I've uploaded here is quite a small version of the final image.

The most frustrating part of this process was trying to capture images which didn't include any boats.  This was almost impossible considering Circular Quay is just to the right of the Opera House. Circular Quay is the hub of Sydney's ferry system and as a result, has ferries coming in and out throughout the day.

Other images of the opera house

• Opera House and Harbour Bridge at Dusk
• Opera House at twilight

Sydney Opera House

I had been meaning to capture this image of the Opera house for a couple of weeks but, due to bad weather, I did not get around to it until this evening. This image is a 6 image stitch, created using Hugin. More information on how I captured the images, after the jump.

I noticed the great light this evening, as I stepped out of work and decided to head down to Circular Quay to capture another image of the opera house. Thanks to daylight savings, I was able to get home, grab my gear and make it down to the opera house with about 20 minutes to spare before sunset. After scouting out a location to set up the tripod, I took a few test shots and waited around twenty minutes after sunset to capture the images.

I used a 50mm lens at f10 to ensure that the lamps and the opera house were in focus. The test shots, which I took earlier, gave me an indication of the required shutter speed. From memory, the shutter speed used to capture these images was 1.6 seconds or 2 seconds. I used auto-focus and locked focus on the centre of the Opera house, then moved into manual focus and did not change focus during the entire shoot. I also used a remote shutter release to minimise camera shake.

I then used Photoshop to process the RAW files and stitched them using Hugin.

Click here to see another shot of the opera house from a different angle.

Click here for another image of the Opera House and the CBD