Category: Photo Techniques

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)

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)

Friday (18-November-2011) — New Jersey

Backyard Autumn Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey: Leonid Meteors.

I had two cameras out monitoring the night sky with the hope of catching a Leonid Meteor. Two of the images had small meteor trails. A bit later there was something much brighter. I am not sure if it is a meteor, however it does not have parallel lights or regular strobe flashes like a jet trail. The other possibility would be a satellite trail. The curved trail is due to the fisheye lens. I used DxO to process the image to correct for the fisheye effect (4th/final image).

Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 6, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with DxO Pro, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)
Late fall night sky over New Jersey with a Leonid Meteor. Image taken with a Nikon D3 and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/5.6, 60 sec). Raw image processed with DxO Pro, Nik Define, Photoshop CS5. (David J Mathre)

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Monday (10-October-2011) — New Jersey

Autumn in New Jersey.

Mistakes in Photography. This is what happens when you don’t reset a cameras settings when done for the day.  I often leave a camera in my car for quick grab images.  It is set to program mode, auto ISO, auto white-balance so I do not have to think about settings. Once I get an image I can go back and fine tune the settings for a better image based on conditions. I forgot to reset the camera to the default settings when I took this image. Oh well — lesson learned AGAIN! The camera was set for a 30 second exposure from some night sky images the night before. When I took the image, I couldn’t understand why the shutter didn’t close. Then remembered that the camera was probably still set up mirror-up/shutter delay mode.  There was a car coming up behind me, so I set the camera down — and then the shutter closed. What you see is what should have been an interesting pre-dawn sky + all of the internal car instrument lights and center console GPS.

New Jersey Sunrise. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm VR lens (ISO 400, 28 mm, f/22, 30 sec) (David J Mathre)
New Jersey Sunrise. Image taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300 mm VR lens (ISO 400, 28 mm, f/22, 30 sec) (David J Mathre)

Three-Years Ago (10-October-2008) — California

Gone to See America October 2008 Road Trip. Eighth Annual Nikonian Photography Adventure Trip. Day 6: Yosemite National Park.

Time-Lapsed Video: Morning at Taft Point. 

On the last day of ANPAT 8, we got up before sunrise to get to Taft Point for a different view of Yosemite Valley.  After a short drive to the parking area, then a hike to Taft Point I set up a camera with a wide-angle (24 mm) lens to record the photographer working Taft Point as the sun lit up the other side of Yosemite Valley. Later, I put on the tripod head-cam with a fisheye (16 mm) lens to record the hike from Taft Point back to the van. This was the same tripod head-cam set up that I used during Winston Hall’s  workshop in Arches National Park record a time-lapse video of that hike 19-September-2008.