Post #9, Autumn night skies continued

Thanksgiving is soon approaching, and I will be heading home to western Kansas for the holiday.  The last two Thanksgivings have been productive for my night photography hobby.  I was able to take advantage of unseasonably warm weather two years ago for a night photography session, and last year, my hometown added a fireworks display to its annual Light Parade on "Black Friday" night.  (Actually, it was too dry on the Fourth of July to shoot them, so they tied in the display to Light Parade.)

Regardless, I thought this was a cool chance to take pictures of the fireworks and of people enjoying the fireworks.  So I took my camera, my tripod and my cable release to the parade, and set up for the fireworks.  I ended up with around 200 pictures of fireworks, and this is one of my favorites:

The moon was out last year, so I didn't take any pictures of the Milky Way, but instead I wanted to use the moonlight to illustrate the abandoned landscape of the area.  My parents joined me in taking pictures at a vacant farmstead, and here are some shots I took:

I actually took several shots of this tree, hoping to stack the images together to show a time lapse.  Here is a little gif of those shots!

Post # 8, Autumn night skies

With autumn comes longer nights and shorter days.  In my experience, early fall has been a good time of year to take pictures at night.  The temperatures are cool, yes, but they soon will be too cold for comfort (for me).   The leaves will soon be gone from the trees, but for now a few have some nice fall colors.  If the moon is out, I'd encourage you to take a picture a tree with its fall color.  You may get some cool effects!  Or, if the moon is not out, try painting the landscape with a flashlight!

Something I haven't discussed much is the position of the stars and constellations in the night sky.  Orion is one constellation seen clearly during winter; usually in the southeast after sunset.  The Milky Way is best viewed during the summer: its brightest clouds are viewed near the constellation Sagittarius, which can be found in the south/southeast during the summer, and in the southwest during the fall.  Though the Milky Way is a bit dimmer now, you can still get a nice shot of our galaxy!

Here is a picture I took recently of the Milky Way:

Post #7, Lessons

Two weeks ago, I decided I would try to make my first time-lapse video (see previous post).  Here I would like to share some lessons I learned from that experience:

1.  Be Patient
Time lapse pictures are taken on intervals; when your interval is maybe one and a half minutes, by an hour, you will have maybe 40 pictures to show for that hour that passed.  Passing through 40 pictures in a time lapse video will take maybe 40 seconds if you want to bore your viewers (one second for each picture).  While I'm not setting out to make stunning time-lapse videos on my first attempt at this, I don't want to bore people either.  So I learned to allow myself more time taking pictures, maybe two to three hours!  Which leads me to...

2.  Buy an Intervalometer
Can you imagine staring at your cell phone or other timer in the dark, and pressing the shutter every minute and half?  Well, that is what I did my first night out:  I set my stopwatch on my phone and pressed the shutter as close to a minute and half as I could get.  This was a tedious process and also inaccurate.  I hope to buy an intervalometer to make this process more pleasant for myself, and also, more accurate, as the shutter speed will not vary between still photos, and the intervals will be precise.

3.  Plan in Advance
When I set out for this first adventure, I knew I wanted to shoot the Milky Way.  I found a spot where the Milky Way was visible, but the surrounding landscape was not great.  There was a radio tower in my shot; I could not get it out of frame without picking up something else distracting.  Also, I wanted to take pictures shooting north, toward the North Star.  The rotation of the earth is most evident around the North Star in time lapse photos.  However, since I had only allowed myself an hour to shoot these pictures, I ended up shooting the Milky Way's progression for 40 minutes, and the North Star's progression for 20 minutes.  So I ended up with 20 pictures for the Milky Way and maybe 10 for the other...this does not make for a long, or interesting video!

4.  Post-Editing Can be Fun, but it Takes Work
Finally, with the photos I had, I set out to compile these pictures into a video.  I have a monthly subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, with access to Photoshop and also Premiere Pro, used often for video editing and compiling.  I had no experience with Premiere Pro, and looked at several tutorials on using the product, including this one:



The first thing I found out was that the landscape format is preferable in video editing.  I unfortunately shot my pictures vertically.   I'm still working on a solution to this, but I'm afraid I will have to crop my video to fit the preferred landscape format.

The second thing I learned is that no matter how good I think I am in learning new software, it will take work to actually pick it up.  It can be frustrating to learn something new, but you have to allow yourself the patience to pick up the experience needed to learn the new software.  I'm still working to learn this software; hopefully it will get better with time (as a college student, I don't have much spare time on this, sad to say!)

So these are my lessons on time-lapse photography.  I hope to share a video I made by the end of the semester, or within the next year.  Some of the best time-lapse videos (below) I've seen have been shot throughout months of a year.

Post #6, Attempting Videography

One goal I had when starting this blog was to make a video.  I don't have experience creating and editing videos, but this weekend I jumped in, and if nothing else, learned how much I have to learn!

My first thought was that I could set my camera to video mode, and shoot.  However, since it is so dark at night, and the shutter speed is so long, I realized that I needed to take still photos and compile them later into a video.  I googled some other time lapse videos and came across some really great videos.  One came with a behind the scenes description: the video was created over several months, taking photos for hours (talking at least 2-3 hours) at a time.  That was one detail I read, but didn't take seriously.  Later I would learn the error of my thinking!

Another google search was for how-to tips.  I was mostly thinking about the compiling technique/software after the photos were taken, but one search result also came with advice on equipment.  The website said I would need an "intervalometer."  I didn't know what this was, and in reading about it, I learned it would take pictures at a timed interval so that I didn't have to keep pressing the shutter to take a picture.  I learned through experience how valuable this would be later.

So going into my first night taking pictures specifically for a video, I was vaguely aware of the challenges I would face, and considered this a "dry-run." So, how did it go?  The answer will be revealed in my next post, when I will share what I learned, what I will need for my next attempt, and challenges I faced with video editing software.  For now, here's a picture taken last weekend.  It is a stacked image, meaning this one picture is actually five images blended together.  Faintly, you can see the stars, blurred by the earth's rotation.

Post #5, Monument Rocks

As I mentioned earlier, I often visit the Monument Rocks in western Kansas.  Partly because it is close to home, where my parents live, but also because the landscape there is interesting, especially at night.  And also because the skies above are dark at night, with no city light evident at this location.

If you have never been there, here are a few pictures of the Monument Rocks at daytime:

Not too long after I first began taking pictures at night, I decided I wanted to drive to the Monument Rocks for a night photography session.  I took both my parents one night, and not totally satisfied with the results, returned two nights later with my dad (important to note that I never take pictures alone at night).  I wanted to experiment taking pictures while "painting" the landscape with a flashlight, since I couldn't use flash.  

One thing I found was that if I wanted to paint the chalk structures, I would have to keep the flashlight moving; if I stayed too long in one spot, it would be too bright in that area.  Also, it seemed that the further away from the pyramids the flashlight was, the more even the light beam was on the pyramids (it covered more area with less light power).

There was one picture, though, that I was particularly proud of:

This picture was taken with help by my dad: he was standing to left, out of frame, with the flashlight.  We were a bit of a distance away, so I had to yell directions to him about where to shine the light.  The exposure time was 38 seconds, in which my dad had to constantly move the flashlight.  The term exposure time is often used with the term shutter speed, so in this case, the camera's shutter was open 38 seconds. 

My dad and I arrived at the pyramids after sunset, but before true darkness had set in, which led to the relative lightness of the sky.  This picture was taken in late November, but the weather was unseasonably warm.  This was good for me, as I hate cold weather, but also good for my camera, as cold weather drains its battery life.  

When we returned home from this photography session, there was a sense of accomplishment shared between me and my dad.  I'm very happy to give him an "assist" on this one.

Post #4, Questions

A question that comes up often when I show my pictures of the Milky Way is, "How did you do that?"  Some people think I must have a fancy camera, a fancy telescope, or perhaps it was a touch up job in Photoshop.  I don't own such fancy equipment, and am a novice in Photoshop.  So how do I do it?

The technical answer to that question is hard to answer unless I know I'm talking to an experienced photographer.  I'd like to share some technical aspects behind my pictures in future posts, such as shutter speed, aperture and ISO.  I will try to explain these terms as we go, but if you'd like more insight, there are many resources on the web, such as this blog post on photography basics.

Generally, though, photography is about capturing light.  At night, there is little light to capture, therefore, I need to change my settings to increase the camera's sensitivity to light, its ISO.  I also need a slow shutter speed, so I need a tripod also to reduce camera blur during these exposures of one minute or more.  I can also let in more light with a wider aperture, a wider opening for light to pass through the lens.

I don't own a fancy camera, but I do know how to use it.  Knowing how to work my camera allows me to change my camera's settings so to take pictures at night that our human eyes can't see.  When you look up at the night sky, even if you are in the middle of nowhere, you won't see such vibrant colors in the Milky Way; the camera brings that out.   To find the Milky Way at night, you have to know where to look.  I use a star chart that I bought at Topeka's own Wolfe's Camera Shop, and have rented many books from the library on reading the night sky.

And as for the Photoshop...well, that's a work in progress.  I've only had a brief class in Photoshop...by no means am I a pro at that!  However, there's some pride in taking pictures that aren't improved (much) by Photoshop.

One other question I'm asked is, "Where was this picture taken?"  That's an easier answer!  I grew up in western Kansas, where people are few and far between, and therefore, there are less distractions at night to seeing the sky.  One place I frequent is about 40 minutes south of my hometown of Oakley, the Monument Rocks.


Close up map view of the road where the Monument Rocks are found



A zoomed out view of that same road, faintly seen on the right


The Monument Rocks are located south of Oakley, but north of the Scott State Park, off of Highway 83.