Great Ocean Road | VIC | Australia

A shot I found in the archives from almost 12 years ago of the two towering sandstone and limestone stacks named Gog & Magog on the Port Campbell National Park Shipwreck Coast, shot from down the Gibsons Steps on the Great Ocean Road, with heavy storm clouds looming.

Tags:   16:10 2048 Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L USM Canon EOS 5D Mark III Gav Owen Great Ocean Road Victoria black+white blackandwhite cloudy monochrome sand seascape storm clouds waves Port Campbell Australia exif:focal_length=24 mm exif:aperture=ƒ / 8.0 camera:make=canon exif:iso_speed=100 geo:country=australia geo:lat=-38.667758333333 exif:lens=ef24-70mm f/2.8l usm camera:model=canon eos 5d mark iii exif:model=canon eos 5d mark iii geo:lon=143.10858833333 geo:city=port campbell geo:location=gibsons steps geo:state=victoria exif:make=canon

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Cape Schanck | VIC | Australia

On this morning, I pulled up in near darkness at the Cape Schanck lighthouse carpark to the sound of pouring rain. I thought to myself, "I probably won't be shooting anytime soon. Oh well, at least I tried". As the darkness started to fade ever so slightly, the rain turned intermittent. Another car pulled up a few car parks away. Then three guys with torches got out, headed to the track towards Pulpit Rock, and disappeared. Five minutes later they returned, got in their car and took off again. Strange. I'm not sure what they were doing as they had neither camera nor fishing gear - just torches. I guess they were sightseeing, and decided that they didn't want to chance the rain.

That was my cue to get my wet weather clothing on, grab my camera and head off. By the time I made it to Pulpit Rock the rain had eased right off, with just the heavy cloud cover remaining. The low tide allowed me to get up and personal with the Pulpit, so I set up right near the channel where the water was at its most hectic. Several times I had to quickly grab my tripod and face my back towards the spray, shielding the camera lens. Thankfully I was able to get a shot I really like without damaging my equipment, nor getting washed out to sea!

This is a single frame 1.3 second exposure shot at f/16, ISO 100 @ 22mm using the Sony "FE PZ 16-35mm F4 G" lens on a Sony A7RIII. For filters I used a NiSi 0.9 (3 stop) soft grad, and also a NiSi circular polariser.

Tags:   16:10 2048 Australia CPL Cape Schanck Gav Owen Nisi 0.9 ND soft grad Pulpit Rock Sony A7RIII Sony FE PZ 16-35mm F4 G Victoria clouds cloudy flow flowing formation glow glowing ocean pastel pastels pulpit rocks saltwater sea seascape sky sunrise tripod water exif:focal_length=22 mm camera:make=sony geo:country=australia exif:make=sony geo:city=cape schanck exif:model=ilce-7rm3 exif:lens=fe pz 16-35mm f4 g geo:lon=144.88879722 geo:location=pulpit rock camera:model=ilce-7rm3 geo:lat=-38.49951111 exif:iso_speed=100 geo:state=victoria exif:aperture=ƒ / 16

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Wilsons Promontory | VIC | Australia

Daytime is a good time to really show off the impressive turquoise and aquamarine colours and pristine white sands of this bay. I was hiking back from Little Waterloo Bay and decided to do some rock scrambling to check the view down to Waterloo Bay, and was drawn to that big strip of bright red lichen. I love how it complements the water colours. That red strip is so distinctive, it even stands out clearly on Google Earth, which I noticed when geo-encoding.

Here, I took two hand-held shots side-by-side in landscape orientation and stitched them together in Adobe Lightroom. I took quite a few images, but I was so unbalanced (and fatigued) that most of them were crooked. Thankfully I had a couple that were straight enough to stitch together!

Tags:   2048 2:1 2xp Australia Gav Owen National Park Sony A7RIII Sony FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS Victoria Wilsons Prom Wilsons Promontory aqua daytime hand-held lichen pano panorama red rocks sea seascape seaweed stitched in Lightroom turquoise waves Waterloo Bay exif:aperture=ƒ / 11 camera:make=sony geo:lat=-39.07037222 exif:make=sony geo:country=australia exif:model=ilce-7rm3 exif:focal_length=16.5 mm geo:state=victoria exif:iso_speed=100 camera:model=ilce-7rm3 geo:location=wilsons promontory geo:lon=146.42850833 geo:city=waterloo bay exif:lens=fe pz 16-35mm f4 g

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Cape Woolamai | VIC | Australia

Sunset at The Pinnacles in Cape Woolamai, Victoria, is a magical time. I love this place. I feel like I have completely escaped the modern world and have transported to some sort of pre-historic place millions of years in the past. It helped that I was the only person here at the time (which from a safety perspective is not great). A part of me wanted to pack the camera away, sit on a rock with a drink in hand, and just watch the sun set over the horizon, with the fresh sea breeze caressing my face.

Speaking of sea breeze - this is not the cleanest image when pixel-peeping as I was shooting directly into the oncoming sea spray, which softens the image somewhat. I also had the camera at ISO 200 as I read that this gives more dynamic range in the highlights, which I thought might come in handy for the sky frames when HDR bracketing/blending. I forgot to put it back to base ISO (100) so all the frames were taken at ISO 200. Not the end of the world - with a bit of luminance noise reduction and selective sharpening in Lightroom, the results have come up reasonable for the 2048px I upload at.

It was on this shoot that I really fell in love with the super-wide 14mm perspective which is super handy for seascapes. It convinced me to throw down money for the Sony 14mm f/1.8GM (smiley face). The Samyang lens has been great - especially for how little I paid for it - but will now go off to a new home, courtesy of eBay.

Tags:   16:10 2048 Australia Gav Owen Pinnacles Samyang 14mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC Sony A7RIII Victoria cloudy dynamic flow foam glow golden golden hour iconic lichen ocean rocks saltwater seascape sunset sunstar warm waves Cape Woolamai geo:lon=145.34311944 exif:lens=---- exif:make=sony exif:model=ilce-7rm3 geo:country=australia camera:make=sony geo:location=pinnacles exif:iso_speed=200 geo:city=cape woolamai geo:lat=-38.55933889 geo:state=victoria camera:model=ilce-7rm3

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Wilsons Promontory | VIC | Australia

The warm morning light illuminates the split rocks overlooking the Northern end of Little Waterloo Bay, in the Wilsons Promontory National Park. The undersides of these rocks are tannin-stained from tea tree which feeds into a nearby stream. When first light hits the rocks, they turn a rich copper colour. They are adorned with smatterings of red and orange lichen. Little Waterloo Bay is immediately to the left, and Waterloo Bay ("big" Waterloo) is in the background.

Looking at this photo, I want to go sit on that big square rock near the top of the hill which looks like a square cushion.

Tags:   16:10 3xp Australia Gav Owen HDR Little Waterloo Bay National Park Nisi 0.9 ND soft grad Sony A7RIII Sony FE PZ 16-35mm F4 G Wilsons Prom Wilsons Promontory beach blue calm cloudless first light flow glow glowing lichen morning morning light natural nature ocean outdoors polarizer rocks saltwater seascape serene split rock turquoise water Victoria camera:make=sony geo:country=australia geo:location=little waterloo bay exif:make=sony exif:lens=fe pz 16-35mm f4 g exif:model=ilce-7rm3 geo:city=wilsons promontory exif:focal_length=16 mm geo:lat=-39.06541389 camera:model=ilce-7rm3 geo:lon=146.43211667 exif:iso_speed=100 geo:state=victoria exif:aperture=ƒ / 16

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