Tag Archives: landscape

More on Star Trails…

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Wacousta Time Lapse Stacked

 

HAPPY (LUNAR) NEW YEAR!

A few weeks ago, I went back to visit my parents in Michigan for a weekend, and spend some quality time with them for the Lunar New Year (a.k.a. Tet). In addition to the good food, and the spending time with the parents, another one of the benefits of leaving Chicago is the ability to get away from the light pollution. Granted, it’s great living in a big city, where street lights allow you to see where you are going, and give you some feeling of security at night, but if you’re trying to look up and see the stars, it’s no bueno, as they say. All those bright lights reflect back into the sky, and diffract in the atmosphere, making it much more difficult for the already dim star light to find it’s way to our peepers (a.k.a. eyeballs). In any case, using the Photographer’s Ephemeris app, I was able to find the times of the sunset and the moonset, and then using the Star Walk app, figured out which direction to point my camera. After getting the settings dialed in, I set up my camera to manual, using a remote timer to take 99 shots. 16mm, F/5.6, 20s at ISO 1600. And just like with a RonCo rotisserie cooker, I just set it and… FORGET IT! Well, not quite, I still hung around out in the cold for about 40 minutes trying to stay warm as my camera fired away.

The eventual shots I took, converted to jpeg, and imported into Adobe Premiere Pro to turn into this 9 second timelapse (Best viewed in 1080p, fullscreen, if possible).

It’s kind of crazy how many shots you need to take to turn into a timelapse video of a respectable length.

So now, you’re probably wondering, what does this video have to do with star trails? Well, I’m glad you asked. Previously, I would shoot with low ISO, small aperture, and a long shutter speed to get the star trails. This time, I went with a different method. Taking a large number of discrete shots, and then stacking them in photoshop. There are pros and cons to each method, especially since this method takes a whole lot more effort to get the final star trail photo. I’m lookign to do a little camping this summer, so hopefully I can do some more star trail photos. That’s it for now! So, how are you doing?

An April 2012 Update…

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From the top of Cat in the Hat, in Red Rock Canyon, NV.

Where have I been?

They say, absence makes the heart grow fonder… although, sometimes the authorities may refer to it as “unlawful neglect of a blog”.  So, I apologize if it seems that my blog has been wallowing in it’s own filth, and had to survive only on the little tidbits of updates I provide my flickr feed via instagram (located at the bottom of my blog), but I promise I have excuses a-plenty!

A New Job, a New City

So, if you aren’t a facebook friend, or a personal friend, you may not realize that I just started a new chapter of my life.  (Hopefully, this new chapter will see much more action than my blog does.) Even though I’ve been “Fun-employed” for the past 8 months, and I enjoyed every single moment of it, I had an opportunity come my way that was difficult for me to pass up.  After my trip out to Montana, I had updated my resume, and sent it to a friend who told me of a great opening at her company.  This followed with a couple of phone interviews, which then led to a day of in-person interviews.  Several weeks later, that incubated egg hatched into a job offer.  So, while it may seem that I’ve been neglecting this blog (which I have), It’s really only because I’ve been cheating on it by getting a job.  So, is that a lesser evil?  I don’t know.

So to sum up what I just said, (or TL:DR, in internet speak), I applied for, interviewed for, received, accepted, and began my new job since my last post.  I am now a Project Manager at Schawk (http://www.schawk.com/), and am now sleeping on my friend’s couch in Chicago!  The couch thing is only temporary, until I find my own place, but hopefully the new job thing lasts longer.  I’m excited to return to being a contributing member of society, and also to have a new city to explore!

But, Seriously!  Where else have I been?

Okay, so, I’m not being completely honest.  It’s not like I was locked up in some dungeon, feverishly working on my resume, and practicing my interviewing skills.  I was still out doing this, that and the other, when I watching episodes of Doctor Who on netflix.  So, where was I?

Las Vegas, and Red Rock Canyon

My last big trip was an extended weekend in Las Vegas, and Red Rock Canyon, in Nevada.  I met up with some friends there, with the main goal to do a 5.6/5.7 multi-pitch trad climb called “Cat in the Hat” in Red Rock, but also squeeze in some fun in Vegas.  I’m not a big gambler, but I did end up winning $80 on slots on the first day, and gradually giving back $60 throughout the weekend via video black jack, one quarter’s worth at a time.  But we balanced out the excitement with a Cirque show, (Ka, which was utterly, breath-taking, and edge-of-your-seat exhilarating).

It was a great trip, and although I’ve been to Red Rock Canyon before (I’ll post photos from last August when I was there, in my next post), I’m sure it won’t be my last time.

Anyway, I’ll post some photos now, and shut up. 🙂

Red Rock Canyon & Climbing Cat in the Hat

Whoa, so I spoke too soon.  I’m not shutting up, quite yet.  I just wanted to add that I didn’t take quite as many photos as I would have liked, and since we got a late start to the climb, and with how busy the route was, it seemed we were always in a rush, especially since we had to be out of the park by 7pm, or we would have been fined an additional $100+.  I think next time I come back, I’ll see if I can take some night photos; the hike out via headlamps and moonlight was amazingly beautiful, even if we were trying to race against the clock.  Okay, I digress, here are the photos. 🙂


The whole climb took about 6 hrs, but a lot of it was waiting for others ahead of us to come down, as the belay stations at the top weren’t very big.  I’ll probably update this with more descriptions for photos, but I’m just going to publish now, because I’m going to bed, now that I have a job to go to in the morning! 🙂  Thanks for reading!  More posts soon, I promise!

Stars over Montanny

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Nikon D700, 20mm f/2.8, 451s at f/13, ISO 100

Winter Roadtrip Photography…

It took 13 hrs to get from the Twin Cities to get to Ashland, Montana to visit my brother.  I had just gone out to Minnesota to go to Lutsen, MN for an annual snowboarding/ski trip with my group of friends in Minnesota, so I figured 13 hrs is much closer than the 24 hours it would have taken from Michigan.  Fortunately for me, this winter has been unusually mild, and so with no snow anywhere to be seen from Minnesota, through North Dakota, and into Montana, the drive was relatively easy.

Star Trails…

The optimal time to do star trail photos is if you are far away from civilization.  The amount of light pollution you get from being near lots of city lights makes it harder for you to see and capture the stars through the atmosphere.  Luckily for me, my brother is teaching on an Native American reservation far away from civilization and big city lights.  The nearest big city would be Billings, which is about 2 hrs away by car.  It was almost a full moon out, so I couldn’t really get any photos of the milky way, but what’s nice is that the moon lights the landscape, so as long as it’s a relatively still night (so you don’t have too many things moving, and being all blurry like bigfoot), then it works out pretty nice.  Things turned out pretty good.  I made adjustments on Lightroom, and only photoshopped out some power lines using content-aware fill, which worked well enough.

Anyway, enough talk, here are some photos:

Nikon D700, 50mm f/1.4D, 601s at f/16, ISO 200.

Overlook Saint Labre: Nikon D700, 20mm f/2.8, 20s at f/8.0, ISO 2500

The JV House: Nikon D700, 20mm f/2.8, 20s at f/8.0, ISO 2500

Also, feel free to leave any questions or comments below. 🙂

Long’s Peak: My First Fourteener

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Just over a month ago, I, and 6 of my friends, embarked upon a journey. A journey of modestly epic proportions. A journey that many have done before, but none of those people were us. We were going to hike Long’s Peak.

We had all traveled to Estes Park to celebrate, our friends, Rob and Julie’s wedding, and after the wedding, we took a week to enjoy Colorado.  During the week leading up to our hike, we had been discussing whether or not we would attempt Long’s Peak.  If you don’t know about Long’s Peak, it is the only fourteener (where the summit is above 14,000 ft above sea level) in Rocky Mountain National Park.  I’ll let wikipedia describe the Keyhole route for you.

The hike from the trailhead to the summit is 8 miles (13 km) each way. Most hikers begin before dawn in order to reach the summit and return below the tree line before frequent afternoon thunderstorms bring a risk of lightning strikes. The most difficult portion of the hike begins at the Boulder Field, 6.4 miles (10 km) into the hike. After scrambling over the boulders, hikers reach the Keyhole at 6.7 miles (10.5 km).

The following quarter of a mile involves a scramble along narrow ledges, many of which may have nearly sheer cliffs of 1,000 feet (305 m) or more just off the edge. The next portion of the hike includes climbing over 600 vertical feet (183 m) up the Trough before reaching the most exposed section of the hike, the Narrows. Just beyond the Narrows, the Notch signifies the beginning of the Homestretch, a steep climb to the football field-sized, flat summit. It is possible to camp out overnight in the Boulder Field (permit required) which makes for a less arduous two day hike, although this is fairly exposed to the elements. 57 people have died climbing or hiking Longs Peak. According to the National Park Service, 2 people, on average, die every year attempting to climb the mountain. In the summer of 2005 a Japanese climber was blown off a ledge after reaching the summit. On September 3, 2006 a man fell 800 feet (244 m) to his death when some rocks let go while he was descending the Loft route. Less experienced mountaineers are encouraged to use a guide for this summit to mitigate risk and increase the probability of a summit.

-From Wikipedia

CAUTION! ACHTUNG, BABY!  This is a very photo heavy post.  Click at your own risk.  There are dozens of photos in this post, so those on a 56k modem should probably join us in the 21st century and get some hi-speed internet! (j/k but, you know, seriously, it might take a while to load.)
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Rainbows & Sunsets…

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I went down to a friend’s cabin this weekend for a day… We were looking forward to basking in the sun as we darted around the lake on their family boat, spraying children on the shore with our wake, chucking empty beer bottles at elderly folks, and leaving uncut 6-pack plastic rings in the water for fish and seals and birds to get their necks caught in… you know, what everybody does during Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived with my friends Andrew and Carrie, the sun went into hiding, and the clouds came out with it’s angry face. It rained for the majority of the afternoon, which sucked, but it stopped raining just in time for dinner. We were able to catch some double rainbows, and the angry clouds made for some dynamic sunset photos as we got on the boat for an evening cruise.

These were taken with the E-1 and 12-60mm f/2.8-4.0 lens. Not bad for a camera that’s 6 years old… I also had my E-620 with me, but I opted for the E-1 due to it’s weather sealing… just in case the clouds decided to unzip it’s pants and unload on us again. Fortunately, it didn’t, and I ended up with these two photos… (the second shot was taken holding the camera just above the water… getting it ever so slightly wet.)