Month: November 2011

Saturday (26-November-2011) — New Jersey

Late Autumn Night Sky over New Jersey: Star Trails and Meteor Trails.

Repeat from last night, but at ISO 400. Nikon 1 V1 camera with the 10 mm f/2.8 lens, and the following settings: ISO 400, manual exposure, 30 second exposure, f/2.8, focus infinity (Long exposure NR = off). I used the interval timer, but found that I needed to set the interval to 40 seconds because it takes ~10 seconds to transfer the image from the buffer to the memory card. This is unfortunate, since it leaves a gap if I tried to create stacked star trails (using the Star Trails program). I did manage to catch a few images of meteor trails. The meteor trails were distinct from the many jet trails. The first two were a pair, but faint, the third is caught in two images with the missing section due to the ~10 second delay between images. The late night and early morning images were combined to make a Night Sky time-lapse video.

Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 400, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)

Saturday (26-November-2011) — Pennsylvania

Autumn Dawn over the Delaware River.

After being up all night for some night sky images, it looked like there could be some color at dawn. I took the chance and drove to the bridge over the Delaware river between Lambertville, NJ and New Hope, PA. The first image is a panorama of 5 images taken with the Nikon 1 V1 and 10 mm f/2.8 lens using Kolor AutoPano Giga Pro. The next two images are HDR composites using Nik HDR Efex Pro from images taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens. Bottom line, the Nikon 1 V1 may be good, but I am not giving up my Nikon D3x anytime soon.

alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Pano of the Delaware River from the Lambertville – New Hope Bridge at Dawn. Composite of 5 images taken with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens using Kolor AutoPano Giga Pro. (David J Mathre)
alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Dawn from the Lambertville – New Hope Bridge over the Delaware River. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 14 mm, f/16). HDR composite from 5 images using Nik HDR Efex Pro. (David J Mathre)
alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Dawn from the Lambertville – New Hope Bridge over the Delaware River. Image taken with a Nikon D3x and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens. (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/16). HDR composite from 5 images using Nik HDR Efex Pro. (David J Mathre)

Friday (25-November-2011) — New Jersey

Late Autumn Night Sky over New Jersey: Meteor Trails and Time-lapse Video.

I wanted to see how the new Nikon 1 V1 camera performs doing night sky photography. I set up the camera with the 10 mm f/2.8 lens, and the following settings: ISO 100, manual exposure, 30 second exposure, f/2.8, focus infinity (Long exposure NR = off). I used the interval timer, but found that I needed to set the interval to 40 seconds because it takes ~10 seconds to transfer the image from the buffer to the memory card. This is unfortunate, since it would leave a gap if I tried to create stacked star trails (using the Star Trails program). I did manage to catch an image of a meteor trail early (5:28 AM) in the morning. The late night and early morning images were combined to make a Night Sky time-lapse video.

Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Meteor Trail captured with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 100, 10 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)

Thanksgiving (24-November-2011) — New Jersey

Carol and Laurin’s Annual Thanksgiving Dinner.

Carol and Laurin from across the street invited me to their annual Thanksgiving celebration dinner. This year Carol used some Bittersweet vines from my yard for decorations. I took a number of images with my new Nikon 1 V1 camera, with a 10 mm f/2.8 lens. I was trying to see what I can do with a small camera without a flash. I have 28 images to share as a slide show.

Laurin and Carol's Thanksgiving Dinner Celebration 2011 in Skillman, New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm lens. (David J Mathre)
Laurin and Carol’s Thanksgiving Dinner Celebration 2011 in Skillman, New Jersey. Images taken with a Nikon 1 V1 camera and 10 mm lens. (David J Mathre)


Individual images from the slideshow can be viewed here.

Thursday (24-November-2011) — Pennsylvania

Autumn in Pennsylvania: New Mirrorless Camera (Nikon 1 V1).

I got up early this morning to see how the new Nikon 1 V1 mirrorless digital camera performs. I spent the night reading the manual to get an idea of how to use the camera. As with anything new, you have to use it to really understand its capabilities. I drove to the Lambertville – New Hope bridge for some early dawn images. The Delaware river was up a little over 4 feet in the last day due to all of the rain we got on Tuesday and Wednesday. Still below flood stage but up more than usual. The following image is an old building in New Hope along the Delaware river, taken from across the river in the Lambertville Station parking lot. The Raw image was converted to jpg using Adobe Lightroom 3.6 RC with no additional processing. Note that I had to upgrade from Lightroom 3.5 to the 3.6 Release Candidate in order to be able to see and process the image with Lightroom. More images to follow, and I need to check out if my other Raw image processing programs are able to handle images from this new camera.

Later in the afternoon, I had a great Thanksgiving dinner with neighbors across the street. (Images next post). Right now the camera is outside to see how it performs capturing Night Sky images.

New Hope from Lambertville across the Delaware River. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V1 and 10-100 mm Lens (ISO 110, 100 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec) (David J Mathre)
New Hope from Lambertville across the Delaware River. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V1 and 10-100 mm Lens (ISO 110, 100 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 sec) (David J Mathre)