[Yugoboy]

Well… night doesn’t come fast enough where I am. When I left college tonight it was still sunsetting… it’s an hour drive, so I knew I’d get a chance, I just didn’t realize that chance was going to be too close to too much traffic.

Of the three astro-shots I got, this one’s the best. The blurry things in the upper right are clouds. The shot was at 30 seconds. At lower left you can see vignetting as I forgot to take my Cokin ring off when I went full 28 mm.

While I was there, I figured I’d get a few shots of the Thruway. I’ve never tried night photography before. I was too chicken to spend the money when I was using film. I didn’t have enough cash to experiment. Digital’s awesome that way. Here’s one of the interesting ones I took from an overpass (probably should have focused on the speed sign):

I’m gonna keep trying. We’re past the summer solstice, so soon enough I’ll get the chance to got some neat night sky shots. For now, I’m enjoying the night photography.

Doing this shot caused a guy to stop and ask me to shoot his house and he’d buy the pictures. I did about 30 or so shots, some with and some without my star filter. I’ll share those later, but what should I charge?

[Yugoboy]

I’ll look into that. Thanx!

[Yugoboy]

Thanks, RAV. I can see the difficulty that you propose. I feel I have a strong set, but having them divided by one or two other shots probably would diminish the effect.

Would you look them over and give me some feedback? (anybody)? Thanks

http://elisaraephotography.blogspot.com/2011/07/launch-of-fierce-leader.html[/code]

You might try what some people have done and do the 1 of 3, 2 of 3, 3 of 3. Maybe instead of putting your captions/descriptions UNDER the pictures, put them OVER the the pics to tell the story. Not that I have much experience at this…
I think you’ll get what ravnostic said: one picture of the 3 gets more votes representing the voters’ enjoyment of the trio.

[Yugoboy]

As for the remote, it’s super simple-you could probably build one. Basically an IR led with a button to turn it on. There’s no coded signal on it either-I’ve managed to set off my camera by igniting magnesium shavings from my backpacking firestarting kit using just a knife and steel.

OK… here’s a project for the builders here… can you build a remote with a dollar-store universal remote?

[Yugoboy]

Edit: Now I kinda want to do another Barbie theme

Should I start trolling the garage sales?

[Yugoboy]

How’d the experiments go? If need to feel better about yours, I could probably dig up my first attempts at astrophotography-they were hopeless.

Getting away from light pollution is always a good idea, and unless you have a motorized tracking mount, you’ll want a wide-angle lens, the faster the better. I’ve been going back and forth between my 18-105 mm f/3.5-5.6 set at 18mm, f/3.5 and my 28mm f/2.5. The 28mm is WAY faster and has weirdly awesome saturation/color reproduction, but is optically…crap. The 18-105mm is a great lens, but for some mysterious reason, I’m never 100% satisfied with the astrophotos that come out of it.

My wide angle’s the 18-55 kit lens. It’s a Nikon and has VR, so I’m confident it’ll be OK for practicing for now. My college job is at an annex way out in the boonies of western NY, so I’m planning on stopping on a quiet stretch of road on the way home tomorrow to give it another go. I’ll probably pack my ancient tripod due to the fact that it’s WAY heavier than the Slick I’ve got for daily use.

As for getting exposures longer than 30 seconds, if you have a nikon, you’ll almost certainly need a remote. The ML-L3 is the one I use-cheap and effective. You can also take a bunch of shorter exposures and stack them-I think there’s some free software for that floating around on the internet.

The remote’s out of the question for now regardless of how inexpensive. Until school starts back up we’re on a tight budget (we’re behind, and my wife’s working lots and lots of OT just to try to get us to even. We’re losing almost 2 weeks of earning when my parents take us to Italy in August. It’s a trade-off we’re happy to make… but no scratch for any extras). I’ll have to write down the model number and put it on the Christmas list.

As for “stacking”… I’ll have to look up whatever that is. I’m a Photoshopper… my photography experience is largely about what I can get in the viewfinder. I’ve been playing around a bit with HDR, but nothing I’m happy with yet.

Never fear… I’ll give the astrophotography some more tries before giving it up.

[Yugoboy]

Is that the wrong point of view? Am I not doing enough? Should I take a hard stance here just on principal? I’d like to know what you all think…

All I’d be asking for is credit to be given.

I recently had a reason to try to find my own Flickr account (don’t ask) and found that one of my photoshops for a non-Fark site was in someone else’s photostream. Given that my name was associated with it, I didn’t say anything… probably should have left a comment feeling honored…

Again, if you don’t have a profit motive reason for demanding they take it down, msg ’em and ask that credit be given. Maybe even ask for a link to direct appreciators to a site of your choosing so you can maybe get clients or something.

FWIW – I hadn’t paid attention to that contest, and I’m not familiar with you, millera9, but that’s how I’d handle it.

[Yugoboy]

I did my first experiments doing night sky photography last night.

Had trouble getting the moon’s details, but I did manage to get most of the big dipper. I think I need to go out into the countryside and away from the local light to get really nice shots like yours.

(Probably should also use wide angle lens, and should definitely learn how to use the longer than 30 seconds shutter options (if I have any that don’t require investing in a remote control).

Yours sure are purty… (mild jealousy is trumped by aesthetic awe).

[Yugoboy]

640 px wide
200 kb

I “think” it’s 1500px tall, but that could be wrong.

Also, the 200kb is an ideal nearly never reached. Keep it under 150kb almost always, and under 100kb if possible.

[Yugoboy]

You could try wearing a black skirt, red fishnets, spiked combat boots and a two-sizes too small Strawberry Shortcake t-shirt, and carry a squirtgun full of chlorox to squirt encroachers.

Given that I haven’t cut my hair in over 7 years, all I have to do is refuse to tie it up, wear some ripped jeans and look really really pissed. People tend to leave me alone. It’s my normal travel attire (I rarely have people sit next to me at the airport) and it’s also my Christmas shopping wardrobe. I’m not really anti-social, I just don’t like to be delayed or hassled when I’m other-focused. It doesn’t work as well after dark, but I have found that profuse cursing and under-breath mumbling does tend to keep parents with kids at bay as well.

[Yugoboy]

So the really cool hiding leopard frog pic I’ve got from a recent excursion would be in because it was shot like 30-40 feet from a pond?

This opens up the possibilities tremendously!

[Yugoboy]

I’d like to second (third?) the vote for doing this one again…

good stuff, and I’ve still got a bunch in the archive.

I love this particular topic. It’s actually something I do pretty regularly just for me. Our living room is decorated with photos I’ve done, and a significant percentage are collapsing barns. In fact, the one I entered is also on the wall.

The other decorations in the living room are old cameras (Brownies, others) on small shelves. I don’t think any are operational (except for the old Polaroid)… wait… that’s a different thread…

[Yugoboy]

For clarification (and so I can begin the archive dive, if I can’t get to a lake shore in the next few days) – “water’s edge” includes rivers, streams and reservoirs, yes?

[Yugoboy]

Except that Vimeo won’t frickin’ work on Firefox, so it’s useless to me.

It’ll work if you turn off AdBlock Plus and NoScript. There’s a couple more layers to it than YouTube, but it’s viewable.

[Yugoboy]

That’s some nice work he’s doing there.

I’m not big on doing re-touching, but there are several Fark Photoshoppers who are really good at it.

They key is to know your software. Reconstruction and repair isn’t hard to do, but it is hard to do really well.

Somewhere on-line there’s a website of people who retouch photos for disaster victims that started in the wake of Katrina. I know some Farkers joined up.

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