14 August 2024
While in Kalbarri I made contact with Blue Tongue Photography Tours regarding a photo tour in Kalbarri. While that didn’t work out (they were in a remote location at the time and didn’t reply to my email until too late), I was able to arrange to join them on a star photography + sunrise photography session at the Pinnacles Desert — part of Nambung National Park and just outside Cervantes (around 2 hours drive north of Perth).
In addition to being with some other avid photographers, the added bonuses of this tour were that a) lunch at the famous Lobster Shack in Cervantes was included, and b) Nicole could accompany us as an observer (including lunch) at a very reasonable price.
The lunch out on the deck at the Lobster Shack on a beautiful sunny day was fantastic, giving us the chance to meet our guide and the four others on the tour.
One of the tour members, from Germany, brought her lovely family along for lunch. Husband and wife plus two school aged daughters will be spending five weeks in Australia — two weeks driving from Perth to Broome (2,350 km), then another two weeks driving from Cairns to Brisbane (1,700 km). I hope they survive as a family after spending all that time in a car together!
After lunch we headed into the Pinnacles Desert. There is a quite accessible loop around the Pinnacles (dirt track) that gives you a chance to have a good look at the various formations. There are then a number of areas where you can park up and wander in to see them more closely. They really are unique and amazing to look at. They’re almost like people standing around in little groups, such are the subtle differences between each.
We had a good chance to scope out good formations to photograph before sunset, then got into the swing of things through the Golden Hour and Blue Hour. As usual, we had an amazing sunset — you really do get the best sunsets over here in the western coast of Australia.
While Nicole was an observer, she did have some fun photographing the Pinnacles with her iPhone. Nicole may have been feeling a bit bored (or perhaps, very excited) when she asked for these photos to be taken. Enough said …
Then it was into the star photography portion of the evening. I used to do a fair bit of this type of photography in Rockhampton, with a camera and lens combination better suited to the task. But that was a while ago, and I’m quite out of practice.
Our guide gave us the basics and a rough direction to shoot in, so off we went. He also mentioned that we might get some faint view of the Borealis Australis (we didn’t, but that may have been our ineptitude).
To photograph the Milky Way you need to wind up the sensitivity of the camera (the ISO) quite a bit, then leave the shutter open for at least 20 seconds. The problem is that you want as little unwanted light around during that 20 seconds as possible. Unfortunately, there seemed to be a car leaving the area — with high beam and/or spotlights on — every few minutes. We also had to contend with other people in our group turning torches on etc etc etc.
One type of light that we did want during the ‘shutter open’ time is for some light painting. This is where, during that 20 seconds the shutter is open, someone quickly shines a bit of light on the foreground elements – in this case the Pinnacles formations. This allows you to see those foreground items in the image, as well exposing correctly for the Milky Way. You can see some examples below.
Overall, I was reasonably happy with the star photography results, but there’s still lots of room for improvement. Lucky I’ve got plenty of time for that!
Nicole also had a swing at star photography with her iPhone. We were both very impressed with the results.
Very early the next morning (around 4:30am — yawn) we were up and getting ready to head back out for our Sunrise Shoot. It was cold, but not unbearably so. And, once again, we had glorious weather.
Once the sun comes up over the horizon, it’s pretty much “that’s all she wrote” in terms of photography, so we ended up back in Cervantes in time for a nice breakfast at the caravan park’s cafe.
All in all, it was a fantastic way to see the Pinnacles, with the bonus of having some great photos to take away as memories.
Next, it’s on to Perth …
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