Summer Backyard Nighttime Sky in New Jersey. Star, Moon, Jet, and Firefly Trails.
A composite of 980 images looking south taken before midnight. I used the Startrails program for creating the composite.
I had actually gone out to see what type of video I could take of the moon using the D3s camera and a telephoto lens. The moon phase (according to the US Naval Observatory site) is waxing gibbous (76% illuminated). I started by shooting some single images and found that ISO 200, 500 mm, f/8, 1/50 second should be about right. Even though I had the camera set to shoot in manual mode, all of the images of the moon were way over exposed. It didn’t appear that I had manual control while taking the video. I made sure that the ISO setting was fixed (not Auto), that Active D-Lighting was off, and that the white balance was fixed (4000 K). I need to try this again!
I think that this image of the waining gibbous moon with the D3x and 500 mm telephoto lens is sharper that the one I took with the D3x and 600 mm lens of the full moon 15-June-2001. Both were on a Gitzo tripod and Wimberley head, remote shutter, mirror up with 30 sec delay.
While reviewing images from last night, I found one where I captured a firefly flashing. So far it is early in the firefly season and I hope to get more images before the season ends.
We didn’t get to see the full lunar eclipse in this part of the world. The sky was clear, and the moon was bright so I got a chance to test taking images of the moon with my new 600 mm telephoto lens. The first five are attempting the same exposure while changing both aperture and shutter speed (f/16, 1/50 sec; f/11, 1/100 sec; f/8, 1/200 sec; f/5.6, 1/400 sec; and f/4, 1/800 sec). The final image was taken at 1200 mm using a TC-E III 20 teleconverter. For all of the images I used the camera autofocus, remote shutter, mirror up for a 30 second delay to allow the mirror up vibrations to decay, and tripod VR mode.
Gone to See Central America and the Panama Canal. Semester at Sea Spring 2011 Enrichment Voyage on the MV Explorer. Ultimate Travel Photography Workshop II with Michael Mariant. Day 4: At Sea.
We have two days at sea while traveling from Cabo San Lucas in Mexico to Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala. Most of the day was spent in the classroom with Michael. Images for the day include sunrise, sunset, and photography workshop members while at sea.