Pre-Dawn Delaware River Crossing.
Looking south while crossing the Delaware river between Lambertville NJ and New Hope PA.
11-October-2011
Tag: Autumn
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.
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.
Sunday (09-October-2011) — New Jersey
Autumn Nighttime Sky Over New Jersey.
After nearly two months of rain, rain, and cloudy skies — we finally have been able to see the sun and very blue skies. At night, I’ve taken the opportunity to get night sky images, as well as lunar images through some of my exotic 300, 400, 500, and 600 mm lenses. One of the problems I was having for the overnight time-lapsed images was that the lens would get covered by condensation during the night and ruin the night sky images. ARRG! As the weekend progressed, the temperature rose and the relative humidity decreased. I finally got a full night image set with limited problems with condensation. The first time-lapse video and star trail was recorded with a Nikon D3x camera and 14-24 mm f/2.8 lens @ 14 mm. There was a bit of condensation that affected the end of the video from this lens. The second time-lapse video and star trail image was recorded with a Nikon D3 camera and 16 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens looking north from my deck.
Lessons learned: 1) I need to look into a resistive heater to keep the lenses warm enough to prevent condensation. 2) I didn’t know that the 14-24 mm lens would creep if pointed straight up — during one night the focal length changed from 14 to 18 mm. For the last night, I used Gaffer tape to fix the focal length of the lens at 14 mm. 3) My tripod/heads are not strong enough to prevent movement when I change batteries. Look into an external power supply and not batteries for long overnight image session.
Sunday (09-October-2011) — New Jersey
Autumn Nature in New Jersey.
I saw this flock of Turkey Vultures warming themselves in the early morning sun. The local Turkey Vulture population has increased over the past several years. I think their major food source is deer killed by automobiles.
