The *Official Photography Thread*

Great shot! Is that near Beacon Hill? We stayed there a couple of years ago, I loved Seattle.

 

Yep! Far north side of Beacon Hill, on the Dr Jose bridge.

 

Yeah that 70-210 1:4 AF is a good lens....real good
Zim

 

This morning 11am Bennett State Park, Missouri.
Zim

 

Shot of the Smoky's! Was there on the right day to get a nice sunset.

 

Beautiful.
Zim

 

I hit Joshua Tree last week and early this week. Tho the park campgrounds were full, my mission didn't include camping but did remind me why I hate cheap hotels.

I went for the dark skies and some astrophotography. I wasn't as successful as I'd have liked but I did learn a lot and from that point, I consider the mission a success. Instructors for the course were well qualified as astronomers and well versed at the processing tool used for processing astro images.

Astro images are usually shot using a guider of some sort. I have an iOptron Sky Guider Pro. It's a relatively simple device that allows the camera to track stars without trails. More complex tracking uses a guide camera to control the mount by analyzing star movement and adjusting accordingly-you generally find this on a telescope or on a longer, heavier lens because it allows for greater accuracy. You get almost everything you need for the Sky Guider Pro for about $400. Adding accuracy costs around $2000.

I shot using my new Canon R5 and a Canon 70-200 L on an adapter. I also shot with the 24-70 L, also on the adapter.


This image is tracked and consists of about a dozen stacked frames. The left gas clouds are part of the Galactic Core of the Milky Way.


Milky Way


Single Astro Photographer at work.


Sunset at Joshua Tree.


Climber at Joshua Tree.

I ended up binning more than I would have hoped but the point of this class was more to get the tools and techniques which I believe I managed to get-time to get out and shoot some more this summer. I went through Viking Photo Tours and our instructors were Kah-Wai Lin and Matt Dieterich. Matt works installing telescopes and Kah-Wai is a very avid astronomer. Both were fantastic instructors.

 

Just some stuff close to the house.
Zim

 

Last weeks trip near Giant Rock. Was a no go on much of the stars due to the nearing super moon.

 

Matt Dieterich is one of the instructors on the workshop I recently attended in Joshua Tree.

If you're interested, he will be giving a on the 27th of May. He's a great speaker and also thorough. Give it a twirl if you want to try astro. Oh yeah, he has worked not only on workshops but as a NPS Ranger speaking to people about astronomy.

 

Hey anyone have any advice on starting out to learn lightroom? I usually edit photos with the basic camera raw function from Bridge/lightroom then pop into photoshop

Thanks

 

There's about 69 million YouTube videos on the subject. Just start watching tutorials and messing around.

 

Muench Workshops did a whole series of webinars that will help. Free and definitely worth the watch.

 

Hence why I asked, curious if anyone had any specifics they liked

Great thanks I'll peek at those

 

A little morning dew...

 

Take your pics in RAW, and transfer into LR and hit the auto button. Done...LOL. It's really ease tho to learn, and understand. It's the filing system that sucks for me. Naming files, changing and saving....it's a mess for me.
Zim

 

Hahahaha of course there's an auto button. I always shoot in raw, I may be lazy on some photos and see what LR does for me lol
I usually file everything on an external TB hard drive and go by Year-Month-Days/The Event then sub folders with the raws, edits, and finals/jpegs

 

I need to up my post processing as well. Been using Nikon Capture NXD which is nice for a free converter and quick adjustments but not as powerful as Lightroom/Capture One. GIMP is powerful but I've a lot to learn still.

 

Check out digikam (https://digikam.org)

 

Hmmm never heard of it. Seems more focused towards DAM than being a dedicated editing interface.

Not real thrilled with the subscription model Adobe runs now.