I’ve been talking about Baie des Tortues (Turtle Bay) on my last couple of posts and once or twice before that, but they’ve been detail photos, except for one that was taken from this exact spot but at night, so I thought I’d share a day image of the beach of Baie des Tortues (Turtle Bay).

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The luck I had was that it was almost low tide when I took this shot, revealing the tunnel of the cliff, the Pierced Rock (la Roche Percée). Situated smack bang in the middle of the image with it’s own tiny beach in front of the entrance. At low tide you have access to the tunnel from the beach. The hole goes straight through the cliff to the other side where you join the other beach and peninsula, la Roche Percée, which you can see behind the cliff and to the right of the image. The tunnel is quite narrow and is part of the Sentier des Trois Baies (the Three Bay Trail) which includes Baie de la Roche Percée (Pierced Rock Bay), Baie des Tortues (Turtle Bay) and Baie des Amoureux (Lovers Bay). A beautiful walk if ever you have the time.

The beach behind the cliff is where I took the photo from my last post, Le Bourailais. This rock formation at the end of the cliff, known as le Bonhomme (the Man), is a landmark in New Caledonia with spiritual importance in Kanake culture. Hop over to my last post for more information on the Bonhomme de Bourail.

On the left side of the Roche Percée (Pierced Rock) cliff is an amazing 280° lookout point with a shrine dedicated to Notre Dame des Flots (Our Lady of the Waves), who watches over the ships. Magnificent views up there.

And of course, just below that is the beach of Baie des Tortues (Turtle Bay). Well known for it’s turtle nesting season in late January, early February. A beautiful little beach, very popular with the locals and tourists for picnicking. Not a bad spot for a romantic sunset either.

This shot was taken from the Route de la Baies des Amoureux (Lovers Bay Road). This small section of the road is part of the Sentier des Trois Baies (the Three Bay Trail), mentioned above. Two photos were taken to make this image. A long exposure of 10 seconds to smooth out the clouds and water, and a shorter 1/8th second exposure to capture the cliff side when the sun shone on it. It was cloudy and rain was on it’s way, as you can see from the top left of the image, but the sky opened long enough on the horizon to provided me with this beautiful light. I blended the 1/8th exposure on to the 10 second exposure in Photoshop and finished editing in Lightroom. Mainly just accentuating the cliff side, beach and water.

So there you go, the gorgeous Turtle Bay in Bourail, New Caledonia. This whole area is worth a visit if ever you’re round the corner.

An early morning rise in hopes of seeing baby turtles but no such luck. A beautiful, clear sky though gave me the opportunity to tryout and test my LEE Filters. One of the subjects was this guy, le Bonhomme, a well known Bouraillais. This post is a follow up of my last one where I spoke about Turtle Bay, located just behind this rock formation.

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Le Bonhomme de Bourail (the Man of Bourail) is a famous monolithe of quartz shaped by the waves at high tide and under threat of collapsing by those same waves eroding it’s base. It is said to resemble the profile of a man’s head wearing a hat and with the water hole next to it, it has spiritual importance in Kanak culture. Few have met their demise here, the powerful suction of the water hole dragging them under, trapping them in the caves below, disappearing forever.

The Bonhomme is located between the Roche Percée peninsula (Pierced Rock) and Baie des Tortues (Turtle Bay) near the village of Bourail. Only a couple of hours drive north from Noumea, it is a popular place for tourists and locals alike, and especially surfers as it is one of the only surf beaches in New Caledonia.

To achieve the 2 second exposure on this photo I had to use my Little Stopper from LEE Filters. A neutral density filter that cuts down 6 stops of light. I also used their ND0.9 soft graduated neutral density filter to cut down 3 stops of light in the sky, giving me a balanced exposure with the foreground still in shadows. Though I focused before putting the filters on, I must have touched ever so slightly the focus ring as the Bonhomme is not as sharp as I would like. A silly mistake but one nonetheless. I had converted this image to black & white but I prefer the contrast of the golden glow on the rock formation to the cooler water and sky. It’s more pleasant to the eye and the reason why I photographed it in the first place. Glad I captured a bit of reflection on the bottom of the image too as it helps to lead the viewer’s eye to the monolithe.

Anyway, that’s it for me my friends, hope to see you on the next post. À bientôt.

Though I don’t take enough of them, I do love long exposures. The effect it has on the elements, the mood it gives a scene, how it can transform the ordinary into the surreal and the way it shows time differently. Here is an example of what I’m talking about.

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This is the north end of Baie des Tortues (Turtle Bay) located in Bourail next to La Roche Percée (Pierced Rock). Only a two hour drive from Noumea, the Capital of New Caledonia. This area is very popular with tourists and locals and renowned for two landmarks, the Roche Percée (Pierced Rock) and the Bonhomme (the Man). The Roche Percée is a peninsula and a detached suburb of Bourail, known as one of the only surf spots in New Caledonia. And, it is also a cliff with a hole that runs through it from the Roche Percée beach to Baie des Tortues beach, accessible only at low tides. The Bonhomme is a huge monolith of hard quartz sculpted by the waves to resemble a man’s head wearing a hat. Those same waves render it vulnerable as they erode the base threatening it’s collapse. The waves have already eroded a good part of the cliff mentioned above. A yearly phenomenon also occurs on these same two beaches in late January, early February… turtle nesting season.

The nesting season was one of the reasons we were up here and photography was another of those reasons. We’d decided to go for a stroll along the beach of Turtle Bay and maybe capture a sunset. No such luck with that but I did come home with this blue hour photograph. The two minute long exposure turned this frantic scene of choppy waters and threatening clouds into a calm, tranquil, minimalist image. Even the colours are minimal with their tones of blue and the faint touch of orange/red in the sky. The two minute exposure wouldn’t have been possible without the Little Stopper, a 6 stop neutral density filter, from LEE Filters. Without it, only a two second exposure was possible and wouldn’t have given me that misty water and silky smooth clouds. Except for a lot of cleaning up, there was very little editing done. I did edit a black and white version but I felt the contrast was too harsh and thus stuck with the subtler blue tone version.

I’ll edit a photo of the Bonhomme I took about a week before this one and share it on the next blog post. Hope you’ll check it out. Ciao for now.

La Roche Percée, Bourail

Second week of our slow exit from confinement and people are starting to forget to implement the protective measures that are still very important.

Back in October I wrote a blog post about getting a new camera setup and trying astro-photography. This is one of those photos I captured. I’ve looked at this photos a few times but it was only on my last edit check that I realised I had captured, not only, the Milky Way but the Southern Cross as well. And that’s because of the research I did for a recent blog post, Celestial Confinement, where I learned to use Alpha Centauri AB and the Southern Cross to find the South Celestial Pole.

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In January of last year, I spent a few days with my friend, who was minding a house here, at La Roche Percée. Located on the coast of Bourail which is about a two hour drive north of Noumea. It’s a very popular area with one of New Caledonia’s renowned landmark, Le Bonhomme. Plenty of accommodation, from camping to four star hotel, around the area. Lots to do as well.

It was turtle nesting season and I went out in hopes of seeing baby turtles. No such luck but since there was a fairly clear sky filled with stars, I decided to test my new camera setup (the Sony A7 III with the Tamron E 28-75mm ƒ/2.8 Di III RXD lens) and my hand at capturing the night sky. I admit, I could’ve taken my time to find a better foreground interest but, in my defence, I just wanted to see how well I could capture the stars with my setup.

I hadn’t planned this shot at all. It was a spur of the moment thing when I saw the Milky Way above me. So I set my tripod right where I was and took several exposures with different settings. I noticed the longest exposure I could take without creating star trails was 15 seconds with an ISO of 6400. A longer exposure would create oval shaped stars, especially in the corners, the beginning of star trails. This shot is a 10 second exposure with ISO at a whopping 12,800. Not necessary at all but I wanted to see the amount of noise I’d get with a long exposure. Very little noticeable noise in the sky though very noticeable in the foreground. For best results, a second, very long exposure would’ve been needed for a cleaner and brighter foreground.

I looked at a lot of tutorials on how to edit the Milky Way and it took me a long time and many trials before finding my own editing process and achieve something I was happy with. No fancy Photoshop edit, just some Lightroom brush work.

It was once the photo was ready for sharing that I recognised the two bright stars of Alpha Centauri AB at the bottom of the Milky Way, and the Southern Cross just above it. I was so stoked. This, of course, was thanks to research I did a few weeks ago for my blog post Celestial Confinement. I have to say, this photo means a lot more to me now.

I got a little too excited and provided the illustrated photo to the right for those who are not into astrology. I hope you find this fascinating though or, at least, interesting. Especially for you amateurs and enthusiasts out there, who are getting into this kind of photography. Taking beautiful photos is great but having knowleadge what you’re I think it gives more meaning to your photos. Let me know what you think over on Twitter at @Hervouet.

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Now please everyone, whether you’re still in auto-confinement or not, make sure you’re implementing the protective measures of washing hands, social distancing, no touching, coughing and sneezing in your elbow and when possible wear a mask and gloves. Stay safe.

SONY a7 III

A full-frame, mirrorless DSLR from the Sony Alpha series cameras.

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TAMRON STANDARD ZOOM LENS

Tamron E 28-75 mm ƒ/2.8 Di III RXD standard zoom lens for E-mount cameras.

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VANGUARD TRIPOD

Vanguard VEO 235AB 5 section tripod with TBH-50 ball head.

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L-BRACKET

L-bracket / plate for Sony Alpha series cameras.

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SANDISK EXTREME PRO

128GB Extreme Pro SDXC memory card from SanDisk.

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LETMY HEADLAMP

LED headlamp from Letmy with white and red light.

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La Roche Percée, Bourail

This time last year I was at La Roche Percée with a friend who was minding a house just beyond those trees on the far side of the beach. I took advantage of the opportunity to try out the Sony a7 III with the Tamron E 28-75 mm ƒ/2.8 Di III RXD standard zoom lens, that I had bought the month before. No dramatic nor spectacular sunrise that morning but, nonetheless, came away with this tranquil black & white image.

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To get to La Roche Percée, you need to go to Bourail first, which is about two hours drive from Noumea, on the west coast. From there you head west by making a left turn onto a road situated just after the bridge (at the entrance of Bourail village) and opposite the Hotel La Nera. Then just follow the road till you see a sign for La Roche Percée and the Bonhomme de Bourail. There’s also a sign at the bridge for the turn off. The Bonhomme de Bourail is a landmark in New Caledonia and so is the beach but also the, actual, pierced rock. A cliff side situated next to the landmark with a, well, whole in it. At low tide you can walk through to Turtle Bay on the other side. The far end of La Roche Percée is popular with surfers and boogie boarders. It’s one of the rare beaches in New Caledonia to have waves. Another reason for me being here, apart the one mentioned above, was the hope to see, at least, one turtle lay her eggs on the beach. It was the time of season and the peninsular is THE place for this event. Up to three hundred turtles have been recorded to nest here in one season. Just amazing. Apart from seeing a few nests around, I didn’t see any turtles at all. My friend and her kids, on the other hand, saw baby turtles race to the water. So lucky. Yes, I’m jealous.

Because it had been raining on and off for the last few days, I had hopes for a dramatic sunrise. Of course, it was nothing of the like. Apart from a few clouds rolling in from the east, it was clear skies everywhere else but I took a few photos nonetheless. For this image I used the Lee Little Stopper (a 6-stop Neutral Density filter) to get a long exposure and a Lee ND.9 Soft Grad. (a 3-stop Neutral Density soft gradient filter) to tone down the bright sky. I don’t have a lot of filters and this was probably my second time using them. I had to try them out and get used to them if I want to take full advantage of it. I was pretty happy with the results. I didn’t do a lot of editing, just adjusted my White Balance before converting to black & white then I just dropped the Highlights and brought out the Shadows. Brushed a bit of Texture over the rocks in the foreground to make them stand out more and a Radial Filter with a bit of Exposure to lighten up just a touch the bottom two thirds of the image. That’s it.

The black & white conversion made for stronger and prominent features. In colour, the image was bland and not very pretty. The conversion also seem to make the image more peaceful, isolated, minimalist. There’s nothing great about this shot but there’s something about it that makes me like it.

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SONY A7 III

24MP Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera (Body Only)

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TAMRON 28-75MM Ƒ2.8

Sony E-Mount Lens

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LEE LITTLE STOPPER

6-Stop Neutral Density Filter

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LEE FIRECREST ND.9 SOFT GRAD

3-Stop Neutral Density Soft Gradient Filter

Bourail, New Caledonia

Situated on the shores of one of the world's largest lagoons, the Sheraton New Caledonia Deva Spa & Golf Resort is one of the more luxurious and isolated hotels in New Caledonia. I’ve never stayed here but I have popped in two or three times for a meal or a drink whilst staying in the area. This was one of those time.

A friend was house-sitting at La Roche Percée which I took advantage of to do some astrophotography. Not a lot of light pollution around these parts. You may have seen a photo from an earlier post, The Man Between The Milky Way & Turtle Bay. We came here to checkout a lookout from one of the hiking trails behind the hotel. Magnificent views of Deva Domaine, the lagoon and the Sheraton. We had lunch there once we’d finished wandering around.

I only took my camera to the lookout. A decision I regretted as I took this shot. Wishing I had my polarised filter with me. The water looked very flat, colourless and had no definition even after my global edits in Lightroom. To my surprise though, I was able to recover a lot of it by selectively using the Dehaze slider. Now that’s what I saw when I shot this image. A beautiful view of the Sheraton New Caledonia Deva Spa & Golf Resort and our stunning, world renowned lagoon.

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28 mm, 1/640th second @ ƒ/11, ISO 400

Bourail, New Caledonia

When I got my new camera, the Sony a7 III with the Tamron 28-75, at the end of last year, I was eager to try my hand at astrophotography. I wanted to capturing our Galaxy, the Milky Way, in all it’s glory. The opportunity came in early February when my best friend, Géraldine, was minding a house in Bourail. A two hour drive from Noumea. A beautiful little beach-house situated only metres from the Roche Percée Beach. So I stayed there over two weekends, wandering off in the middle of the night, shooting the stars. I was quite lucky to have clear skies and the Milky Way close to where I wanted it. Especially for an unplanned shoot.

The very first thing I realised was that 28 mm wasn’t wide enough. I needed a wider lens, 21 maybe even 18 mm, but it’s all I have so I had to make do. I didn’t count on the moon rising from that direction either. And almost a full moon too. Not to mention the very bright star/planet but, that, I actually like. It took me a few trials and errors to get the exposure I needed to avoid star-trails. For this scene it was around 5 to 8 seconds of exposure with an ISO of 6400 and a wide open aperture of ƒ/2.8. It’s the best image I came home with, out of the half dozen I took over the two weekends. It’s not a large portion of the Galaxy but I’m happy with it yet definitely not satisfied with the results. I had a very hard time editing it and had to do some research on post-processing these kinds of images. I need more practice and experiment more with astrophotography. Never stop learning, right?

The beach at the bottom of the image is Turtle Bay and behind the cliff is Roche Percée Beach (very popular with surfers). Both are well known for turtle hatching which we were right in the middle of. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any but Géraldine and her two girls did. Every year, hundreds of turtles lay their eggs here, which produce thousands of baby turtles. It takes 45 days for the eggs to hatch so both beaches are patrolled every night for about six to eight weeks. Making sure the turtles, the nests and babies aren’t interfered with in any way. Keeping this area a sanctuary for these incredible creatures.

Carved from the natural erosion of the waves, the weird looking rock formation at the end of the cliff is Le Bonhomme. A landmark in Bourail and New Caledonia. There’s a lookout at the top of the cliff but unfortunately part of it is closed off now due to erosion at the base causing the edge to collapse. Still worth the walk or drive up there as the views are just magnificent.

I haven’t had the chance to photograph the stars since but I hope to in the next month or so. Fingers crossed.

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28 mm, 5 seconds @ ƒ/2.8, ISO 6400

I was lucky the rain had stopped so that I could photograph sunrise and if you look back at my last post, I think I captured a nice image. Overhead though the rain had come back and I quickly packed up my gear, as it’s not weather sealed, and took cover under a nearby tree. I was hoping the rain would stop long enough for me to head back to the camp site for hot coffee and breakfast. I was starting to get very hungry. The rain had almost stopped and I was about to make a run for it when this beautiful rainbow appeared. With the dark clouds and the sun hitting the top of them it made for quite a dramatic scene.

I had to try to capture it. I hurried back to the water and quickly setup my gear in fear the rainbow would disappear. With the top of the image and the foreground very bright, and the bottom of the clouds and background quite dark, I thought the contrast might be too much for a single exposure. I told myself to just take the shot so I at least have something and if I have the time, to capture two different exposures. One for the bright areas, the other for the dark areas so that I can blend them together later. I timed the shots to capture movement in the water as it was retreating over the coral/rock. I only caught the end of the rainbow as it was already fading by the time I had setup. Everything happened quickly but I’m glad I was able to get my three exposures.

So this photo is the result of blending the highlight and shadow exposures. The blending and edits were very quick and the photo is fairly accurate to what I saw. I did edit the single exposure as well but I wasn’t able to reproduce the same results. Well not in the same time frame anyway.

 Anyway, another souvenir of Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) captured and a unique one at that.

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1/16th @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

Even though my tent was only fifty metres away from Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) I set my alarm to wake an hour before sunrise. Hoping to capture an image during blue hour. Unfortunately the alarm woke me to rain. Now I’m not an early morning kind of person and going to bed late the night before didn’t help but rain?! Nooo!!! I was determined to capture images of Poé though so I stayed awake, hoping the rain would stop. And forty-five minutes later, it did. About ten minutes after that the clouds opened up. Time to shoot! Blue hour was gone and golden hour was in full swing so I had to hurry to find a composition.

I had to walk up the beach a little before finding this dead coral, I think it’s coral, rock? Anyway, it would make for an interesting foreground. All I had to do now was to wait for the water to wash over the coral/rock and snap a shot. The line of the water would lead the eye towards the surveillance cabin and then the sky. And it worked quite well. I’m very happy with the photo.

I wanted to take a few more shots but the rain came back and my gear isn’t weather sealed so I packed up and took cover under a tree. And guess what I saw?… Check out my next post.

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1/60th sec @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

Following on from my last post, I walked over to Poe Beach (Bourail, New Caledonia) and tried to capture stars above the seascape. In this scene I really wanted to avoid trailing stars and try to capture pin sharp ones and lots of them. To do that I needed a faster shutter speed than my last photo Poe Trail, that is an eight minutes exposure and bring that down to eight seconds or round about. Doing that meant I needed to bump up my ISO and I thought about opening up the aperture but I wasn’t sure I could get the foreground and the stars in focus if I did. So I left it at ƒ/11 but even now I’m not sure if that I a good idea or not. Unfortunately the higher ISO introduce too much noise, the faster shutter speed gave me a dark exposure and a slower one, star trails.

So this photo is the best (of the worst) that I was able to capture. Again, a super long exposure of eight minutes and yes, star trails too. I light painted the foreground though in this photo. The image was a little flat and I wanted to give it a little more depth and hope it would balance the foreground with the billions of stars in the sky… yeah, that didn’t quite happen. I think the slow passing clouds prevented the capture of all those beautiful stars I could see. I like the light painting though. Not too much, not too little. It seems natural, no?!

Well, though I had a lot of fun trying to capture the night sky, there was tomorrow’s sunrise to photograph so back to the tent I went.

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480 sec (8 mins) @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

So from where the photo was taken on my last post, this view would be about thirty-five/forty metres behind me. From this photo, the Camping de Némo is on the left, Poé Beach on the right and I’m standing in the middle of the road that runs through the Camping de Poé along the beach.

I wanted to use this road as a leading line to a night sky with billions of stars and use the full moon to illuminate the foreground but this was the best I could do. I experimented with different settings but all the images were either too noisy or too dark and all had a lot of speckles. As with this one and another similar photo that I will share on my next post. My entry level camera isn’t very good in low light and I haven’t got any experience in this genre either. But I had lots of fun and will definitely give it another go.

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480 sec (8 mins) @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100

Back in April a friend of mine had friends visiting from France. They were going to tour around the island for a couple weeks. Their first stopover was the Sheraton Deva Spa & Golf Resort (Bourail, New Caledonia). It fell on a long weekend for us and my friend wanted to head up and spend some time with them. We didn’t stay at the resort as we are both saving money for an upcoming vacation. So we decided to try a camp site we had never been to called Camping de Némo.

It’s located just behind Camping de Poé and only a five minute drive to the resort. I must admit, upon arrival, I wasn’t to thrilled about the camp site. Though it’s limited to twenty or so tents, the area is quite small. Poé Beach is only fifty metres away, which is great, but you have to cross Camping de Poé to get to it. I would have preferred to camp closer to the beach but my friend had her two girls with her and the camping de Némo is family oriented. In the end it was a better choice. Not only because her kids met and played with other kids but because they have a fantastic bar/snack. Including the friends from France, we all ended up dining there that night and I think I speak for all of us when I say we highly recommend it. They have a nice variety of dishes to choose from that are well presented with a good serving and scrumptiously delicious. The service was good and so was the price. Well worth a try.

And talking about trying, I tried to take a photo of the camp site without annoying or disrupting anyone and this was the best I could do. You can see the elevated bar/snack in the background. I stayed up late trying to snap some photos of the night sky and though I’m not too thrilled about the images, I will share them with you in upcoming posts. Just to show you what wasn’t too far away.

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120 sec (2 mins) @ ƒ/11, 18 mm, ISO 100