From Gemini with Love...

I recently had the opportunity to photograph the Geminid meteor shower.  I was in luck because the skies were set to be clear here in southwest Virginia.  I chose to shoot at a small field near the Blue Ridge Music center on the Blue Ridge Parkway just north of the Virginia/North Carolina line.
After showing the final photo, some people were curious as to how I managed to capture all the meteors in one frame.  What follows is what a person needs to know should they want to do this themselves.
The items I brought with me were as follows

Canon 5d Mark ii
Canon 17-40mm f4L(your widest lens is recommended)
Tripod
Intervalometer or Cable Release.
Extra Battery(a battery grip would be perfect for this)
A smart phone with a stargazer app.
A good radio station or an mp3 player with 4 hours of music:)

I knew that the Geminids were going to peak around 2am on the night of the shoot.  So I left the house just after midnight to head to my shooting area(about 20 minutes from my house).

Upon arrival, the first thing I needed to do was find out where in the sky the meteors were going to come from.The Radiant(the constellation in the sky that they seem to fall from) this night was Gemini constellation.  Once I found that constellation on my smartphone I had a better idea as to where to point the camera.  It is not recommended to point your camera directly at the radiant point because a falling metoer hitting your lens can cause serious damage.  Just kidding, the closer the meteors are to the radiant, they shorter they appear(think of someone shooting an arrow directly at you from 100ft away, and then someone shooting an arrow to a point 50ft to your left.  The arrow travels the same distance, but you can see much more of it when it is viewed from the side)

From here on out, all that mattered was how I was going to compose the scene.  I opted to put a tent into my scene, so I placed a light inside the tent to help me compose my scene in the dark.

Once my camera was composed, I set the camera to shoot 30 second exposures at 3200iso, 17mm, f4.  I used the intervalometer as a standard cable release and just locked it down.  If you are shooting with a lens around the 24mm length, I would recommend a shorter exposure time, as the star movement will be more apparent on a longer focal length.

Then, all you do is enjoy the show.  I ended up with several meteors showing up in the resulting images.

Before I packed everything up and left, I needed to capture an exposure for the tent.  You can get really creative here if you would like, with any sort of foreground.  For mine, I stood behind my tent and shined the light for a few seconds.

Since I had been shooting for many hours in the early part of the morning, my camera, tripod, and tent were covered in dew and frost!

Now for the boring part....

It's really easy to blend all the exposures together properly.  First I find my tent picture, adjust the white balance to the light of the flashlight, and save it(note that this will look terrible on the top half of your image)

Then I find all the images that have meteors in them, like this...

 and this...

 and this...

Once I have found all of the metoers, I adjust the image for contrast, sharpness, and very importantly, white balance(from here on out you will be working with jpegs), then save all the images in full resolution.

Next you will need to 'blend' them all together.  This is really easy, just a little time consuming.  If you are not familiar with using layers in photoshop or the gimp, make yourself familiar, then keep reading(sorry no screenshots)

I use the Gimp.  It's free, easy, and exactly like photoshop for the things I do.  All I really use it for is layers and masking, all my other edits are completed with Lightroom and Lightroom plugins.

I opened up all the images as seperate projects(you can open them up as layers if you like working that way).  I like working on them one at a time so I keep them seperate.  Then I copy and past one of the images onto another image and add a full transparent layer mask(make a note of where the meteor is in your image before adding the layer mask, because it will disappear).  Then I use the 'lighten only' brush and draw a thin line over the meteor's trail.  This will expose the meteor, and some surrounding stars, so keep it tight!  Flatten your image, rinse, repeat until all of your meteor trails are displaying nicely in one frame.

Then grab your tent image and add it as a layer.  Using the same principle as before, I added the tent into the scene.except I did not use the 'lighten only' brush, I used 'normal').  Since the treeline in my image was black in both the photo shot for the tent, and the stars, blending them together was easy.

There you have it,  an image with two parts.  The bottom part a tent with a white balance set to the flashlight, and the top part a bunch of meteors raining down in a nice cool blue sky:)

Oh and if you take all those photos from your night and blend them together with star trail software, the results are cool as well:)

Wilson Creek (Grayson Highlands State Park)

There is something about this place...  something totally awesome.   I even feel like a more awesome person when I come here.  I can leave this place and tell people 'I went to the highlands today' and they immediately know that I had a way more badass time then they did.  

Here is a quick double check on what a awesomely awesome park should have, and whether or not Grayson Highlands State Park has what it takes....

EPIC views of the Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee(yes you can see that far) mountains?  Check.

WILD animals, most notably, horses?  Check.

WELL MAINTAINED trails for horses, bikers, and hikers?  Check.

OFF THE CHAIN cascades and waterfalls?  Oh Hell Yes.(our focus for this post)

A classic Virginia view:)

Not too bad of detail for a Pentax k20d + 16-45

As soon as the sun breaks, you are racing it up the creek, trying to get your shots before the rays come in.

Endless cascades on Wilson Creek

Big cascades, watch your step here:)

I'll give you one guess as to how many aperture blades my Sears 135mm has:)  They are painfully straight, as you can see in the bokeh.

The Forests of Rocky Knob

Rocky Knob is a cool recreation area on the Blue Ridge Parkway located near Meadows of Dan.  The views from Rocky Knob are quite splendid.  Once you get to 'The Saddle', you have nice views of the Blue Ridge Mountains in multiple directions.

There are a lot of miles to hike around here, even if there aren't very many trails.  I think there are 3-4 trails but they range from 1-10 miles in length(with some steep climbs if you want).  Today I went up the trail less than a mile, but it took me nearly 3 hours(macro photography will do that to ya).

I somewhat broke the rules with my shooting times today.  I know that it shouldn't matter what time you show up, but let's be honest... the earlier the better:)  I lazily rolled onto the scene around 9am(about 4 hours later than I should have).

Oh well...

Instead of an overwhelmingly blue photo(as the Blue Ridge often creates) I opted for monochrome in this scene taken with the Pentax K20d + 135mm 2.8

Rays of light as captured by the Canon 5d Mark ii and Sigma 50mm

A short hike up from 'The Saddle' parking lot.

Sometimes you have to just sit and look for a little while... not necessarily at a grand vista, but at a plant, bush, tree, or the grass... you'd be surprised at how much is actually going on all around you.  The images below, for example, are nothing overly special, just a look into the very bottom of the food pyramid. 

Virginia is always in some kind of bloom:)

The next three images I really enjoy.  I spent about 1.5 hrs shooting these little moss 'trees'.  I imagine it as a mini landscape within the landscape.  These were shot on the side of a rock that was covered in different kinds of moss and lichens.

 

I don't really know what or why about these.  It appears that tiny bits of leaves got surrounded by water... it was in a crevice of a rock.  The light was very low, so a bigger aperture high iso were used to capture it, even if it was poorly done:)

Another sure tell sign of Autumn:)

Some greens make their way out from under the bottom layer.

Thanks for looking:)  Y'all have a good rest of whatever you are in:)

Living Slow...

I live a mile-and-a-half from a not very busy highway in Southwest Virginia.  Basically, turn left after Galax towards Pipers Gap, and go until your Verizon Wireless phone stops working, and it's on your left just past the 'two dogs'(listen for my rooster's mangy crow) Life around here can be as slow as you want it to be, it really is something else(something awesome)

I will take my camera and a little Yorkie down the road, and take photos of flowers, cow pastures, bugs, dogs, turtles... anything that will stay around long enough to get photographed. 

The other morning I was taking a photo of a pasture covered in fog when a couple of the more well known locals came walking about,  the 'two dogs'.  You see the 'two dogs are kind of celebrities on our road.  So much so that if you were to get directions on how to get to our house, you might hear something like "once you see the two dogs, it's on your left after two more houses".

You see, the 'two dogs'(I don't actually know thier names) like to lay in the street and bask in the sunshine, while greeting anyone that comes by.  Whenever I go running, the dogs will come meet me and run with me to the end of the road and back:) 

After a great church service this morning(about 'Margins in Life'), I know I need to make my life just a little bit more like the 'two dogs'....  Take it easy, go for walks, lay out in the sun, and be nice to everybody:) 



Don't let her sad face deceive you, her tail is a waggin'




The Sigma provides nice sharp focus



The mornings get foggy more often as the season starts to change:)

Hope you all had a great Sunday:) 



I love Spiders (Part 2)

I opted to set up a flash behind my subject here.  I like how all the water drops catch light and make a really nice line throughout the image.  If you look closely, you can see little starbursts on the points of light(notably the larger drop right infront of the spider on the first image).  The aperture was closed down to f14 for these images.  A small aperture is usually a nessecity for macro photography, as a razor thin depth of field is very hard to work with.

Click the images to view a larger version.

Thanks for Looking:)

 Thanks for looking:)





I love Spiders(part 1)

I think spiders are awesome.  I am fascinated by them.  I am not currently fascinated to the point where I go and look up what type it is, or if it is poisonous, or what its scientific name is etc..  I just love admiring them.  It is amazing that a little creepy crawly builds a web designed to catch a wayward bug who might get tangled in it.  And once the bug gets caught... game over:) 
Tuesday morning I went outside when the gf left for work.  The air was really foggy(as it often is) and the dense humidity caused the webs to have gazillions of little water droplets on them, making the webs very visible.  On a dry day it can be hard to spot even the largest webs.


The first three images are of the same spider, and were taken near the carport outside our house.  All of the images were taken with the Tokina 100 2.8 Macro lens mounted to a Canon 5d Mark ii.







The web resembled a Compact Disc with the sunlight shinging through the water drops.




A ray of sunlight lights up a spider in the morning




Some nice light coming in from behind a very large web. (Cumberland Knob, N.C.)




A spider just getting his web started on Old Quaker Rd.

 Thanks for looking, stay tuned for more:)

Virginia Countryside 4-12-12

 After work this afternoon I decided to hop in the car and take a cruise through a small part of southwest Virginia.  I head from Galax, where I live, to Comers Rock.  It's located out by Elk Creek.  Along the way I snapped some shots with a 50mm f2 manual focus lens mounted to my Pentax k20d.  I finished up the day on top of Comers Rock, and shot the last image with a 135mm f2.8 manual focus lens mounted to the same camera.  Thanks for looking.

Weeds on the roadside 

The crop factor on this camera leaves everything smashed into the frame when I can't back up too far:)

Tree farm

I like the soft look this lens provides

Some phlox growing around a mailbox 

A common view of the Blue Ridge Mountains