Photographs

[Cz]

I like the 2nd last photo of the Trick-or-treaters.

[EtherNEZ]

Warning, dangerously long post ahead!

Babak - Nice sunset shots there, I particularly like the last one with the final rays of sunshine caught. Quite clearly the air is very clean and free of scattering aerosols - Incidently, how far North are you in Sweden?

Hellychan - Very sneaky editing Babak's post like that! (although you used nice bright pink so missing it is difficult ) - yes it's been quite some time since I was here though I think you appreciate the problems of University quite well, ne? )

Muir Woods - You don't need good filters/lenses or a tripod to take good photos though! Just good sense and a keen eye for composition! Sadly, I lack both =P. However, it's impractical to take good shots of the night sky without the tripod due the exposure times involved, and you really need at least 6x optical zoom (I would like more but money IS an object sadly) otherwise the light from the stars is simply to weak to be recorded without any CCD image noise using ISO1600 or better speed equivalence modes.

That said, I now present (IMO) my most precious star shot to date :



The left image is the full scale view, showing the Pleiades (7 sisters) open star cluster near the constellation of Taurus (the Bull), the primary star of Taurus itself (Aldebaren) can be seen to the bottom left as a bright orange star.

The right image is a close in of the Pleaides themselves, probably one of the most beautiful of all open clusters, clearly showing nebulosity around the stars (the purplish haze), which is basically the light emitted from the molecular hydrogen gas clouds as a result of the intense radiation from the hot young Pleaides. There are many more than 7 in the cluster but only 7 are actually visible to the human eye.

These shots are more or less the best I can possibly do with 10-15 seconds exposure (rock steady) with remote control, max optical zoom - (I don't ever use digital, it's worthless), f/2.8 ISO400. You can clearly tell the exposure time is high as the stars leave a distinct trail when exposed for more than about 5 seconds.

If you're scared (or plain bored) of this Astronomy freak stuff, you'll be pleased to know there is much more 'down to Earth' material (well, sort of ) following.

I thought I'd throw in some wintry shots as well - I think I've done enough coastal for a while.


This is what I refer to as the 'Kanon' scene, taken at home on New Year's Day after a rare snowfall event on the 'Eve. Doesn't it make you feel cold? ^_^. Scenes that are heavily snowy under certain solar angles can cause the auto white balance function of digital cameras to overcompensate, resulting in an excessively blue shot - but I think it adds wonderfully to the scene in this case!



This is a lovely huge scale shot from near the summit of La Grande Motte (the big mountain) at about 3600m altitude. I couldn't really get any higher than this =P. The right hand image is a Landsat image of the area so you can see exactly where it is in the Alps. I've placed a few landmarks for ease of identification.

Finally, I lied (and I may lie again) - I can get higher ^_~.

Here's a great shot I took from a 747 on a flight across the Himalayas of the mighty Mt Everest. =P

Spoiler:

There's something profoundly different with the last image - do you know what it is? (Apart from the fact that I didn't actually take it , though I would loved to have been in a position to do so! )

[Muir Woods]

Originally Posted by lwl12

I like the 2nd last photo of the Trick-or-treaters.

LOL, the girls were barely wearing any costumes. I just took a picture cause they were sorta cute with the unicef donation box. Too bad I didn't have any change on me when they came, I just gave them more candies, though not much help for the 3rd world.

EtherNEZ - I don't know much about photography more than the basics. But I get what your saying. I used max optical zoom (3x on my camera) to take those lunar eclipse pics. I've been really thinking about buying a tripod, cause I had a very hard time keeping my arms stable while the camera is taking a picture (especially if the shutter is open for a long time). So I ended up getting a lot of blurry pictures. I found with my camera with a high ISO setting (my max is only 400ISO ), to try to capture more light, I get some grainy images. But oh well, my camera is good enough for me, as I'm more of a casual, "see-and-snap" kinda guy. A friend of mine however, is trying to be a professional photographer, taught me a lot about photos and cameras.

Anyways, I love that winterwonderland picture. I love snow, and I love blue. Great capture. I also LOVE those long (hour long exposure) star shots of stars going around the (north or south) Celestial Pole. I've been bothering my friend to take some long star exposure shots and make me a wallpaper of it .

[EtherNEZ]

If you can fit a tripod to your camera (it's fairly standard), I would really recommend it . Just a basic inexpensive one will be fine for most purposes. What camera model do you have? It all depends if you can control the exposure time and aperture to any degree (although this is usually automatic on most typical digitals). Once exposure time goes above ~50ms you usually need a tripod for best results.

ISO400 is fine. That's what I always use for my Star shots. My usual routine is to use ISO1600 (ultra sensitive low res mode) to locate the stellar objects and then switch into ISO400 for the shot and focus to infinity manually, although it is difficult to focus properly using an LCD. It is likely to be a little grainy, but it's just background thermal noise that the CCD picks up and records as well as visible radiation. This is why professional level CCD's are cooled by Liquid Nitrogen in telescopes or other high performance applications.

I'm very much a 'see and snap' person as well - though I will try to compose a scene as well as I can if it looks particularly pleasing to the eye.

Originally Posted by Muir Woods

Anyways, I love that winterwonderland picture. I love snow, and I love blue. Great capture. I also LOVE those long (hour long exposure) star shots of stars going around the (north or south) Celestial Pole. I've been bothering my friend to take some long star exposure shots and make me a wallpaper of it .

Ah, so you like circumpolar stellar shots? Yes, they are very good at showing star colours - I wish I could take them but you need massive exposure times with low sensitivity, as well as clear skies free of light pollution! Impossible here really unless I vanish up into the Scottish Highlands never to be seen again...

[StoneColdCrazy]

Originally Posted by EtherNEZ

This is what I refer to as the 'Kanon' scene, taken at home on New Year's Day after a rare snowfall event on the 'Eve. Doesn't it make you feel cold?

I like this picture, and I think this is generally a very interesting post. Well done, Ether.

SCC

[EtherNEZ]

Photographs does the Phoenix once again...

I was a little over zealous with that last post... but I'm glad you both liked the snow scene. That one was actually taken with my first digital, which developed a bizarre focussing problem on the right hand side - probably due to lens distortion. You can tell when you look closely that it is distinctly blurred.

I happened to catch some particularly strong and clear Crepuscular rays the other evening, just before sunset at 16:20 : (as usual click for large versions)



Now if anyone can capture anti-crepuscular rays, I'll be impressed

As an addendum I'll add a choice picture from my experiments with fireworks (taking pictures, not messing with them =p ). For this one the focus is spot on (it was the only one of a few dozen that achieved it) :



Very pretty. It may even make a good background for a wallpaper if carefully edited. Ideally, the shot should have been higher but ...

[Cz]

Anti-crep-what? Very nice though.

I should be taking more sunset photos but the sun sets earlier these days when I'm in class or at work.

[Muir Woods]

Wow, twightlight sun rays. Very nice EtherNEZ. And yeah, it's a bummer that fireworks shot wasn't bigger. Is wallpaper material, without the text of course .

Anyways, yesterday (Remembrance Day) I went to a "phototrip" with 3 friends of mine to downtown Vancouver. Two of my friends in that trip are trying to be professional photographers (including one I was talking about before). We all brought our cameras and snapped photos that interested us as we walked down the streets of DT Vancouver. They say it "trains the eye", so your eyes are keener at seeing scenes. It was also practice for them to play around with their $1600 cameras and accessories . It's kinda funny though, when I see a scene I'm interested in, I snap it within 10 seconds. When one of my friends see a scene, it takes 10 minutes for them to snap it . So, here are my (failed) attempts at capturing artistic pictures...





These chairs were put in the middle of a beach, and they all have some abstract expression inscribed on them. Some expressions were in French...







I can't wait until it starts snowing here...

[StoneColdCrazy]

Originally Posted by Muir Woods

This is great, personally I'd crop it somewhat to perhaps just the middle section - the light filtering through the leaves - as the bottom seems too dark to me.

SCC

[Reaver4k]

Took these about 2 weeks ago when it snowed alot. Its worse out side now, because its -20*C right now I hate winter.

Spoiler for lots of pictures:

[ChainLegacy]

If you think that's alot...

We get tons where I live. It's actually been pretty good, lately, though.

[ramune]

I like that last picture.

[Lord Raiden]

Somewhere in this forum I've got a thread from last winter showing show up in canada that was so deep and so hardened that while they were trying to open this one road through some flats in canada they had to grab a huge back hoe and a gigantic snow blower and the packed snow was something like 30 feet deep or something. It was bloody crazy. o_0

[Reaver4k]

Originally Posted by killermonk

If you think that's alot...

We get tons where I live. It's actually been pretty good, lately, though.

I know it not much, Just wait till January and February. And I will ashure you that there will be knee deep snow. *Looks for pics from last year*

[JOJOS'STAR]

Its -31 here outside.. yep Montreal is pretty cold.

[Babak]

Nice photos. Although I think you should have searched a bit before posting.
We have a "Photographs" thread, so be sure to check it out! Many nice photos to see there!

To the Photographs thread!

[Bracken33]

Yeah, nice photos. And no, it is not a lot, but -20°C is very cold imho, -31°C almost unthinkable . Also Cannada looks like home, before the global warming that is .
Is it just my perception or will we soon have palm trees here in central europe ?

[Shadowlord]

Thats not bad for snow. When I used to live in New Brunswick 14 years ago, before I moved out West, the snow drifts were sometimes 10 feet deep. Now that I have moved out West, its all rain.

[Mr_Paper]

Originally Posted by Shadowlord

Now that I have moved out West, its all rain.

An inch of snow and the city of Vancouver shuts down. ^^;


Common Canadians! Toughen up... It could be worse, you could live in Winnipeg. Now, -31C isn't that bad, really. I've seen mercury drop as far as -53C, adding wind chill put it below -67C. At those temperatures, exposed skin developes frost bite in mere minutes (read:less than 2 minutes). Fightningly enough, that was the daytime high too...

It's sad and strange, but I remember seeing massive snow falls, easily a meter in height, when I lived in Toronto but now the city rarely gets any snow. I've seen pictures from the 60's that show two meter snow falls in Toronto Proper, where as now they're lucky if what little snow they get stays on the ground for more than a week. When I lived in New Brunswick, around the same time as Shadowlord, the snow drifts and average snow falls were huge! While they're still impressively large, they don't quite compare to the days of old. Even in Calgary, where I live now, it's possible to see the difference in snow fall over a 5 year period. Compared to five years ago, we don't get snow, we get a light dusting of some might call 'snow.'

Originally Posted by Bracken33

Is it just my perception or will we soon have palm trees here in central europe ?

I can see it happening, there were still trees with green leaves around here as late as November 20th.

[Prince of Chronics]

This has become a snow/winter-related thread... I wish it wasn't so cold up here (-30C).... damn wind.... it's so hard to do things outside when your fingers are so frozen that you can't even use your lighter...