Calling all Photography nerds!

Ah nice looks like a nice co-lo, fortrust? looks to familar

 

Centurylink we are connected to Cyxtera

 

haha yeah, never crossed my mind to do that.. i dont work with photoshop as much as i used to.. that and i was still recovering from blacking out drunk at the casino on sat night. hahaha.

nice color and shots, do you shoot in raw by chance? if you do, id suggest shootin a little under exposed and bring the shadows back up in post so that you can get the sky
exposed as well. Other than that nice composition.

Its amazing what the sensor can pick up while being exposed for an extended time. And then even more data you can pull from the raw file. What kind of camera are you using? There are a few general rules when shooting the stars/milky way, ill give you a crash course of what ive learned this past year.. It depends on what youre trying to capture as well. Settings and philosophy will change from trying to shoot milky way vs trying to capture meteors. Also, location is a HUGE factor on how much of milky way you will be able to see, and also the time of the year. Light pollution is your enemy, so getting out way away from the city is best. (Yes there is a milky way season)

Look into the 500 rule, it will help you figure out how long you can expose for with what lens youre using before your stars start to trail. A wider lens like a 14mm will let you expose your shutter longer than a 70mm. I use a 24mm most of the time so my max exposure time would be about 20 seconds according to that rule. ( is 24mm the best focal length?? Thats all up to opinion because different focal lengths will make the milky way appear larger or smaller in the sky. But im picky and still notice star blur from them moving in orbit, so the sweet spot I use for that setup (24mm lens) is usually 18 seconds. Now for iso and everything, that will depend on if youre going to be stacking multiple images in post for noise reduction. If you are, you can get away with a higher iso like 6400+. I usually never do because most of my shots are for time lapse, meaning i need each shot as a frame of video and cant stack images for frames. So I keep my iso 3200 and below so it doesnt get too noisy. Most of the time with my camera, because once again Im picky, but 3200 usually has too much noise still due to the older camera body im using. I shoot it in iso 2500 most of the time and raise exposure in post slightly if I need to.

So now that we have ISO and Shutter speed covered, we need to talk about aperture. Aperture is easy. You want it as wide open as youre comfortable with (most lenses get soft at wide open. so most stop down just a bit.) For shooting the stars you want preferably a "fast" lens. f2.8 or wider. The reason I use my samyang 24mm to shoot the stars over my canon 16-35mm L lens is because the 16-35mm is an f4 and my 24mm is an f1.4, THATS A HUGE DIFFERENCE! The 1.4 will let in so much more star light to capture. Having said that, does that mean you cant shoot the stars with a lens that can only go to f4? No it doesnt, ive shot the milky way on that lens, but the definition and detail of the sky is no comparison.

9 shots stacked for noise reduction with the 16-35mm f4 at 16mm, f4, ISO 3200, 25 sec. Processed and aligned in Photoshop. There is an awesome program that will stack your photos called Starry Landscape Stacker, but is only for mac. Shot in a level 5 dark sky.


Single shot, 24mm f1.4 shot at f2.0, ISO 3200, 18 sec. glow stick and red headlamp to light foreground. Shot in a level 2 dark sky. (Just about the darkest sky there is in all of california!)


Lastly, get a good sturdy tripod, and use a remote trigger or if you need to, the timer on your camera so that you arent touching it when it fires the shot off. If you can lock the mirror up it will help minimize any kind of vibration from shutter slap. Mirror-less obviously wouldnt have this problem to begin with. Sometimes if im in areas of decent wind, i make sure my camera has no straps or excessive cables to get caught in the wind, and ill strap or hang extra weight to the tripod for increased stability.

 

Canon 7D Mark II
The sunset photo was taken shortly after I bought the truck in late 2015.
Fall photo I shot this past weekend.

 

Love the snow pics of Taco's, but fucking hate winter!!!!!!!!!!

 

Wow! Thank you for that explanation. I will be referring back to this as a reference. I have a Canon Rebel T6s (APS-C Sensor - 1.6-ish multiplication factor) with 2 lenses: the one is a versatile EF-S 18-135mm 1.3.5-5.6 aperture and a EF Lens 50mm (effectively an 80mm with the conversion) 1.8 aperture. I use the 50mm for portraits. Thanks again & keep up the great and interesting work!

 

I am by no means an expert wouldn't even say I'm a novice. Shooting with a d3300 55-200, 20-55 lens and a dji spark

 

You need to go there really early in the morning. All those people there would just piss me off.

 

i shot this with a rebel t5 and the kit lens a few weeks ago. My 5D was capturing a time lapse so I borrowed a friends rebel to shoot with while that was going. This was taken at Trona Pinnacles.

18mm, f3.5, ISO3200, 25 seconds. Processed in camera raw editor.

 

Joe, where are those pics taken? That looks awesome....

 

I wish I had more nature photos. lol. Most of my work is of models. hahaha

 

They were taken in the Yukon and Northwest Territories .Dempster Highway and North and South Canol road. My wife and took a three week trip there the August 25-September 16 Here's a couple more

 

Was gonna say, I've never seen anything quite like that in southern Ontario!!

 

Just a few photos from my trip that I just got back from. Owens Valley, Central CA. I go up there this time of the year to look at all the deer, its regarded as one of the better hunting zones in the state and of course I never draw a tag. Anyway, the scenery this year was par none as they got a winter storm the day before I drove up there. Plus all the rain that we got provided some excellent photo opportunities.

 

Nice shots, try shooting with a smaller aperture to get more in focus, or pay more attention to where your depth of field is. Or clean your lens, haha something is giving you blurry pics.

 

I shot this over the weekend in Malibu. This is frame #563 of my time lapse I shot that night. It came out super cool. You can watch the fog roll all the way into the canyon and see the stars come out since the fog blocks the light pollution.

 

Sick shot brotha

 

nothing spectacular, just 2 shots from recent trip to NYC with the new to me 24-70mm 2.8
.

 

Canon 24-70 is my go-to lens for shooting where I don't know what I might be taking shots of. It's a great lens!

 

I have wanted one for years, but could never afford one, even used. Then my own wedding photographer, after 15+ years of shooting Nikon switched to mirrorless and was selling off his Nikon stuff. I got a great deal on it.