Just a quick blog post while we’re checked in here at Sault Ste Marie – this is what I got after stacking all 116 of the shots from last night :)
Posts Tagged 'night photography'
Star Stack
Published October 7, 2012 Photography , Travels Leave a CommentTags: canon 7d, night photography, photography, stack, stars
North Ontario Road Trip – Day 1, Manitoulin Island
Published October 7, 2012 Photography , Travels 4 CommentsTags: Manitouln Island, night photography, Ontario, photography, stars, travel, video
Well, actually Day 1 was Tobermory, but we arrived so late at night and left so early that we really didn’t get to see much. This morning we drove down to the ferry docks to catch the Chichiman Ferry to South Baymouth. It was a great ride – bumpy and queasy and we both fell asleep :)
Manitoulin island is gorgeous, and fall is in full swing here. The colours are out of this world. Even with the on/off rain we got some amazing shots in. We drove around, visiting Bridal Veil Falls and the towns of Gore Bay, Mindemoya, and Little Current.
Tonight we drove out and sat in the cold for 2 hours testing out the new timed shutter release I bought for the camera. The release let me take a photo every 45 seconds, after which I strung them together, and finally purchased the video upgrade for my blog so my first video is at the end of the post!
What I find the most fascinating is not only getting to watch our movement through the Milky Way, but the change in the sky colour and brightness that occurred as the moon rose – proving what a huge difference moonlight makes to your camera settings. We can’t wait to try this out with (hopefully) northern lights!
You can bet I’m collecting leaves for jewellery :)
And now – the video!
Sunspot AR 1520
Published July 15, 2012 Photography 92 CommentsTags: AR 1520, aurora borealis, Canada, Freshly Pressed, night photography, Northern Lights, Ontario, photography, toronto
Tito and I went north again last night – in hopes of aurora hunting after sunspot AR 1520 delivered a massive X-class flare directly to earth.
We’re getting quite adept at finding these things ;) We got our best shots not 1.5 hours from downtown Toronto – just outside of Barrie, south of Mt. St. Louis Moonstone.
We cursed every time a car or truck passed us on the highway, but to our delight when processing these turned out to be the best shots!
I apologize for the image-heavy post – there were so many winners it was very hard to pare it down to a few favourites.
We call this the ‘light saber’ shot ;)
This was one of Tito’s favourites. Incidentally we’re blogging together this morning!
We couldn’t believe how bright they were. Waving and flickering were visible to the naked eye, even from a busy highway.
After leaving that spot we pulled off on Mt. St. Louis Moonstone road for a few more shots, this time off the highway. We had some very nice and perplexed ATV riders stop to ask if we were ok. They’re unlikely to be reading this, but if they are, thank you, that was very kind.
Here is the real gem of the night: The northern lights, the Milky Way and a shooting star. All in one shot. Score. It reminds me of one of our favourite sayings – great shots come when the photographers are willing to put themselves out there over and over again – when everyone else has gone home because it’s late, cold, wet etc. I was so tired last night that I considered turning back, Tito was the one to remind me of why we keep going out :)
This was a 2 photo stitch where we got the entire milky way galaxy into the shot. For those interested I am shooting tonight with my Canon 7D, and a lens that I didn’t really expect much from: the Rokinon 8mm fisheye. It was only $300, so I was skeptical about its performance, but thought it might be fun to have a fisheye. For $300 I am totally impressed and absolutely recommend it to anyone looking for an affordable novelty lens.
After we left that spot we ended up meandering towards Midland ON, up near Penetanguishene. We passed a very strange little cemetery, with little lights on every grave. Reminded me of Noma Moonrays, remember them? We took a long exposure while painting the cross with a little flashlight.
By this time it was 3:30 in the morning. A trip out to the edge of Georgian Bay left us in the middle of a residential area, so we turned back for the night, arriving home at 5:30 am, satisfied and humbled by the light show we witnessed. Despite my being in the middle of a massive project (which is why I haven’t blogged in a week, sorry about that) I think we might actually go out again tonight. How can I resist?
Just a shot of my beautiful city…
Published June 7, 2012 Photography 5 CommentsTags: night photography, photography, toronto
Blogging from Calgary tonight, and feeling totally beat. It’s 12:30 am according to my body, and I’m getting up at 4:30 to shoot the blue hour. However, I am travelling and shooting and being paid to do my 2 favourite things, so I can hardly complain about being tired. Oh, and I got a new video tripod today that is just the bees knees, time to buy the wordpress video upgrade!
In the meantime I leave you with a photo I took last night, from the roof of 20 Bay Street, of beautiful Toronto.
Random things concerning the sky
Published March 5, 2012 Photography 2 CommentsTags: aurora, night photography, photography, skies
First, and perhaps most importantly, check out spaceweather.com. Looks like a decent chance of aurora tonight, so if you live in a northern latitude, keep your eyes on the sky for the next few days! If it stays clear I think Tito and I will head north tonight. Perhaps we’ll luck out again like we did with this gem:
Secondly – there was a stunning halo around the moon last night here in Toronto. Did anyone else catch this beauty?
Here’s what wikipedia has to say about moon halos:
A halo from Greek ἅλως; also known as a nimbus, icebow or gloriole) is an optical phenomenon produced by ice crystals creating colored or white arcs and spots in the sky. Many are near the sun or moon but others are elsewhere and even in the opposite part of the sky. They can also form around artificial lights in very cold weather when ice crystals called diamond dust are floating in the nearby air.
Pretty cool, huh?
Thirdly, I had the silliest nightmare. I dreamt that Tito and I were out on the town without my camera. I looked up and there was the CN tower, during the blue hour, with the milky way glowing behind it, and the northern lights on the horizon. I panicked and needed to run home and get my camera but thing after silly thing prevented me from getting there before the entire phenomenon had faded away. I even woke up mad.
To make myself feel better I photoshopped together an image of what my dream might have looked like in the impossible event of
- blue hour
- big city
- milky way
- northern lights
… all showing up at once!
Enjoy the skies for the next few days! Looks like there might be some great shots out there just waiting for an intrepid photographer :)
Photo-Take-Outter Friday #4 – Star photography
Published March 2, 2012 Photo-Take-Outter Friday! 6 CommentsTags: night photography, photography, stars
Star photography and northern light hunting is a favourite hobby of ours. I love long exposure shots (and that feeling when you hold your breath and wait to see what the photo will look like). Here are a few of my favourite images, and what I did to get them:
To avoid repetition: all of these photos are taken using a Canon 7D, tripod mounted and using a remote release to make sure
- that I didn’t move the camera at all, even just to press the shutter button, and
- that I had the ability to lock the shutter down for extended periods
Nobel, Ontario – just north of Parry Sound.
This shot got me freshly pressed – thanks wordpress! I lied earlier about all of them using tripods – believe it or not this was dashboard mounted instead. By mounted I mean propped up using mittens and knitting. It was so windy that I didn’t think the camera could be still long enough, and yes, I am shooting through the windshield.
- Exposure time: 20 minutes
- ISO: I’m using an ISO of 100 – anything higher and the shot would have blown out over such a long period.
- Lens: Tokina 12-24, f4.0 wide angle
- f-stop: Wide open baby! As it should always be for long exposure star shots. On my lens this meant f4.0
- White Balance: Set to auto – there was a slight glow on the horizon from aurora and I didn’t want to compromise that.
- Camera Mode: BULB. Bulb means that the shutter is open as long as you have your finger on the shutter button, or as long as you have your remote locked. On other models you go to MANUAL and roll right on past the 30 second shutter mark, the next increment will just say ‘bulb’.
- Post Production: Almost none – the stars were so clear already, and there was no noise thanks to the 100 ISO. I used a high pass filter just to pop the stars a bit more and that was it.
Tobermory, Ontario
For this shot I had the luxury of being in a beautiful B&B living room with a huge picture window facing west. The camera is on a tripod and shooting through glass. When you shoot through glass always make sure nothing on your camera is causing a reflection – in this case I had to use a toque to cover up the red shutter lamp on the back.
- Exposure time: 20 minutes
- ISO: I’m using an ISO of 100 – anything higher and the shot would have blown out over such a long period.
- Lens: Tokina 12-24, f4.0 wide angle
- f-stop: I squeezed it down to f6.0 for this one, because I knew I was going for a long exposure and I didn’t want the shot to overexpose.
- White Balance: Set to tungsten. I was trying to compromise for the lights of a house near me and the result was this gorgeous blue.
- Camera Mode: BULB.
- Post Production: None. I was absolutely delighted when I saw the shot :)
Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia
This shot is a 3 photo vertical stitch of the Milky Way. It was beautifully clear that night and I had to get as much into one photo as I could. This was taken from the grounds of Fort Anne.
- Exposure time: 3 shots at 20 seconds each. Because I was stitching afterwards I didn’t want the stars to ‘streak’.
- ISO: 500 – I needed to get them as bright as I could without needing a really long shutter
- Lens: Canon 24mm f2.8 prime
- f-stop: f2.8, again because they were such short shots.
- White Balance: Auto
- Camera Mode: Manual
- Post Production: 3 photo vertical stitch (no tricks needed for the stitch, photoshops default was perfect) Noise reduction was also needed because of the ISO 500.
Hopefully that was useful to aspiring star photographers out there – if you take your own star pics and feel like sharing I’d love to see them :)
The Hunt for Winter
Published February 22, 2012 Photography , Travels 123 CommentsTags: aurora, Freshly Pressed, night photography, Northern Lights, Ontario, parry sound, photography, stars, travel
This is the winter that wasn’t. At least, here in TO it wasn’t. We’re not used to this total lack of winter and last weekend Tito and I drove out in search of ice and snow because, dammit, we miss it. We ended up heading north into Parry Sound – as a bonus the northern lights made a surprise appearance!
We passed a frozen lake covered in skidoo tracks. It reminded me of a cute story my dad told me about coming to Canada in 1972. He had worked in India as a motorcycle repairman, so when he moved to Ottawa he looked for the same kind of work. Finally he got his first job in Canada. He showed up on his first day and they took him to his first job and it was … a skidoo. He stared blankly at it for a few minutes before looking at his boss and saying “What the %@!* is that?”. The story always makes me laugh :)
What a great day for a road trip, the sky was that endless sort of blue that you feel you could fall up into.
At blue hour I took this shot – the 2 bright things in the sky are Venus (the lower one) and Jupiter.
We went northern light hunting at night without much hope of success – but then there they were. I remind myself that sometimes the shot you want happens when you least expect it. They were faint, true, and visible to the camera more than to our eyes, but they were there. This was a 15 minute long exposure.
This was a 20 minute long exposure, and yes we were cold ;) but it was worth it. The angle of everything was so perfect, I was able to get the tilt of the stars and the northern light glow into one shot. Reason enough to stand freezing out in the middle of the night. At least for crazy people. And photographers.
Then we did some star photography. Did I say we? My bad, I meant I. Tito, being more practical than me, was staying warm in the car ;)
What a perfect, clear night it was! This was all done just off the 400, north of a small town called Nobel, on a side road. The night sky was just stunning.
Thank you Tito – for doing all the driving and getting me out of town when I really needed it :) The star photography was just the icing on a really great day !
