Badlands Morning

On the road again, this time to Badlands National Park. Early morning insomnia made me decide to get outdoors and try various settings on my new camera.  Of course, now I am just waking up from my noon nap.

Technical: ISO 3200, ND gradient in Lightroom to lower the color temperature and exposure of the sky.

Stars over Flandrau

Moon rise was about 2 AM so a late night was the only way to get Milky Way images. It moves toward the west through the night and next time I'll try early morning to get different ground lights. I used framing to hide ground light and put a brief burst of light on the overhanging trees. WB at 3400k

Technical: highlight and white slider used to enhance Milky Way, no local adjustments used

Dealing with Light Pollution

Shooting in mixed light at night creates choices for white balance. Below are a couple choices showing the differences of 1000k. Which one is right? As in most photography the right one is the one that looks right, in this case most natural. We all know the night skbrowy is black but blue also seems to fit into this reality.  If in doubt I choose Auto WB and adjust until the colors look pleasing, a real scientific answer.

WB 5500k

WB 3800

The best solution is to minimize ground light by shooting into a false horizon like a small swale or hiding the points of light with foreground objects.

History at Night

This historic church was built in 1861 was a great playground for  photography last night. Multiple sources of light were used to create a this image. I had a bright light on the church, Sandi lit the crucifix, and the clouds reflected city lights. The fun of night photography is finding a subject in the dark. It was a perfect night to be out, more images to come.

A Wily coyote?

 

We tend to give animals human characteristics, frequently based on fictional stories. Think about the wily coyote in the Road Runner cartoons. Native Americans give the coyote supernatural properties. As with  humans generalizations can be misleading. This guy looks anything but wily or supernatural.

Sky Lights

I went to the Butternut Valley SNA a few nights ago to photograph the Milky Way in the western sky but clouds moved in and reflected all the ground lights.  To get an idea where the darkest skies are check this website: Dark Site Finder

Technical: WB 2800, shadows opened in Lightroom, light on prairie from farm lights. 2 minute exposure

A Slow Start

It has been awhile since my last post. A combination of circumstances have prevented me from getting out much. I am also concentrating on video in 2015 making the stories harder to come by and produce. Anyhow, enough excuses, this was shot last week when preparing for a night photography class. This is a composition test shot for star trails using a Canon 30D at ISO 3200.  Unfortunately I did not get a chance to do star trails that night, the joy of carrying a cell phone.

Technical: Marginally acceptable noise levels that shows how far sensors have come since the 30D was introduced.  I'm still working on the best color for the night sky. This is at about 2800k with blue saturation at near 100.

Character in the Night

I love the character of oaks, even in the winter. 

Good Night 2014

Last night was a great night to look up to the stars and reflect on memories of 2014. It was a good year. Bundle up, get outside, and look at the stars tonight. May you have a marvelous new year enjoying the beauty of nature!

Merry Christmas

It seems fitting that my 500th post be a Christmas wish.  Have a very merry Christmas and may you follow the light in the east as the wise men did so long ago.

Casper the Yellowstone Ghost

I took this shot a couple mornings ago and thought of the ancient TV show. Dawn to dusk in the mountain air is exhausting but also very refreshing. Happy Halloween!

Prairie by Moonlight

I was walking back when I noticed my shadow, time to pull the camera back out of the bag. It is not always over when the sun goes down as this 90 second exposure shows.

Technical: local highlight reduction of the moon, WB 5500k

What happened?

Do you ever look at an image and wonder what happened?  I was shooting fireworks with a 28-135 mm lens. Somewhere during the 3 second exposure I changed my mind on the focal length zooming out slightly. Was it a mistake? I prefer to call it a creative misadventure.  Before the show I spot metered the monument to determine an exposure of about 5 seconds which would keep its details while shooting in bulb mode. 

Sky Glow

Night brings a whole new perspective to the sky.  During the day we marvel at the clouds with an occasional jet intruding into our vision but at night we cannot escape the influence of man.  The nearest town of about 10,000 people is over 30 miles away. 

Technical: no local adjustments were made to the milky way

Star Trails

Shooting star trails was a mystery until I recently watched the B & H video on night photography presented by Gabe Biderman. One of the take away messages was converting exposure at ISO 6400 to exposure at ISO 100.  I may have mentioned this method on an earlier post but here it is again. Take the exposure at ISO 6400, keep the same f stop, change the ISO to 100, then covert seconds to minutes. I use aperture priority to get the initial shutter speed, then change to bulb for the actual shot. This was a 15 minute exposure facing north with a faint limb of the Milky Way and city lights showing.  The image was cropped to vertical because of the bright ground lighting to the east. Give it a try. 

Terrestrial Comets

I looked at this wondered what was going on. Any ideas? During the exposure the flashlight was above the camera causing moth wings to reflect back, much like red eye when using on camera flash. I moved the light to the side for the next shots and eliminated the problem. Another adventure in night photography.

Sir, the park is now closed.

This is another in my series of exploring the night sky. The Milky Way is a constant in the night sky so the next step is showing it over a specific location. To do this I have started using light painting  for a second or two to brighten the foreground.  

An August Night

I was shooting the prairie sunset and early night sky last night. From my location the lights of 5 different towns were visible on the horizon. Despite city lights the Milky Way was brilliant in the southern sky. This month's Outdoor Photographer ties its brightness to Sagitarrius, I'll need to look that up. Choosing the white balance for the color of the sky is perplexing since it is black. A good explanation of this can be found at: Can the night sky be "authentic?"

Full Moon over Fish Lake

I've been dabbling in night photography now that I the season has changed so I can do it and still be in bed before midnight. This was taken during the last full moon along the road near our cabin. The bright flowers are the result of light painting to give the illusion of being moonlit. Technical: f8 at 8 seconds, ISO 1600

Big Dipper in the clouds

I was processing this and noticed the big dipper in the sky. The image was taken during nautical twilight which explains the light on the western horizon. Technical: 4 minute exposure, f8, ISO 100.