Category: Skyscape

Views of the sky. Sunrise, sunset, clouds, and weather

Six-Years Ago (09-January-2013) — Florida

Gone to See America. January 2013 Florida Road Trip. Day 7: Merritt Island.

Osprey with Sushi for Breakfast. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 500 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 100, 500 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec).

alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Osprey with a Fish for Breakfast. Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in Florida. Image taken with a Nikon D800 camera and 500 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 100, 500 mm, f/5.6, 1/640 sec). (David J Mathre)

Three-Years Ago (08-January-2016) — Pacific Ocean

Gone to See the World. Semester at Sea Spring 2016 Voyage on the MV World Odyssey. Day 4: Crossing the Pacific Ocean.

The rocking and rolling of the ship makes it difficult to make time-lapse videos of sunrise and sunset. Even with relatively light seas, the ship is constantly moving up, down, right, and left. I didn’t have access to a heavy-duty gyro stabilized camera mount. The first time-lapse video shows the impact of the motion with the  horizon going up, down, and tilting. Nearly 600 images were taken every 3 seconds with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 35 mm f/1.4 lens (ISO 200 to 800, 35 mm, f/16, 1/250 sec) and then processed with Capture One Pro and the time-lapse video created with Photoshop CC.

 

On a previous voyage, Michael Mariant suggested that we use “warp stabilizer” software to correct for motion (reduce and smooth) when making time-lapse videos when using hand-held cameras. At that time a warp stabilization filter was included in Adobe After Effects. Now the filter is included within Adobe Premiere Pro. The above time-lapse video was reprocessed using the warp stabilization filter. It significantly reduces the motion of the horizon due to the ship’s motion.

 

I’ve also included a slide show of individual images (one per minute) of the sunset that were individually processed. Not viable for all 600+ images.


Individual images from the slide-show can be viewed here.

Monday (07-January-2019) — New Jersey

Backyard Wintertime Nature in New Jersey.

Although it was cold this morning when I woke up, I noticed some colorful clouds developing just before sunrise. I went out with a Fuji X-T2 camera and a 8-16 mm f/2.8 wide-angle lens. I took a number of shots to create this dawn panorama.

alt_title. (David J Mathre)
Colorful Clouds at Dawn. Composite of ten images taken with a Fuji X-T2 camera and 8-16 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 16 mm, f/8, 1/50 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and AutoPano Giga Pro. (David J Mathre)

Wednesday (02-January-2019) — Florida to Georga

Gone to See Florida Road Trip. Day 11: St. Petersburg, Florida to Savannah, Georgia.

I waited until 10:00 to start to avoid rush hour traffic across the bridge and through Tampa. The heads up display shows the posted speed limits (and and car’s sensors supposedly also detects and reads speed limit signs). This is important when driving through the speed traps along US 301 (Starkey, Waldo, and Lawtey). Data from Landrover InControl: Drive time: 2:27 hours:minutes; Distance: 359 miles; Avg Speed: 57 mph; Fuel used: 11.2 gal; Avg Fuel Consumption: 31.1 mpg.

Tuesday (01-January-2019) — Florida

Happy New Years from St. Petersburg.

Fireworks from downtown St. Petersburg. I think the fireworks are shot off from a barge in Vinoy basin. We had to back off to a park near the pool along Tampa bay. Even then I was hit by the paper residue from one of the firework mortars. I set up two cameras to get pictures during the show. First a Nikon D850  camera with a 20 mm f/1.8 lens (ISO 64, 20 mm, f/11, 8 sec). The second a Fuji X-T3 camera and 8-16 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 10 mm, f/8, 8 sec).



Individual images from the slide shows can be viewed here.