Big Blue Huddle

Quote from: LennG on December 13, 2020, 11:17:07 AM

I

Quote from: LennG on December 10, 2020, 12:44:30 PMMy biggest challenge is trying to shoot lightning strikes. I just can't seem to get that at all. Have you done that and any hints would be appreciated.

I had one really good session photographing lightning a number of years ago - I've tried a couple other times, but never had the same conditions. I was still living in Syosset, and one night I was putting out the garbage and heard thunder coming from the North Shore. I checked the weather radar and saw a line of strong storms along the Connecticut coast of the LI Sound. I threw my gear in the car and headed up to a beach in Bayville.

I had the camera on a tripod - I was shooting with my old Canon 40D DSLR at the time. I set the camera at f/7.1, ISO 100, and used a remote to operate the shutter. I just kept popping off shots, varying anywhere from 15 to 40 seconds, as the lightning did its thing. It was a big storm with plenty of lightning, and I ended up with a bunch of decent shots. If there isn't a lot of lightning, it can be hit or miss on what you get. You can get a lightning-activated trigger for the camera, which will automatically fire a shot when it senses lightning, but I've never done enough of it to bother looking in to those.





This one is my favorite. In the upper left, you can see the light trails of a jet turning in towards LGA. If you look close, you can see the silhouette of the aircraft against the clouds which were lit by the lightning!

Very nice, Lenn! I love that sunset shot.

Quote from: Shoelessjoe on December 08, 2020, 05:37:18 PM
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.

Thank you so much! I shoot with a Canon 5D3. I used a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens. The shot was 15 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200. The 5D3 does well in low light, but I did use some noise reduction in post processing. Processing Milky Way photos is something of an art form to bring out the colors.

That's the Bodie Island Lighthouse in the NC Outer Banks. I've shot it a bunch of times, and it's really ideal for night photography. Unlike most lighthouses where the beacon rotates, this one illuminates two times for about two seconds, then is off for a little over 20, which is just about perfect for capturing the stars. I trip the shutter (with a remote) just as the light is dimming, and leave it open for 12 - 20 seconds. That gets some light in the beacon without blowing it out.

On the other hand, this photo had the same settings, but I timed it to get more light from the beacon.

Quote from: LennG on December 01, 2020, 03:23:57 PM
Wonderful pix Moose and welcome to this thread.

Your pix of the night sky over the Grand Canyon is fantastic. How did you achieve that effect?

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.

I haven't spent much time in the Front Porch, so I hadn't seen this thread before. There's some great work here, well done! Let me share a sampling of my work, and I'll be sure to be back with more.

My first love is aviation - I grew up around airplanes, and was a KC-135 pilot in a prior lifetime, so airplanes are one of my favorite subjects to shoot.







I like to shoot race cars too...







And I love shooting at night, especially the night sky.

1)  Long Island, NY

2)  Since the late 60's or early 70's - Tarkenton was QB when I started following the Giants.

3)  Looking for work after the big newspaper here decided they could get the paper out without me 

4) Like a couple of others above, I'm an Air Force vet, flew KC-135 tankers, now I spend my free time satisfying my photography obsession.