The Sea of Tranquility

The sea of Tranquility. No, not the one on the moon. Just something that occurred to me in response when asked why I'm planning to spend the summer in Newfoundland. Scroll down to read more.

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My work is now protected under Creative Commons licensing.

People seem to get their panties in a knot about copyright and their online images getting stolen and copied. I can understand if you're making a living — or a business — out of selling pictures but I don't, really. I've decided that if someone likes my pictures enough to copy them to share on social media, to look at onscreen or even make small prints for their own use, why not? I should be honoured.

I do draw the line at people making large prints because I'd like to have some say about quality, and of course people selling or making money from my images.

I've decided to partially release copyright on the images or copy I post online, both here on the Blog and on Facebook. From now on, my pictures and text are licensed under Creative Commons rules.

Creative Commons

Attribution — NonCommercial — NoDerivs

What that basically means is people can share — copy and redistribute my images in any medium or format subject to the following:

• they must give appropriate credit to me when they do so
• they cannot use it for any commercial purpose whatsoever
• they cannot change the image or text in any way.

This is different from normal copyright rules in that people can use the pictures or text (following the rules above) without asking permission. For example, you can legally download a picture from the blog to share, maybe use it as background wallpaper on your computer or even print it for private non-commercial use (although I don't upload full high resolution images online). If it has a watermark on it like the one above, you can't edit it out. You can quote my writings but you have to say where you got it.

You can still contact me for permission to use my works commercially or for a high resolution print, for instance.

Creative Commons rules are on this page: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Have a look.

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Time to upgrade the camera?

Not for this old codger. I wrote the following ramble in response to a thread in a Facebook Nikon group. I share it here because it eventually gets to the end message.

I love my D800. It's been frozen shooting pond hockey and dogsled racing, doused in salt water spray on a zodiac in the North Atlantic, drowned in a frog-strangling rainstorm... but like that Timex watch, it keeps on ticking.

Yes, I had it in for service a couple of times, the last time after those liquid events last summer in Newfoundland. There was some corrosion where water got in (apparently around the flash shoe) and the bayonet mount was replaced (too many heavy lenses). Does it ever fail to autofocus? Sure. Do I ever get unexplained exposure variances. Yep. Sometimes. 

The camera is a tool. It's a really fine one. BTW I'm at around 100,000 shutter actuations. Sure I'd love to have the latest and greatest but I'm an old retired guy and my limited funds are going into glass, if anything. And I'm debating a new tripod and gimbal head, my old one's getting a bit heavy for these old bones and arthritic knees.

I met a guy the other day with a slick D5 and a 600 f/4 on a pristine Jobu tripod and gimbal head. Did he get better shots than me? Yes, but part of that was because he's young and can still see through his eyes and can actually hike to where the better images are. And he's skilled.

I shoot birds with my 200-400 f/4. I shoot timelapse star shots and landscapes with my 17-35 f/2.8. I shoot macros and focus stacks with my 105 f/2.8. I shoot all kinds of everything with my 70-200 f/2.8. I love the 36Mp because I don't have to worry about precise framing, I can crop in post.

If I had the money, I'd replace it with a D850 and buy a D500 as a backup to replace the D5500. But for now, I'm really content with what I have and prefer to focus on the art instead of the hardware.

Thanks for putting up with my rambling.

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Newfoundland plans are coming together!

At this moment, the plan is to leave for Newfoundland by car in the last week of June, returning at the beginning of September. 

People have asked me, "Why Newfoundland"? It's one of the most spectacular places in the world if you like the idea of outports, small villages, birds, seascapes, stars... I can go there and still be covered by the Canadian medicare system in case anything happens. Although it's a lot of driving, I'm comfortable with that (besides, there's a new engine in my car!). 

What do I want to get out of it? The word, "Peace" comes to mind. I will pursue my photographic art and I hope to be able to accomplish more painting and sketching and writing. 

My friend Amin is travelling with me and will stay until about July 8th. He's coming back at the end of August and will travel back home with me too.

I've arranged to rent accommodations in the following areas:

• Change Islands, last week of June — focus on icebergs, landscapes, Fogo Island
• Twillingate, the month of July — focus on icebergs, landscapes, maybe whales, boat tours
• Bonavista, the first week of August — focus on Puffins, icebergs, whales, boat tours
• Torbay, the following 3 weeks in August — focus on whales, boat tours, landscapes, cityscapes

On the drive in, we'll be stopping at Peggy's Cove (just for the lobsters!) and once on the Rock, heading straight for Change Islands. From Torbay, I plan day trips including Cape St. Mary (Gannets). On the way home, we'll spend a couple of days on the West coast, a quick look at Gros Morne, the Port au Port peninsula and the bird sanctuaries around Codroy.

The only hole (at this writing) is the last few days of July. I've rented 2-bedroom or bigger houses with the intent of making space available for friends to come visit and join me in experiencing the beauty of this fabulous place.

Except for a few days in Bonavista, where some friends are planning to spend some time with me, I have space available. I'm happy to act as a tour guide and I have help, especially in the St. John's area where Ray Mackey is available. Best photographer/tour guide in Newfoundland!

A previously unedited image. I have LOTS of images from last summer that I haven't gotten around to working on.
Shot in the harbour at Twillingate, sky textures added. 

If you always wanted to come to Newfoundland, this is your chance! My suggestion would be a 2-week visit, one week with me and one week exploring on your own. You need to contact me soon, though, I need to plan! Email me — that's the best way. photography@faczen.com.

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Images

Let's move on to some pictures, shall we? After all that's why most of you read this blog. This issue has an eclectic mix of images taken in the past couple of weeks, a hodge-podge of venues and styles. Where shall I start...

I went to Algonquin Park twice so far in February. The animals seem to be avoiding me but the landscape and the birds can't escape my itchy shutter finger.

At Mew Lake, the snow on the trees was awesome. Now this image won't stand up to a close scrutiny because I edited it very roughly, but if you can ignore the little errors (for instance that branch top centre shouldn't be 'hazed out').  The scene was majestic and beautiful. I added the haze to give it atmospheric perspective and make it more 3-dimensional. I also converted it to black and white, although it wasn't really necessary, there wasn't any colour there anyway! 

On my second visit, the icicles hanging on this rock wall on Highway 60 called to me. I wanted to highlight the details and textures in the rocks and the ice. By the way, both this and the trees image are large-pixel-count panoramic merges of multiple frames. Extremely high resolution. 

Then there were the birds. I'm really pleased with the performance of the 200-400mm f/4 Nikon lens, a whole level better than I was able to do before.

American Goldfinch in winter plumage

Female purple finch. 

Male red crossbill. First time I've seen these birds and they're rampant in the park. This one was on a tree behind the visitor's centre. The hard part is the exposure: they sit right up at the top of the trees and when I was there, the sun was directly behind the bird! The magic of Photoshop and Lightroom... 

Next was the pond hockey tournament and the dogsled racing at Pinestone. Some great photo ops!

I just came out to shoot some pictures of Cheryl Hamilton's team, the "Finest Things". On their uniforms, the individual players were identified with big badges, "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" and... I loved their coach, the Cat in the Hat. Some fanciful editing with Topaz Impression to make this whimsical picture. 

I got there late for the dogsled races. I missed everything except the closing 8-dog race. Again lots more shots to edit, but these are a couple of my favourites. The weather was ugly: freezing rain, although it wasn't frigid. 

It was a rainy day in Pizzaville... so I shot indoors for a bit instead of going out there. In an effort to begin decluttering, I put some items up online to sell and did some quick pictures to go with the listings.

These are pieces from a beautiful anodized aluminium chess set I had acquired in the late '60s in New York. I thought I'd get rid of it in an effort to declutter, but I'm just as glad nobody bought it. I shot this in the light tent which provides such even, soft lighting that there's not a shadow to be seen! Each of the pieces is represented in this picture (plus an extra pawn for balance.  

And now, as my closing picture, here's a macro shot of a spider. Since purchasing Helicon Focus software last month, I haven't seen a single bug to photograph. Not one. Then I came across this dead spider and said, "Aha"!

This little guy was about 1cm across. This picture is a composite of 88 stacked images. I was trying to get a picture showing the spider's eyes. Hidden by the hair? Nah. Guess which end of the spider this is! Like one of those little dogs where you can't tell front from back. No wonder I couldn't find them!  

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À prochaine!

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Fantasy Worlds

I was looking at the bubble pictures and they looked like little worlds. Well worlds need a sun, and a moon, and stars... and sometimes the life forms on the world try to escape... a Haiku write, I will!

Strain, ungainly wings!

Space-time warped by bubble worlds

Unlikely escape 

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Gales of November is back!

If you missed it last year, here's your chance! The Gales of November is a long weekend at a five-Star lodge at Wawa on the North shore of Lake Superior. A maximum of 12 photographers will enjoy the landscapes, seascapes, rocky shores and wild weather of the Gales of November on Lake Gitchigumi (the native name for Lake Superior) along with great accommodations, home-cooked foods and take their photography up a level due to interaction with the others and some gentle guidance and workshops from me.

The Rock Island Lodge. A 360° pano from the lake side. 

You don't need to be a pro, you don't have to have thousands of dollars of gear, but it's a good idea to be intimately familiar with whatever camera you bring. Let's talk!

Did you know the Munich Oktoberfest is held in September? That's because they can't wait! So we can't wait: the Gales of November workshop will be held October 26th through October 29th!

The 2016 crew! Picture courtesy of Jim Camelford. 

Lake Superior's unique weathered rocks

Visit the website at www.photography.to/gales. But also be sure to tell me if you're interested so I can get you on the list for updates and new information about the workshop. Don't worry: no spam will come your way.

Book now! Don't miss out again!

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...musings...

I was thinking about hardware and people's obsession about brands and ever-increasing technology. 

I was sitting here editing my Algonquin pictures from yesterday and at the risk of making a heretical statement, I was basically shooting on full Automatic.

Now before you jump on that, I'm not talking about the camera settings! "I" was on full auto, not the camera! My message is that you have to know your equipment well enough so that you hardly have to give it a thought. Here's what I mean. Consider the "Icing Sugar" image below. 

I knew that the detail and texture of the frosted trees were the subject of the image. To capture them, I needed high resolution. My D800 is a high res camera (but I REALLY want a medium format Hasselblad or Phase One!) but to get higher res, I wanted to stitch multiple images together. So I left the Tamron lens on. 

I know that with this lens, I need a high shutter speed for sharp images. Even though I was only shooting at 150mm, I left the camera at 1/800 second. I knew that if the lens was wide open, it wouldn't be as sharp as stopped down a little, that's why I went to f/7.1. I know that the camera performs very well at high ISO and I wasn't concerned about noise in this image. 

So I was able to make these images without giving it much conscious thought.

Every image, whether it's a landscape or a portrait or a tabletop macro, needs to be composed properly. I knew that I could crop (since I was going to end up with an ridiculously high res image) so I wasn't as concerned about the edges as I was about making sure that tree just left of centre – which was my main subject – needed to be all there and in the right place. I knew that the colour accents of the orange oak leaves were needed to grab the viewer.  I knew that the horizon had to be level but not in the middle. 

THAT's what I needed to concentrate on, not the mechanics. So in a way it didn't matter what camera I had in my hand, as long as I knew it intimately. That's my message: you can't let your right brain loose unless you put your left brain on fully automatic. 

Here's the image:
From a visit to Algonquin Park on a dreary day in January. Algonquin is beautiful in ANY kind of weather.

I spent a lot of time post-processing this image. The final image is somewhat close to what I previsualized. The basics:

■ this is nine images stitched together. The image size is close to 130 megapixels and the TIFF file is over 2Gb in size before compression. Stitching was done using Microsoft Research's "ICE".
■ The images were shot with a Nikon D800 and a Tamron 150-600mm lens (at 150mm). I deliberately did not mount my wide angle to shoot this because I was planning to stitch multiple images together to get the detail level. Exif: 1/800 sec at f/7.1, ISO 2500.
■ The pictures were taken early afternoon on a dreary day in Algonquin Park, somewhere near the west end of Highway 60.
■ I had to remove some ugly hydro wires and a pole. I did most of the heavy lifting with careful use of Photoshop's spot healing brush 
■ I experimented with a number of plugins and effects. In the end I discarded most of them but Topaz Clarity and a hi-pass filter in PS were needed to retain the detail. But it wasn't until I applied Topaz Impression 2 with the "crayon scratch" preset as a basis that the image gelled for me.

Of course what you see here on the blog is a mere shadow of the real thing. I actually reduced the image size to 20 Mp before producing this framed version.

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More Images of Algonquin Park

Yesterday, Larry Murphy and I trekked up to the Park. We didn't stray off the 'corridor' so we only saw the usual denizens, but we had a great day and got some super pictures. So many that it was hard to pare them back, so here's a selection for your enjoyment:

As we came into the park, it looked as though the trees were coated with rime ice, but on closer inspection, it was more like snow. I think the snow on the branches melted and re-froze in place. 

You know me, I can't leave well enough alone! Brightened with LAB colour then a Topaz Impression treatment to make this magical shot. My favourite of the day, I think! 

Our friendly Pine Marten at Mew Lake. I had lots of shots, this one was one of my favourites because of the eye contact! 

On to the Visitor Centre. Park staff had dragged a moose carcass (car collision kill, I think) out behind the centre and it attracted all kinds of predators from wolves to fishers and martens, foxes, ravens... It was really far away. This is a full-frame 600mm shot, not cropped.  

At the bird feeder behind the Visitor Centre. The blue jays and chickadees were there in force, as well as these Evening Grosbeaks and American Goldfinch 

American Goldfinch in non-breeding winter plumage.  

Back West we went. We drove up our usual road but it was only plowed up to a certain point. And right there, at the end, was papa fox waiting for us!

Again, I like this picture of him because of the eye contact. This fox is too accustomed to people. We went for a walk up the road and Papa walked along beside us like a dog! 

The sugar coated trees were mainly in the western part of the park. We went as far East as Opeongo Road, where it was much less obvious. I thought it might be because it was melting during the day but this shot was also on the way home mid-afternoon.  

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What Inspires Me?

What Inspires Me?

I'm intrigued by this quotation: Pablo Picasso said, "good artists copy; great artists steal" (the attribution is unclear; go here). I'm not sure I fully understand or agree with the meaning of this aphorism as written. The intent is pretty clear, though. An artist will take those things that inspire him and incorporate them in his own work. How well he does that defines his place in the art world.

You might disagree. but everyone has been influenced by others. The best example I can think of is Oscar Peterson, who was influenced by the likes of Art Tatum and Nat "King" Cole (jump to 1:35 in the link for the solo) and who far surpassed them as arguably the best jazz pianist ever (here's a link to one of my favourites, I actually learned to play this. Want to hear the master for an hour like I did? Go here.) OK, back on topic, I got sidetracked...

By no means should an artist directly copy anyone. To me, being an artist is to create, not to duplicate. That said, if I could play one song like Peterson, I'd be in heaven, but I'd be a mechanic, not an artist. Make sense? But allowing someone else's style to influence your work is a given – that's how art evolves. Think about the Impressionist movement, a genre that evolved from the work of Claude Monet.

So what inspires me? The work of Yousuf Karsh, to start with, although I don't shoot portraits. Ansel Adams, of course. The writings and teachings of Bruce Barnbaum. A tip of the hat to Freeman Patterson, Richard Martin and other lesser knowns like Lance Gitter and Ron Goodlin. Hilarie Mcneil-Smith. Bharat Mistry. An eclectic mix. If I could take a little from each and make it my own...

...and lately, Vincent van Gogh, J.M.W. Turner, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, A.Y. Jackson, Lawren Harris...

I'm fascinated by the graphics work that went into the making of the title sequence of the HBO Mini-series, "The Pacific". This link is to a video showing the sequence, and scroll down for an interview with Art Director Steve Fuller. This is outstanding and inspiring to me, so I thought I'd share it with you here.

This image is from the Art of the Title page, here. It's a composite of processed drawings by Steve Fuller. In the title sequence, they morph brilliantly into video footage. It's the look and feel of the charcoal renderings that I find outstanding. Image published here with permission.

It's frustrating as a photographer to see what professional cinematographers and art directors can do. Sometimes I get the feeling that the rest of us are just playing. Read the backstory below the image on the linked page.

I think of myself as a "craftsman". Maybe one day, a history book will describe me as an artist. That's what I'm striving for. I'm not there yet.

Another new program from Topaz!

This one's called "Topaz Glow". You need to watch their video to see best what it does, here's the link..

Here's the first image I edited with it

It's on sale for the month of December at the introductory price of $49.99 (that's a $20 savings) at this link: http://goo.gl/aQvTVd. Enter INTROGLOW in the coupon code at checkout. By the way, it shares a lot of things with Impression. Including the hardware requirements, so if you're not sure, do the 30 day free trial before you buy. 


Here's another image. I posted a charcoal version last week but the Glow version is exciting!

This is a vertical version of the same trees. Can't decide which one I like better. You? Please comment 

A complex Photoshop Action

After writing the opening story for this blog, I posted a question on the Topaz Impression group on Facebook about whether anyone knew how to achieve the charcoal effect I talked about. Lo and behold...

A fellow named John Stevenson in England has written an Action that works in Photoshop CC and is making it available for free. It's really complicated under the hood, but a dummy like me was able to figure out how to use it (although I did have to fiddle with the last step). Anyway, here's the link to where you can download it. John, my hat's off to you.

You need Photoshop CC or CC2014 plus Topaz Impression for this Action to work. 

Here's an image I tested it on, from the dogsled races last winter.  

This is the original image:

So you can see I'm spending a lot of time in front of the computer, not out taking pictures. I was a little under the weather last week, plus the other kind of weather wasn't great! 

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I live in the "705"!

New Phone Number!

I'm a procrastinator. I've been living up here in the highlands for 7 years now, you'd think I'd have a local phone number by now! My neighbours have complained that they have to call long distance to reach me and I have a certain lack of credibility because I don't have a local number (for the record, if you're grandparents weren't born here, you're not considered a 'local' anyway!). I needed to keep my business number (for the First Aid business). Up to now, that's been a Bell "SNR" number which was permanently forwarded to my cellphone.

Like many other people, I don't have an actual home phone. I live on my cellphone. There are a few disadvantages but I can live with them. Because my cellphone plan has unlimited calling, I decided to make the number known. I don't really want to type it here, so look at the business card in the picture below.

The challenge was to keep the Toronto (416) number so business contacts and people in Toronto without long distance plans could still call me toll-free, and yet have a local (705) number for up here where I live. I accomplished that by getting a new cellphone (actually, I didn't get a phone, just a SIM-card) and permanently forwarding it to the (705) number. It came with an almost unlimited long distance package. Now you can call me at either number. 

The ONLY thing I had to give up was the ability to receive faxes. The one or two people every year who send me a legitimate fax will eventually learn that they have to join the 21st century and go with email.


New Business Cards

With my change in phone number, I needed new business cards. 

Front and back (or back and front!) of my new business cards. The bottom image has a green cast to it on my screen, which shows up here but not on the original file. It could be because of changing colour spaces, from CMYK for print to ProPhoto RGB in Lightroom to sRGB when making the images for here... we'll see what the actual printed product looks like. (update: it's somewhat in-between. If I were reprinting, I'd warm it up a little).

The other thing that's inaccurate is that the actual printed cards will be slightly trimmed from what you see here. These are 3.627 x 2.127" and they'll be trimmed to the standard 3.5 x 2" when made.

I have an outstanding wholesale printing supplier who specializes in business cards. Because they gets hundreds of orders per day and can standardize inks and paper (they put all the cards on one big sheet, run it through a top end large format printing press) their prices and quality are UNBELIEVABLE.

I ordered 500 business cards, printed in full colour on both sides, on 14-point bright white glossy stock, with an aqueous coating that provides excellent rub and scuff resistance. My cost? Around $20. That's right, I said $20.

If you want cards, let me know (delivery US and Canada). You can approach this two ways: (1) you do all the artwork. I'll send you a template, just fit everything inside the lines, produce a PDF file (press quality, in CMYK: you can do that in Photoshop easily) and send them to me via dropbox or (2) send me the pictures you want to use and the text, I'll do the layout for you. If I do the layout, I have to charge you for my time, of course. I'm reasonable but not free...

Or you could use one or more of my images. There's a selection on Smugmug, here. You could also use virtually any image you've seen on my blog. Get in touch with me by email and I'll send you details...

AND they make greeting cards (folded to 5x7 with an envelope!) and a hundred other products.
Think Xmas...

Just want to go on record...

I HATE Leukemia. I just attended a funeral for someone who passed away this week, far too young. His name was Howie Mandel (not the one most of you are thinking of). He was, admittedly, more of an acquaintance than a close friend but he was close with several people whom I care about and his death had a big impact on them and therefore, me.

Leukemia or lymphoma have taken too many, too soon. My first girlfriend died of it in her 20's. My dear friend Fran was taken a couple of years ago. 

Just feeling sad and hope writing about it is somehow cathartic. 

Winter is on its way

I'm pretty well ready: we still have to address the sump pump line problem, one last small repair on the ATV but the plow is already mounted. The roof is done, at least the critical part, firewood is cut and stacked, chimney re-cemented, summer shorts and bathing suits stored, winter boots ready. Do I hate winter? Not really. I don't love it like I did up to a few years ago but I'm actually looking forward to crisp white snow underfoot.

The last vestiges of fall are slowly giving way.

This stubborn shrub is next to my fence and it refuses to drop its leaves. I think they will eventually, they're holding on by a thread, but virtually everything else is down now.

Impression is such a great program because it turns a mundane photo into a piece of art. Don't get me wrong: the picture has to be properly exposed and composed and focused... but it can do wonders with an ordinary picture of a leaf.

The forest looks like this, sun filtering between bare tree trunks, snowflakes gently falling on the still-wet ground. 

But I don't like this time of year. There are two times I don't like – early spring and late fall. The world is damp and dull and wet and chilly and grey and ugly. When I used to be a hunter, I looked forward to November. Spring was a lot warmer than winter, you look forward to summer. But November? As I type this, I look out on a couple of inches of soggy, wet snow. My hands are chilly, although it's warm enough in the house. I'll go lay a fire in the fireplace and it'll be better in here, but it's ugly outside.

On the other hand, there are days... like yesterday, as I drove into Toronto, the air was crystal clear and the light was gorgeous. I was under some time pressure but I couldn't resist stopping for a couple of pictures, and the one here is my new Blog header as of today.

I spent an hour painting this image, tweaking this and that, then I saved it and by chance looked at it beside the original, unedited image right out of the camera. Yep, that's the one I used! OK, well it's a 5-exposure HDR,  

Sometimes an image just doesn't want to look like my mind wants it to. That's the case with this one. I want the trees to be silhouetted against a dark sky but I can't seem to make it happen. HDR's like the header above look a lot cheerier, somehow. In this bottom image, which is just a single virtually unedited frame, everything is wrong technically, the histogram is way off, there aren't any whites... but it's approaching the mood that I want. I'll keep at it. 

Two minutes later, I pulled over for another shot. 

I can't explain. There was something about the light... This was the original, more or less. It's another HDR, of course.

And this is my final version of this image. I removed the gate. I leveled the combine (or whatever it's called). Both of those things were "fussy" work. I used Topaz Adjust to add colour and contrast to the sky. I thought I was done until I opened Impression to play with it. There are two layers of Impression used here, one for the sky and one for the foreground. Click to blow it up so you can see the brush strokes.

— 30 —

It ain't easy being green

OK, when I wrote the title of this post, I Googled it and as I expected, it was written for Kermit the Frog on Sesame Street. But did you know that this song was covered by such illustrious people as Ray Charles and Frank Sinatra? Google is your Friend!

So what this post is really about is that it isn't easy shooting stars. The key is planning.

The Stars they Come Stealing at the Close of the Day*
* from Gordon Lightfoot's "Railroad Trilogy"

Last week I spotted a post on Facebook in the "From Quarks to Quasars" group that mentioned that the "Camelopardalids" meteor shower expected  last Thursday night might be spectacular. A look at the "Clear Dark Sky" chart site (here) indicated that we might just get lucky and have a clear night so with some quick last minute plans, a few of us got together to try to capture the event. Easier said than done.

It turns out that the meteor shower wasn't that intense. I have to say, I did see quite a number of meteors in the time we were out there. Many of them were not streaks across the sky, they were just a momentary flash. I surmise that was from a small meteor that burned up almost instantly when it hit atmosphere.

Anyway, we were out from about 1 am through 4 am. I caught a grand total of ONE meteor on the camera. I saw at least a dozen.

And to top it off, this was only a test shot while I was setting up! 10 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 12,800. I was just trying to get the composition right, the camera level and pointed at the sky. I never saw this one until I got back to the computer. You can click on the picture to blow it up

I've shot stars before, as my faithful readers know. I even wrote a technical blog on how to do it here and I'm planning a workshop in a few weeks (send me an email if you're interested in the workshop). Trying to capture meteors is a whole other ball game. I've seen some outstanding photos of passels of meteors, I know they were composited together but so far I can't figure out how. And a time lapse video seems to be the way to go but that's even tougher.

One thing you need to do is focus. In the dark. On infinity. How? If you go by the marking on your lens, I guarantee you'll be wrong. And with the lens wide open and virtually no depth of field, well that's critical. How do you do it? Like this:

Send someone out in the field with a flashlight (thanks, Kathy!) Then give it a wee bit more. This is something better done the day before in the light and recorded or taped down. 

Stars and planets move in a predictable path. Well actually the Earth moves, we all know that... Want them rotating around a point? Include the North Star in your shot. Straighter lines? Shoot less wide angle. Point in another direction, preferably South. Long streaks? Take out a calculator and figure out the angle of view of your lens, divide it into 360°. The stars take 24 hours to travel through 360°, so they'd take 416 minutes to cover the full width of my 17mm FX lens (104°) so 2 hours to cover about 1/4 of the frame. Divide that by the number of degrees away from the North Star and... you see where I'm going with this? It ain't easy being green!

But meteors? We learned that the "radiant" – the direction they seem to come from – was in the constellation Camelopardalis, near the North Star. But they could appear all over the sky. So where to point the camera?

Anyway, we needed to find a dark spot. We did, but Mother Nature interfered by putting a lot of moisture in the air, so it wasn't as dark as we had hoped and there were some clouds. With a little planning, I got a few good images, without meteors, unfortunately.

Facing South, we see light pollution probably from Bobcaygeon (50 km) or Peterborough (100 km) away. This exposure was 30 seconds at f/2.8, ISO 800, F=17mm but I did a LOT of tweaking to get it to look like this. You can click on the picture to blow it up

Truth be told, the above image is actually a composite done in StarTrax but it only looks marginally better than a single image. Facing North, I did a more traditional composite, including the North Star:

This was a series of continuous 30 second exposures – about 40 of them – using StarStax and putting it in "Gap Filling Comet" mode. The ISO was a bit higher, at 1600, and in hindsight it shouldn't have been. The two yellow clouds are light from Carnarvon (left) and Haliburton (right). 

So was it worth it? For me, yes. I got a few good shots, learned a lot, and got to shoot with Dave and Kathy and Amanda. Here's one more image I liked:

Another test shot at ISO 12,800. You can see the mist building up in the field to the North in front of the vehicles. 

Oh by the way: we saw a number of airplanes, but best of all, we saw the International Space Station make a pass across most of the sky. It was really bright! Unfortunately, that was about 5 minutes after we had packed everything up and were getting ready to go back!

Meanwhile, back at the Whitewater...

I dropped by there yesterday, it was a nice day and I figured I'd see kayaks. Too late, I guess,  but I took out the camera and tripod anyway. I was setting up for a little slo-mo water shot (which I didn't like in the end) when a guy and his girlfriend showed up and she sat down on the rocks where I was preparing to shoot, posing for his iPhone shot. Far be it from me to pass up an opportunity like that...

A little photoshop here... just a bit of skin smoothing and hair enhancing and teeth whitening and radial filter exposure enhancement. Not much... 

But you know I'm a "rocks & trees" guy, so here she is again, with rocks & trees!

I did an HDR of the trail, then composited her in sitting on a rock. If I hadn't told you, would you have known? 

Until next time!

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