Star Trails!

My first attempt at a star trail picture

I'm very pleased with this end product. It wasn't terribly difficult to produce either.

Erin sent me the guide here a while back: http://www.jamesvernacotola.com/Resources/How-To-Photograph-Star-Trails. It's a great introduction to what it takes to shoot a star trail. I've had it in the back of my mind that this is something I'd like to try and tonight presented a decent opportunity. I had originally set out to photograph the (waxing) crescent moon. I failed miserably there, but the star trails are a nice consolation I think.

Equipment used:

• Canon EOS 6d camera
• Canon 24-105 f4 lens
• Cheap tripod
• Vello Wireless ShutterBoss

Here's what I did:

1. Setup the camera on the tripod
2. Framed my shot
3. Fired off a few test shots to try to get the exposure reasonable. I had to balance a pretty bright neighborhood with still trying to get a significant number of stars showing up. Luckily I managed to hide the worst offender (a street light) behind the tree. I finally settled on 24mm, f5.6, 30s, ISO 400.
4. Set the camera to bulb mode, with the settings I settled on above dialed in.
5. Set the intervalometer to continuously fire off 30s frames. I ended up with 120 frames, exactly 1 hour's worth.
6. Load all the frames into Lightroom. I adjusted the white balance, cropped out the little bit of my house that I had in the top right corner (oops) and darkened the overall scene by 1 stop of exposure (the houses and tree were much too bright. I then synced those to all of the frames.
7. Exported the frames and loaded them into Startrails.
8. Made the star trails image using Lighten-Screen-Blend mode.
9. Then made a time lapse video. I tried to set the resolution higher, but it just caused Startrails to crash, so I settled on 480 pixels wide. The default setting was for 15 frames per second, but I think that's a bit too fast for just 120 frames. I ended up using 5fps for the video below.

Around the 8 second mark, you can see where Erin and I were playing with the green laser pointer.

Super Bowl Party Photo Booth

So Erin and I decided to have a photo booth at our super bowl party. We went to a friend's wedding in December, and the booth there seemed like it went over really well.

I also recently acquired a flash (Canon 430EX II) and some supporting equipment. So it seemed like a great opportunity to put them to use.

The setup will probably sound more complicated than it actually was. It was pretty quick to get going, and I think it worked pretty well. I had the camera facing a plain off-white wall, with the focal length set as wide as I could and still only have plain wall in the background. I set the flash up at about a 45 degree angle from the center of the frame at camera right. The flash is shooting slightly downward, and into a shoot-through umbrella to soften and diffuse the light. The flash is connected to the camera via the cable and PC sync adapters from the Strobist kit linked above. The camera was triggered using a Vello Wireless Shutterboss Timer remote. I ended up setting the flash to 1/2 power output, and the camera was set to f/9 and ISO400 with a 1/200 shutter speed. The camera exposure was low enough that it took black frames without the flash, so that I didn't have to worry about getting white balance right with ambient lighting. We also wrote some quick instructions, though those weren't really necessary for such a small party.

On the support side, I ended up tethering the camera to a laptop running Canon's EOS Utility. I used the Remote Shooting mode, which has a Quick Preview window that shows the last shot taken so that photos could be reviewed immediately. I also set the laptop screensaver to come on after a couple of minutes and cycle through the directory where the photos were being stored.

The photo booth wasn't as popular as I had hoped. I think the Super Bowl was too much of a focal point. I certainly enjoyed myself with it. Here are a few of my favorites that came out of it.

Photo Class 4/30

Zoomed in shot. Seemed relevant for a focal length lesson

Lesson 4.  This one's all about focal length.  The objective is to see the differences in focal length, as well as demonstrating "zooming with your feet".  Following are 18mm, 25mm, 33mm, 43mm, the previous 18mm cropped, and 55mm shots from the same spot.  They are all on a tripod.  The last picture is a 18mm shot, framed similarly to the 55mm shot.

18mm

25mm

33mm

43mm

18mm, cropped to a similar field of view as 55mm

55mm

18mm, "zoomed with my feet" to try to frame it similarly to the 55mm shot above

I made the pictures extra large to try to make comparison easier.  First step is comparing the 55mm shot with the 18mm shot that I "zoomed with my feet" to take.  Very obvious are the different reflections in the mirror and the fireplace marble.  That shows very clearly that the pictures were taken from different locations.  The light is also showing through a different part of the vase.  Finally, the way the plant overlaps the vase and the owl overlaps the candle is different.

Second was supposed to be to reduce the 55mm shot's size and overlay it on the 18mm shot.  Instead I cropped the 18mm shot.  Comparing them, the only difference I see is that they were exposed differently.

As far as perspective distortion, I recommend reading this.  Focal length doesn't affect it.  I think the 18mm cropped vs 55mm photo shows this pretty clearly.  That's it for lesson 4.  Lesson 5 to come someday...

Photo Class 3/30

The Bund in Shanghai, China

Lesson 3. No assignments for this one. Oh well. The picture above is from my May 2011 trip to China (business, not pleasure unfortunately). It was taken long before I had my dSLR, just a little Nikon point and shoot. It's quite noisy when seen full-size. Night landscapes are definitely one of my favorite types of photo.

Photo Class 2/30

Jupiter

This is lesson 2 of the photo class. But first, an explanation of the picture above. I set out to capture an image of the Moon and Jupiter, since they were really close together in the sky the other night (Jan 21). I wasn't very successful, though maybe someday I'll make a composite picture since I got decent exposures of the moon, and of Jupiter, but not of both together. I suppose it's a dynamic range issue, since the moon is significantly brighter than Jupiter. Anyway, back to the photo. It's not remarkable except for the little dots that look more like sensor dust than anything. Jupiter looks awful, I think it's overexposed and the wind was blowing more than my pitiful cheap tripod could handle so it's elongated too. This may be the engineer in me or maybe it's the astronomy nerd, but this photo is still awesome. That's because three of those dots are moons. Below and to the left is Ganymede, on the opposite side of Jupiter but about the same distance away as Ganymede is Io. Up and to the right from Io is Callisto. Finally down and to the right from Callisto is a star, Omega 2 Tauri. I'm still amazed that I captured this with my camera, even if it is kinda crappy from a photography perspective.

Anyway, now on to the boring part, since the rest of this post is probably really only of interest to me. The assignment for this class was pretty much to identify my camera's specifications and then to compare it with another camera. Not too difficult, because I'm a tech geek and the comparisons are something I've been doing anyway since I've been contemplating a new camera body for better low light capabilities. I've also been lusting after a fixed aperture lens.

Camera sensor/body stuff (Currently own a Canon Rebel XS, comparing to a Canon EOS 60d):

• Resolution - Rebel XS is 10 megapixel, the 60d is 18 megapixel
• Sensor Size - Essentially the same. XS is 22.2mmx14.8mm, 60d is 22.3x14.9
• Sensor Quality - They're both APS-C CMOS sensors. The 60d is a generation or two newer, and has better low light capabilities (wider ISO range, and less high ISO noise)
• Shutter - max shutter speed for the XS is 1/4000s, 1/8000s for the 60d. Flash 
• Light Meter - the XS lacks spot metering, the 60d also has a better evaluative metering system (35 zone vs 63 zone)
• Focus Detector - both use phase detection. 60d has more autofocus points (9 vs 7) as well as more capabilities for each autofocus point
• Image Storage - both use SD cards, though the 60d can use the newer SDXC cards
• Framing - viewfinder magnification is .81x vs .95x, the mirror system is pentamirror vs pentaprism and the coverage is .95x vs .96x so the 60d would have a brighter and more magnified viewfinder

Lens Stuff (currently own a few, but comparing the Canon 18-55 f3.5-5.6 IS to the Canon 17-55 f2.8 IS):

• Focal Length - Same on the telephoto end, but the 17-55 has a 1mm focal length advantage on the wide end. That turns out to be a little bit significant, it's a 4 degree increase in the field of view
• Aperture - The 17-55 has a fixed 2.8 maximum aperture so it lets in more light all through it's range. Especially significant at 55mm focal length, where it's 4 times as much light. The 18-55 has a smaller minimum aperture through some of it's range, but I don't think there's too much reason to ever shoot below f22.
• Focus System - This is a big difference. The 18-55 has a micro-motor for focus. The 17-55 has a ring USM motor, which is faster, quieter and allows for focus adjustment even when autofocus is enabled.
• Stabilization - The 18-55 finally wins! 4 stops of stabilization vs 3 for the 17-55
• Other Features - The 18-55 focuses closer, so it has a higher maximum magnification for close-up pictures. The 17-55 also has some fancy coatings and lens elements that I don't understand.

Photo Class 1/30

This is something I've been intending to start for a while, but a combination of laziness and fear of putting my pictures out there for the world to see has held me back. Anyway, a few months ago my friend h3rl337n355 acquired a new camera and started this photo class. I said that I'd start it too, so this is the assignment from the first lesson. My favorite photo that I've ever taken.

Purple Coneflower

There's a lot that I like about this photo. I like the vivid colors, I like the bokeh, I think there's pretty good separation between the foreground and the background. I like the detail, you can see the pollen, the creases of the petals, the hair(?) on the stem.

The photo I'm going to comment on is number 34 from the lesson. I really like this photo. I like the composition, the silhouette, the birds adding interest to the sky. The only thing I dislike is the banding around the sun, but I'm not sure what you could have done about that.

Well, that's it for lesson 1. Lesson 2 should be coming shortly, since it's right up my alley.

Introduction

View from the Pinnacle in Berea, KY

I'm James. I'm an engineer in Kentucky. I'm a big fan of the English soccer team Arsenal, as well as the Cincinnati Bengals and the Memphis Tigers.

I'm starting this blog to post some occasional random thoughts and in an effort to improve my photography. I've always been interested in photography, but that interest has really expanded since I got a dSLR (Canon Rebel XS) last April. As an engineer, the technical aspects of photography certainly appeal to me, but I also think it's a good opportunity for an artistic outlet. In that vein, I have to balance the urges of the engineer in me, which is to photograph purely to document and the desire to actually improve as a photographer in the artistic sense.

I am a technophile and a gear head so photography will inevitably (or maybe it already has...) turn into a money pit. I am a bit of what I'd call a hobby whore. I have a long history of starting a hobby, obsessing for a while, spending good money on it and then losing interest. I hope to avoid that pitfall with photography. We'll see.

Photography is also a great excuse to engage in other activities I enjoy... Live sporting events, travel, hiking, hanging out with friends, visiting family etc. I'll be starting off with assignments from an online photography class that one of my friends is also working on, and then probably following that up with some Strobist activities. Thanks for reading.