David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the sky. Sunrise, sunset, clouds, and weather
Another clear night and I set up three cameras. Two to record firefly trails, and the other to record the nighttime sky for star trails. I still need to do some testing, but it seems that the Nikon sensors do a better job with low light images (less sensor noise). And among the Nikon sensors, the D810a camera does better with exposures over 30 seconds. In addition to the star trails, I also did a time-lapse video of the night sky.
At this time of the year, the dawn clouds don’t seem to be as impressive. Dawn is earlier (before 05:30) so I might miss them, and the sun is further north so some of the colorful clouds may be hidden behind the trees to the north-east. During the day I spent some time with a new camera/lens combo (Nikon D850 camera and 70-300 mm AF-P lens) doing a flower/wildflower walkabout. It is an interesting combo. Individual images from the slides hows can be viewed here.
For the second night in a row the sky was clear so again I set up two cameras. This time using lessons learned from yesterday. One for firefly trails (Nikon D810a camera and 200 mm f/2 lens), and one for star trails looking north (Nikon D850 camera and 19 mm f/4 PC-E lens). This time the focus point for the firefly trails was moved back, and the orientation changed to portrait. I like this better than last night. For the star trails image I rotated the camera to north to get the circle around the north star. The star trail images really needs to be viewed on a large high-resolution monitor. I also made a time-lapse video (five hours compressed to 20 seconds) of the night sky. This is best viewed on a high-resolution monitor in a dark room. The Big Dipper pointing to the north star was one of the first things I learned about the night sky. One note post processing is with these high-resolution cameras it took me all day to do the processing, even with my fastest computer with a video processor (Microsoft Surface Book II Pro).
Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.
The sky was clear so I set up two cameras. One for firefly trails (Nikon D810a and 200 mm f/2 lens), and one for star trails looking south (Nikon D850 and 19 mm f/4 PC-E lens). The focus point for the firefly image should have been further back. This is my first star trails image with the high-resolution Nikon D850 camera (8256 x 5505 pixel — 45 MP sensor). The image really needs to be viewed on a large high-resolution monitor. I focused the camera using live view using a magnified bright star. I need to figure out how to do the same thing with the firefly images. I also made a time-lapse video (five hours compressed to 20 seconds) of the night sky. This is best viewed on a high-resolution monitor in a dark room. The brightest object that shows up in the early morning is Mars.
Individual images from the slide show can be viewed here.
Eleven-years ago on a lark I drove from Boulder to Colorado Springs and then to Manitou Springs to take the Cog Wheeled Railroad to the summit of Pikes Peak. Little did I know that you needed reservations for the cog rail trip to Pikes Peak, and that all trips were sold out for the day. I was very lucky that someone in line before me was unhappy that their party was not all sitting together and turned in their tickets. Once I got on board the train, I realized that I won the lottery since my ticket was for the front seat. This allowed me to set up a tripod and camera to capture images for a time-lapse video for the train ride. So as not to annoy the other passengers on the train I used a small Gitzo travel tripod, my smallest camera body, and a small lens. Going up the mountain I used a 18-200 mm lens at 18 mm. Going down the mountain my seat was now in the rear of the train looking back. For this I used a 10.5 mm fisheye lens. This was a case of being in the right place at the right time!!!
