Thursday 14 February 2013

Murrays Beach and Belmont on Lake Macquarie

Lachlan and I went down to Murrays Beach on the shores of the beautiful Lake Macquarie for a Photo Safari last week. He also has a Canon 600D and was eager to get some shots.

Murrays 'Beach' is not actually much of a beach. More a rocky type shore on the lake. It does, however, have some awesome walking paths through bush along those shores and a large pier for boats and fishing. 


It's a relatively new suburb (last 10 years?) with modern eco friendly houses built amongst the eucalyptus trees and scrub. Although it looks lovely, it would be a big concern during a bush fire. There is also one road in and out which also would be a bush fire concern but I guess if that ever happened, the lake would be the other means of escape. 


After Murrays Beach we took off to Belmont to catch the sunset there. Belmont is an awesome location for sunset photos; the yacht club, people fishing off the wharf, the swimming area. It is very popular with walkers, families use the BBQ facilities and, photographers go there to conduct trials on their new filters (ha ha!) Yes, I put on the ND8 filter for the sunset photos. I had originally mounted it on top of my Circular Polarizer filter, but at the widest angle on my 18-55 zoom, there was some very noticeable vignetting and I could actually see the filter on the corners. A little disappointing but this is how we learn through trial and error.


As I have mentioned before in a previous blog entry, the ND8 filter really highlights the golden tones of sunset; they look superb!  One of my fave photos taken on this safari is of the little boy running down the wharf to his mum. The long exposure required because of the ND8 filter captured the movement of him running in a part silhouette. I was a little disappointed that there were no clouds that afternoon. There was a stiff breeze blowing over the lake and the long exposure times would have captured some beautiful cloud movement. Maybe next time!


With the photos taken at Murrays Beach, I have changed them into B&W. The first photo in this gallery, of the fishermen in their boat, was actually the overexposed shot of 3 bracketed exposures that I had intended to merge as a HDR. Even at a fast shutter speed for the bracketed shots, the movement of the boat did not ensure a sharp alignment of the boat for the merge. When viewing the 3 shots, I liked the silhouette of the fishermen against the blown out background of the sun reflecting off the water. I highlighted the ripples in the water and the trees in the background using the burn tool. I really like the way it has come out considering I had never planned for that in the first place!


Lotta things happening on this Earth recently. I hope you are all safe and well!


Until next time..............




 Jordy












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