Meteor Showers

Good morning,

With a meteor shower just recently passing and one coming up, I thought that I would write about how I take meteor shower images. They happen every month or so, for example the shower that happened recently was the Leonids in mid November and the Geminids are coming in mid December. If you are not familiar meteor showers are loosely named by the constellation they appear to radiate from. Leonids radiate from Leo, Geminids radiate from Gemini.

This was done a while back, iso 100, f3.5, 28mm, 140 seconds.

So what I do just do a long exposure of the sky with a remote and a wide angle lens. I pick a spot in the sky and stick with it. I have tried changing the spot in the sky without much luck. I have watched multiple shooting stars go just outside of the frame so I moved it over to capture those and the next ones close by were outside of the frame on the other side. It takes some luck. I prefer to have some foreground in the frame, that is me though.

The better part of having the camera on a set and forget type of control is that you can enjoy the meteor shower. Seeing dozens of meteors streak across the sky is something to behold even if you don’t catch a single one on a sensor.

The Geminids are coming up on the 13th/14th of December so if you can find a dark spot I recommend going out and seeing them and not just to photograph them. I know that I will be. If you do capture any I would love to see them.

Long exposure to remove people

Good evening,

I am sure that most of those who are reading this have been in a situation where you wanted to photograph something striking, amazing, beautiful, or awe inspiring but have been thwarted by a plethora of people milling about so were resigned to taking a ho hum picture with people blocking parts of the subject. There is a way around this that can work for some of these situations.

The fountain in Downtown Disney near the tram to the parking garage. 1/30th second exposure.

Notice the dozens of people walking around, if I would have stepped back to get the whole fountain in the image I would have added quite a few people in the front of the image too.

A 15 second exposure taken within a minute of the other image.

The couple of people who can still be seen were more or less standing around. With this technique busy locations can be made to appear empty. For these images it was getting late in the day and it was overcast if I recall correctly. This won’t work it all situations, it is another reason to carry ND filters around though. All one needs is a steady surface and some patience. So go out and make those busy places look deserted.

Scott W Gonzalez

Eclipses

Good morning,

There is an eclipse coming up on the 20th. I am hoping that it is not cloudy and I can see/photograph it. This is not my first go around with an eclipse. I have some photographs posted in the Celestial section on here. The set up for a Lunar and a Solar eclipse are a little different. I am just going to go with the Lunar right now.

There are a few ways to shoot an eclipse, a telephoto lens will capture it and show it off by filling the frame, a regular lens can capture some more of it and possibly a tight foreground, a wide angle can get a sprawling landscape with the moon in it as well. There can be a combination and photoshoping of multiple of these.

210mm and cropped to fill more of the frame. Without anything around it is rather plain.

Here is the blood moon that everyone raves about at 300mm and cropped as well.

I like these and the memories associated with them however there is not much depth to them. What we can do to add more depth is add buildings, cars, or some other foreground interest. There is also another option. Long exposure.

This is a 6415 second exposure of a lunar eclipse at 50mm.

Notice above I only have about half of the eclipse in the frame. If I would have been using a wide angle or super wide I could have gotten the whole thing in. The batteries probably would not have lasted the double the length of the exposure though. Make sure your batteries are charged completely.

Another option is to take multiple pictures and put them on a background in photoshop with layers. Spacing is key here and an intervalometer comes in handy for that part. I haven’t done this technique, I do plan on trying it. It should be roughly the same as the layer masks that I discussed back in December using car trails.

Good look with viewing the eclipse. I should have some pictures of it if the clouds stay away.

~Scott

Car Trails

Good evening,

So I realized after publishing the last blog that I am late on it and owe you all one. So car trails were brought up. Once you know how to do them they are easy and it becomes more placement of the subject and background than anything else.

The main needs are a steady camera, a long exposure, cars, and a darkish location.

Here is an 8 s exposure at f18. The camera was sitting on the median and I used a self timer because I did not have a remote.

Ideally a remote shutter and a tripod will be added. It gives some more control over the image. Instead of being limited to guessing on when a car will come into the frame, like I did in the above image, the shutter can be triggered when you want without disturbing the camera. Having a tripod will let you place the camera where you want for the image you are trying to create.

Below I had a tripod and remote shutter. So I was more focused on other aspects of the image than just when the car was coming into the frame. I knew the Milky Way and Luxor light were in the frame. I also placed the bush, that is illuminated by my tail lights to give the image more depth. On a side note that is not the sunrise, it is the lights from Las Vegas.

A tripod mounted 30 second exposure. The car was traveling relatively slow so I did a longer exposure.

I have not gotten a really good capture of it but keep in mind that flashing lights from emergency vehicles can add a bunch of interest to a car trail image.

While getting ready to pull out I saw the flashing lights coming my way so I quickly grabbed my camera and set it on my dash, no timer and I had to stop it from sliding around on the dashboard. Not a sharp image it does show the lights well though..

So have fun with it. Grab your gear after nightfall and find some cars hopefully with their headlights on.

PS if you have any questions about photography that you want me to tackle let me know in the comments or through the contact page.

Layers

Good morning,

So I started writing a blog talking about how I made one of the more recent pictures that I posted and realized that the actions that it took had not been explained. Like layers. So I use photoshop and lightroom. They have become familiar and if you are a student or a teacher they have a discount on the software. I am not sure if it works with the subscription plan that they have now though.

So layers if you are not familiar are like putting a bunch of pieces of paper on top of each other. Depending on the paper it might not do all that much. If it is construction paper then you only see the top sheet, if it is tracing paper then you can see a few sheets down, if it is celluloid then the only part that you can’t see is the part that has writing or drawing on it. It depends on how you treat the layers in photoshop and if you use a mask (layer masks will be discussed at a later time).

Let’s start with a star trail stack. After taking the images using a sturdy tripod or mount go into photoshop, cut and paste the images on top of each other. This will make layers starting at 1 with a Background. You could also got to File>Automate>Photomerge and pick auto. I have not had much luck with it I have met people who have. The results are similar though.

These three images add up to about 14.5 minutes of exposure. I put the same settings on all of them when converting to jpeg then stacked them in photoshop. After you do that then you will only see the top layer. There is a drop down menu in the layers tab/window that should say “normal.” The trick here is to go to that drop down menu and pick “lighten” for everything except the background. The parts of the image that add light will show up through the layers.

Above is all three images stacked with the “lighten” setting then I went to Layer>Flatten Image which will put all the layers together into one that can be saved as a tiff or jpeg. Notice that the sky got brighter from the light pollution, being near a bright city doesn’t work well with astrophotography. This will work with other times when trying put together multiple images, car trails, I even heard that it will work with water to mimic a long exposure (I haven’t tried it though). So grab a sturdy mount, a remote, your camera then go out and shoot.

~Scott

Star Trails

Good afternoon,

Today it is onto star trails which are very different from getting the stars to be static. Similarities are; needing a sturdy tripod, know what you are trying to capture, a foreground interest can make a picture, and planning helps.

Now the differences; a high ISO is not needed, a large aperture is not as important, and a remote release is important. After about 15 seconds or so the stars can be seen as more than a dot. With trails we want that so that is why ISO and a large aperture aren't as big of a deal. 

Here is a stack of 30 second exposures taken back to back from a balcony in Lake Tahoe. Pointed North - Northeast. Around 140 images put together for a total of a 70 minutes exposure, each photo was 30 seconds each, 28mm, f2.8, 200 iso.

So there are 2 ways to go about star trails. Either taking a bunch or photos and stacking them afterward like above. The benefits are; less noise, if frames have something unwanted (planes, satellites, UFOs, etc) they can be left out. The down side it is time consuming in post.

Below is the other way which is to keep the shutter open for a really long time. I have heard of all night exposures. Personally I have gone with a couple of hours at most with good results. The benefits are it has more of a set it and forget it approach, and post processing is just a couple of images (if combining exposures of a separate foreground and background). The bad part is if something goes across the frame it is a pain if even possible to remove it and there could be more noise from the long exposure.

This was taken in Death Valley, I light painted the tree. I was trying to capture some meteors in the shot and failed. This was a 29 minute single exposure. 28mm, f5.6, 1759 seconds, 400 iso.

Experiment and see which you prefer. There are programs that are designed to make the stacking process easier, I just use photoshop because I don't take this type of image often. So find a night sky, grab your tripod, shutter release, camera then go out and shoot.

~Scott

Filter: Neutral Density Filters aka ND

Good Evening,

Today the little ones and I went to Red Rock Canyon. I brought along some ND filters to show what they can do.

ND filters are basically like putting sunglasses on a camera. They darken the whole thing. There are a few reasons to want to do this. Wanting to use a large aperture to have a shallow depth of field, wanting a long or longer exposure time, making flowing water silky, removing people from a busy location. They come in different strengths. Just like CPL filters they can be costly and we can buy one set for our largest thread lens and then step rings for the rest of the lens. Ultimately we want a filter that darkens the frame evenly without adding a color cast.

I did not use an ND filter for either of these images. I was testing a new lens and seeing what I could get out of it. I was planning on taking some water images today but alas didn't get the chance as there hasn't been any recent rain. This does give an idea of what an ND filter can do to a scene though.

There are also graduated ND filters which are used to darken a bright sky over a landscape so both can be seen. They come in both screw on filters and in a square filter with a holder. Just like the regular ones also come in different strengths.

Here is what I shot today with the girls. Notice both are about even on the ground but with the grad ND the sky looks better and not as blown out. For a scene like this I should have had the grad tilted more toward the sun on the left. I tried it but wasn't paying attention and got my finger in the frame because I was talking to children.

As for removing people from scenes I have pictures of them removed but no before shots. If I go to a populated area where people are moving I will get it. Until then see where an ND might fit into your needs. Now go out and shoot.

~Scott