Some of my other photography

[marshall@pcm]

No, I don't really know enough about them at this point to tell you what I want. I used to be a little more informed on the subject and a vague recollection makes me want to say I was interested in something around the 8" range.

 

[WarGawd]

Had this site in mind for a while, weather conditions and work conflicts finally came together and allowed me to get these shots (only a 20 min drive from where I live):

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That was a single frame from a timelapse video I did, and while moving the camera to a new angle I walked half a block down the road to get this 6-frame horizon-to-horizon pano shot of the Milky Way:

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Decided to post them now because they suddenly became more relevant in the context of my latest post to the "What did you park beside" thread

 

[WarGawd]

Haven't been around much, was reallllllly busy trying to get the Voy ready for my trip to a dark sky site for the Perseid meteor shower. Camped 9 nights, weather sucked for the most part and the meteor shower didn't pan out as well as I'd hoped/expected. But I did get some good astro imaging in:

M45 - The Pleiades

M31 - The Andromeda Galaxy

While my main DSLR's were tied up on the telescope,

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I used my Fuji 770EXR to get some macros of a lazy ass fat bee that lost the "survival-of-the-fittest" battle to a pretty cool spider:

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Enjoy

 

[dmanns67]

That is amazing.

 

[Mark20]

Agreed!

At first I thought the red was the spider's eyes. The camo did its job.

 

[sawicksted]

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Enjoy [/QUOTE]

Love this shot - I love shooting too! Great photos start with great subjects.

 

[WarGawd]

Agreed!

At first I thought the red was the spider's eyes. The camo did its job.

When I first spotted the spider he was upside down - the dimples on the thorax and the red marks on the side made his body look like a bizarre skull something like MegaMind's head

Thanx everyone, glad you like these - as I write I'm stacking 280 frames of the Orion Nebula from last night, totaling a little over 2-1/4 hrs of total integration time. Moon was pretty full so some of the earliest ones will have to get tossed, but I did the best polar axis alignment I have ever done plus a complete 2-star alignment with 4 additional calibration stars, so tracking was dead spot on - promises to be a VASTLY better pic of M42 than the 10s shot from a static tripod that started my fever near the beginning of this thread....also nearing completion of another barn/star-trail shot that was commissioned by the property owner, so check back soon or subscribe to the thread

Cheers

*Edit - I forgot to add that I for these macro shots, the lens was mostly less than an inch or so away from the bee or spider, the bee alone was shot with a tripod but after I spotted the spider I didn't have time to set it up again, so all the spider/bee pics are handheld!!

 

[ConeKilrAutoX]

Wow....awesome work!!!

 

[WarGawd]

Orion's Nebula looks good!

Save some love for the next one I post - I'm sure it will put that to shame - I finally got the money together for the t-rings and other accessories I've needed to put my camera on my telescope and mount, should be getting those this week

I promised the next one would be better - and I actually think I can do better still.

This was the old one that started it all: http://gmtnation.com/attachments/f72/12287d1360904379-some-my-other-photography-_dsc0126-copy.jpg

And this is the new one, shot Tuesday night under a nearly full moon with a frost warning (and that icy haze in the air): AstroBin - M42 - Great Nebula in Orion (WarGawd) - Full resolution

Cheers all

 

[WarGawd]

Some of you may have seen newscasts a couple weeks back about some exceptional aurora displays.

I was fortunate enough to be out that night, at a very dark sky site about 2 hrs from me. Cygnus, the first private commercial spacecraft, had just docked with the ISS, and the duo was due for a flyover. Comet Ison which may reach naked eye visibility in the next couple weeks was very close to being in the same field of view as Mars that night. The Taurid meteor shower was approaching its peak AND the sky conditions were just AWESOME:

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So, right around sunset when we started noticing odd banding appearing in the northern sky, we weren't expecting an extra bonus in the form of an incredible aurora display. Living many years in the far northern parts of Alberta and Manitoba, I've seen them a fair bit, but never once in my 20+ years in southern Ontario. They must have been quite unusual, being photographed in places at least as far south as the Dakotas, where one guy snagged an Astronomy Picture of The Day for his. I like his composition, but one of mine snagged 4 separate meteors in a single 15s shot!!:

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Despite a cool night where the frost accumulation on everyone's gear was pretty heavy,

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I still managed to get some serious astro-imaging time in: 1-1/2 hrs of shots of the aurora for a timelapse video, and about 2-1/2 hours each of the Milky Way, The Veil Nebula, the Horsehead and Flame nebulae. Don't hold your breath, those'll be at least a month before I can finish them.

You'd think I'd be satisfied with just that, but after thawing and packing everything up the next morning, I spent 2 hrs driving 40km back to the main highway to capture some of the beautiful fall scenery of Bon Echo Park, near the dark sky site:

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Lastly, I finally completed a commissioned project I'd shot the images for over 6 months ago - had to learn a pile of new techniques to overcome a variety of different problems, but I was finally happy enough to commit to printing it, and he loved it:

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Now maybe I can get some work done on my truck!!

R

 

[sawicksted]

Some great shots there! I love getting the Northern Lights and fall scenes too
I got some you might appreciate... These are from my front deck...
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I live at my cottage now because of the view over the river. We rent our house out!!

I really like your star trail shots.

 

[WarGawd]

Some great shots there! I love getting the Northern Lights and fall scenes too
I got some you might appreciate... These are from my front deck...
<snip>

I live at my cottage now because of the view over the river. We rent our house out!!

I really like your star trail shots.

Love the sunset and the river shot. What are the specifics of the aurora shots (exposure ISO f-stop focal length etc)?

Guessing now that the kids are back in school you're too busy for updates to your blog?

Much appreciate the feedback - got some upgrades in the works over the winter and hope to take things up a notch or two - keep checking back

Cheers

 

[Mark20]

All great!

 

[WarGawd]

This was taken last Christmas season while I was trying to get some shots for one of the GMT photo contests. I sorta recall posting it in the contest thread (it didn't qualify), but I never got around to posting about spotting nearly the exact same shot I found published in a calendar a short time after....anybody disagree mine's wayyyyyyy better?

My Ottawa Parliament Buildings & Christmas Lights versus the published shot, in a calendar someone paid for (seriously?!?):

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[sawicksted]

Hey there.

Yeah I was gonna work on that but I got stuck trying to upload some pics a couple of times and never got back to it. I'll have to try and update some time soon.

As for the the info....
I shoot with a pentax K10D, mostly use the 18-55 WR f3.5-5.6 ( kit lens) I have 4 or 5 other lenses 50-200 WR , 100-300 , 1.7 50mm SMC-A, 2.8 M 135

The Northern lights was f3.5 at 18mm, tripod with shutter release - I'd have to check which one but I took about 4 or 5 exposures then played in light room for a few minutes. I think it was around 1min45sec
Feel free to bug me to get the word press thing going!!! Every one needs a push every now and then.

Went camping this weekend past....yep cold....but worth it.

 

[WarGawd]

Been cloudy crappy weather here for so long I haven't taken the gear out for any kind of photography at all. But after finding some inspiration online Thursday night, I decided to try my hand at snowflake macros. Tried first with my cell phone in macro mode handheld in poor light:

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Having the mild success of seeing detail in those shots, I dressed up warm and lugged a pile of gear through knee deep snow to the middle of a local park at midnight, where I could set up on a picnic table. After some experimenting and fidgeting with lighting and diffusers and windbreaks and tripod placement, I managed to get these:

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Saved the best one for last:

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Pretty happy with results for a first attempt

Enjoy

 

[WarGawd]

I haven't come anywhere near to satisfying my recent obsession with mastering the technique for these, but I managed a few more. These were done in pretty windy conditions, and for the first couple I only managed to get one shot in before it either blew away or had multiple other snowflakes land on top of it. The last one is pretty unique though, more 3D than the others, and each 'blade' of the snowflake is filled with tiny air bubbles:

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Enjoy

 

[WarGawd]

It's been a while, and tonight for some reason I'm really having a struggle with GMT's website, but since I happened by to ask about an A4WD issue, I thought I'd throw out a few more for you all

The first group is from the annual Sound of Light fireworks competition. Although there were five competitor countries this year, I could only make it to two, Canada & Switzerland.

Most of these are from the Canadian show. The Swiss show was shot from a different location with a wider lens and the overall impact of the fireworks was diminished a bit, but it made an excellent time lapse video with the drama of the low hanging clouds drifting across the sky, so I posted one of those as an example.

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The next two are my most recently finished HDR shots of an aging pottery shed out in a field. I'd seen this spot hundreds of times and always felt there was a really good image hiding there. Finally I went by and asked permission one day and took this test shot on my Galaxy S3

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And then I went back a few days later and got these:

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I gave the property owners a complimentary 8x10 print of the second one as a thank you courtesy and they loved it.

The last one is a shot of the historic Post Office building in town. I'd shot it a couple years ago with my old camera but never quite knew how I wanted to finish it. After watching a couple training videos on LAB color in Photoshop, I decided to try a sketch/postcard effect. It's a bit over the top from what I had in mind but I mostly liked the result:

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Hope you all like, Enjoy

 

[Mounce]

Great shots!

 

[HARDTRAILZ]

Pottery shed pics are amazing

 

[Capote]

I haven't come anywhere near to satisfying my recent obsession with mastering the technique for these, but I managed a few more. These were done in pretty windy conditions, and for the first couple I only managed to get one shot in before it either blew away or had multiple other snowflakes land on top of it. The last one is pretty unique though, more 3D than the others, and each 'blade' of the snowflake is filled with tiny air bubbles:

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Snowflake Macro 4.jpg

Enjoy

Looks amazing man

 

[BHAMER]

WOW!!! I AM TRULY AMAZED! THOSE ARE STUNNING!!!