16th Beach at Rye
Canon 5D Mk2 ISO 100 5sec @f10 82mm focal length with 3 stop ND filter
This should actually have been a writeup in the pinhole blog. I had loaded up the ONDU pinhole camera with some Fujicolor Pro 400H print film and put that in the bag with the Hasselblad 500 C/M which was packing a fresh roll of Ilford FP4+. As always I also packed in the Canon EOS 5D Mk2 just in case. As it turned out, even an hour or so after sunrise, the light was too bright for the ONDU and ISO 400 film for the long exposure I was hoping to create. I have a 3 stop ND filter that fits the Canon but no adapters to fit it on the ONDU or Hasselblad. Also, even for a “normal” exposure I was looking at a shutter opening time of only 1 sec or thereabouts with the ONDU so I decided to just check out the location and select some angles for future reference using the Canon 5D. For those of you that live in Melbourne, if you haven’t seen 16th Beach at Rye and the Dragon Head rock you should add it to your list. The tide at this time of year was low at about 6 am and doesn’t start to rise until after 9.30am when it can come up quite quickly. The sun orientation even an hour or so after sunrise was still below the cliff face behind me when I took these shots and so a lovely coloured sunrise was not in the cards for me, just a really diffuse blue light which had qualities of its own as it turned out.
To get to the rock you walk up the sandy track to a lookout and then take the stairs down to the beach. The rock formation is around the beach to your right and it is like another world around there under the deeply carved cliff face. The rock color is a deep orange brown and has a really dramatic appearance. There is another rock formation further round past the dragon head and on another visit I would like to get further round and shoot that as well.
The shorter exposure below illustrates how the blue colour builds on the longer exposure at the top of the page. I’m not big on pushing saturation in my photos and have actually backed out the blue and overall saturation of the top image to try and get a reasonably accurate green colour in the water and pull some of the clouds back to more white to neutral.
Canon 5D Mk2 ISO 100 1/100 sec @f6.3. 84mm focal length no ND filter
The shot below is taken approaching the Dragon Head from the beach. You can see just to the right the flat area where I set up my tripod for the main image at the top of the page. This was taken without the ND filter and you can see how dramatic this place can look with awesome green coloration in the ocean out the back of the swell. At high tide you can’t even see the shape of the Dragon Head rock, just part of the top of it and the ledge areas are completely submerged as well.
Canon 5D Mk2 ISO 100 1/200 sec @f11 50mm focal length no ND filter
If you go to 16th Beach, as for any activity in a tidal area at an ocean beach, please be aware that sudden large swells can swamp the area and are potentially very dangerous. Check the tide information before you go to avoid disappointment - my first visit was in the early afternoon just to locate the area and see where the sun angles and the rocks were and photographically it was a non-event. When the weather improves I hope to go back and shoot this area on the Pinhole camera and also with the Blad on monochrome film. Should make an interesting contrast. Bridgewater Bay is also nearby and now high on my list for future adventures.