Big Blue Huddle

Haven't posted photos for awhile.  I got new equipment and had to take some in house crash courses that have consumed a lot of time.  In addition, I was elected to my HOA board and I'm now the treasurer.  This is one of the first pictures that I took.

This was edited in Lightroom to pull out the blue sky.  I used a 105 mm Macro lens and was only a few feet away from the in focused reed.  The Autofocus system was having difficulty in focusing on the subject moving in the wind.  So I put the lens on manual focus and obtained a satisfactory focus.  I concentrated so much on focusing  that I forgot to properly expose the subject and had to adjust the exposure in Lightroom by 3.45 fstops to pull out the blue.



This picture was edited in Photoshop to add a blending mode.  I used a flash and needed to use a color blend to change the mood.  My son needed this for a Power Point presentation on a script that he is trying to filmed. 

I couldn't see it last night with a heavy overcast sky.  By the way, if you go to the video that I posted earlier, which is over an hour long, the speaker, Jennifer Khordi, talks about wind and the problems that it presents.  Some tripods have a hook on the center pipe at the bottom that you can attach a weight with a rope to it to weigh it down.  She said it is a big problem in Manhattan.  I can attest to that from working in lower Manhattan for 16 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGn_ShntWtc&list=PLI-0nYk64zjr3Z8BuNc5txBYbHoMD3NIV&index=5

At least try to see it.  I probably will not be able photograph it but will try.

From - https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/1615/how-to-photograph-the-conjunction-of-saturn-and-jupiter/

The 2020

This is a rather long presentation, 1 hour and 21 minutes, by Jennifer Khordi who is a professional photographer who specializes on photographing the moon.  The Statue of Liberty is an absolutely amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGn_ShntWtc&list=PLI-0nYk64zjr3Z8BuNc5txBYbHoMD3NIV&index=5

Quote from: LennG on December 17, 2020, 03:52:47 PM
What is the best time to shoot a night sky, like is the winter a better time because of the colder weather might make the sky a bit clearer?

Actually it's not all about the time but also where you shoot because of light pollution.  The best time to get the milky way is in February and July or August.  To shoot the moon or the sun it will depend on where you are.  Let's take the moon.  The full obviously occurs once a month but it will rise differently depending on your location and the time of the year.  The tool Photo Pills that I talked about will tell you where the moon will be at a given location at a given date and time.  So say you are or will be at the famous lighthouse in Maine that you showed photos of earlier.  The tool can tell you exactly where the moon will be so that you can track it and catch it behind the lighthouse.  You don't have to guess where or when it will be in relation to where you are.  The tool will provide you with exacts days, times at the exact elevation when and where the moon or the sun will be.  It does the same for the milky way which is best viewed in the early morning hours usually about 2 to 4 am.

Also, you will be given the exact times of the golden hour and the blue hour which gives you those beautiful soft magenta skies.  The blue hour isn't really and hour.  If you are on the equator there will no blue hour just the golden hour.  The further away from the equator you get the longer the blue hour.  For example where I am the blue hour is at 6:43AM and the golden hour is at 6:55AM with sunrise at 7:13. In the evening the golden hour is at 4:40 PM and the blue hour 4:59PM.  The galactic center is not visible until Saturday 1/16/21.

Light pollution is the night light created by humans.  It show itself as a light on the horizon and will prevent you from seeing stars at that level.  It is difficult to avoid in the US east of the Mississippi.

To all you night photographers or those who would like to delve into this area the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will happen again on December 21st.

Both planets will appear in the sky just 0.1 degrees apart... Super, super close!

We

This was my Christmas gift to myself.  I earned it.  I don't want anything else.

Lenn, I just traded in my old gear and purchased a new camera and lens.  I got a great deal from Adorama, the official camera store of the NY Giants.  I had been looking at the Sony Alpha A7RII 42 MP camera for awhile but when they came across with this deal I couldn't turn it down.  The deal was $898.00 for the camera and a sony 28 - 70 F3.5 - F5.6 E mount lens for $398.  So I'm now in the full frame mirrorless world which we discussed awhile ago.  The trade in of three lenses and a nikon D7200 crop camera was about $1,000 so it came to a net of $300.00.  In addition, it came with a Vivitar ND Filter set (3 in the set), a shoulder bag, 1 Extreme Pro 128 GB San Disk card, an Optical Care and Cleaning Kit, and Corel PC-Photo-Video-Art Software Suite.

Quote from: Moose135 on December 01, 2020, 03:42:38 PM
Thank you! That was a "star trails" shot. The camera is set up on a tripod, pointed towards the North Star - that's the one fixed star in the upper left. I use an intervalometer to take a series of shots - this about 90 shots, 60 second exposure each, shot one after another. I have a free program that lets me stack and merge them in Photoshop.

Moose, those night shots especially the one with the light house and the Milky Way is great. You have little to no noise.  What was your gear, camera and lens, and what were your settings.  There are astronomical and night photographers that try to do this with less success then you.

Here is another sky replacement.

Before


After image before sky replacement with edits.  I felt the changes were not realistic.


Original image with a new sky.

Here is the photo posted earlier with the sky being replaced and the ropes removed.  Also fixed the hat and removed a label or tag on the back of one of the pirate costumes.

Here is one that the group liked and didn't have much in the way of suggestions.  The subject with the group was light thus the sun backlighting the lighthouse and this one.  In this one I use a single flash off camera to the left at a 45 degree angle above the subject and shot the flash through an umbrella to diffuse the light and soften the effect on the subject.  Notice how the light shapes the face with contrast and deep shadows.  If I wanted I could have used a second flash to the right at a lesser power outage then the main flash for some fill light which would have made the face look a little lighter on the subjects left.  Look at the background.  It is in a corner of the room and the light from the flash hits the one wall on the side more then the wall in the back which is darker.

Quote from: ozzie on October 19, 2020, 01:33:55 PM
Great shot of the lighthouse, Joe.
I actually didn't think there was a problem with the first (horizontal) shot, but after seeing the vertical shot all cleaned up, I stand corrected. Nicely done.

Ozzie, thanks.  I more then 9 times out of 10 shoot landscapes as landscape orientation and when one of the people on the zoom call stated that we should make it portrait.  The instructor cropped it like I have it in the second photo and we all liked it better.  In the first there is to much wasted space to the left and once we changed it the lighthouse became more prominent which is what the photo is about.  I learned a lot from that session.

Quote from: T200 on October 15, 2020, 10:37:05 PM
The kid on the right:

1) collar is too squared and doesn't match either of the original shots
2) some kind of weird shadow between his eye patch and his dad's hat
3) stripes on his shirt below his neckline don't match up


Great job on the lighthouse 

Tim you got some of it.  I fixed the weird shadow between his eye patch and his dad's hat it in the new post.  That was bleeding from the bottom layer.  Take a look at the father's hat by the kid. there is a line which is the border between what I cut the two together.  The shirt on the kid is what I was talking about and you got it.