Summertime in Colorado.
Summer Panorama — Cloud and Sky Reflections at a Lake in Arapaho National Wildlife Refuge. The air was clear in northern Colorado, and the sky very blue.
Four-Years Ago (26-July-2008) — Colorado
Category: Skyscape
Views of the sky. Sunrise, sunset, clouds, and weather
Thursday (28-June-2012) — New Jersey
Montgomery Township New Jersey Independence Day Fireworks.
Montgomery Township in New Jersey typically has an Independence Day fireworks celebration several days before the 4th of July. This year it was almost a week earlier. I have a great location near my house that has a view that is above the high school where the fireworks are launched. This was the first time I was able to use the new high-resolution Nikon D800 to photograph a fireworks display. In all I had five cameras set up to record the event. Individual images can be viewed here.
Tuesday (27-March-2012) — New Jersey
Early Spring Night Sky over New Jersey. NASA ATREX Mission. Early Morning Sky Lit Up By Five NASA Sounding Rockets.
Early this morning NASA launched five sounding rockets from Wallops Island, Virginia over a seven minute period to study the jet stream in the upper atmosphere at the edge of space. Once the rockets reached the thermosphere they were set to release trimethyaluminum that would react to create a cloud of aluminum oxide. This mission has been canceled several times waiting for clear skies from New Jersey to South Carolina. I set up a Nikon D3x camera with a 14-24 mm f/2.8 wide angle lens and pointed it south-east to capture an image every minute starting just after midnight to see if I could to catch something from the mission. The rockets were launched starting just before 5 AM (EDT).
The following is a composite of 40 images combined using the startrails program showing the release from all 5 rockets. You see the star trails, a couple of jet trails, all five of the ATREX rocket cloud releases and as a bonus a meteor trail.
One-Year Ago (27-March-2011) — California
Gone to See California. Day 8: Death Valley Spring 2011 Photography Workshop with Michael Mariant.
Early Morning Panorama of the Sand Dunes at Mesquite Flats in Death Valley National Park. I used four images taken during the Spring Workshop in Death Valley last year to create a panorama view. The raw images were initially processed using Capture One Pro and then sharpened using Focus Magic. The first panorama was created using AutoPano Giga. The resulting file was 16205 x 3420 pixels (54″ x 11.4″ @ 300 dpi). The image was enhanced with NIK Color Efex Pro (Pro Contrast) and converted to jpg with Photoshop CS5. When examined closely there was a problem at the transition between images. The second panorama was created using PTGui Pro. In this case the resulting file was 14539 x 3894 pixels (48.5″ x 13 ” @ 300 dpi). The image was enhanced with NIK Color Efex Pro (Pro Contrast) and converted to jpg with Photoshop CS5. The third version was converted to B&W with NIK Silver Efex Pro (Fine Art) and converted to jpg with Photoshop CS5. Images best viewed in full screen mode.
One-Year Ago (24-March-2011) — California
Gone to See California. Day 5: Death Valley Spring 2011 Photography Workshop with Michael Mariant.
Comparison of Panorama Programs. There are several commercial programs that will combine digital images to provide panorama views. During a recent Nikonians Academy Workshop in Death Valley, I took several images from Dante’s View that I have now processed with Autopano Giga and PTGui. Photoshop CS5 was not able to successfully process the images into a panorama view. Notice the snow from the previous storm under the cactus in the foreground. The four images were acquired with a Nikon D3x camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 100, 24 mm, f/16, 1/100 sec).
