Photographing the Walpeup Silo

About Walpeup Silo

Walpeup is a small town about 15km west of Ouyen in the Northwest of Victoria. This is one of the most northern silos on the silo trail. The silos were painted by Julian Clavijo and Camil Delgado.

Viewpoints

The silos are on the northern side of the B12 Mallee Highway, and there is plenty of parking at the side of this road. There are trees beside the road, so you certainly cant step back from the silos too far before you will have trees in the frame. There is also a fence behind the trees, and prior to the silos. The viewpoints are therefore limited to several places where you can stand in front of the fence, and between the trees. Thankfully the silo art has been designed to be viewed from here, so this works well.

How I photographed the Walpeup Silo

What I took - what was in my kit

I took my LowePro Backpack loaded with Canon 5DSR body, Canon 24-70mm, handheld. I shot the various photos hand held, as the day was bright, and I could keep the shutter speed high enought to avoid blurring due to movement. I shot at ISO 100 to reduce the noise as much as possible, f7.1 (it was meant to be f8, but clearly I moved it and did not notice) to get as much depth of field as possible, without introducing diffraction; and 1/125 sec shutter speed to get the exposure correct (slightly to the right). The focal length was 24mm.

Techniques

Expose to the right

Exposing to the right means slightly over-exposing an image on purpose. The reason for this is simply that the sensor in your camera is not 'balanced' in the sense of recording as much data in the darker areas as in the lighter areas. It records more data in the brighter areas. By over exposing in camera, and the darkening in post processsing, more data can be recorded in the darker areas of the image.

Using low ISO

'ISO' used to refer to the light sensitivity of various films. ISO 50 film is very light insensitive, and requires comparitively long exposures. It does however (Fuji Velvia 50) have very little grain. Most film was 100-200 ISO. ISO 400 - 1000 films were 'fast' films used for low light or when high speed was necessary. They were generally more grainy (noisy) that ISO 100 films. In digital cameras, we can vary the ISO of the sensor by varying the gain used when reading the sensor. However, like film, the more gain we use, the more noise we introduce. My cameras go from ISO 100 - ISO 51,200. At the high end, they can almost photograph in the dark, but the image quality is low (noisy). At around ISO 100 - 300, there is very little noise, but more light is required.

Other things to look out for

If a photographer has traveled 4 hours from Melbourne to the 'Western District', then it would be a shame not to check out: Lascelles Silo, Albacutya Silo, Lake Tyrell, Lake Boga Silo, etc.

Location

29 Mallee Highway, Walpeup, Vic 3491
///lament.vortex.precluded (-35.384388866805594, 142.18691541255524)