Last shot I managed to take before some dickhead switched street lamps on

Well, actually this is 3 short exposure shots stacked together so it is bit like one longer exposure shot, I'm very newbie to all such stuff, better not ask any technical about it


It was already at 70mm, still it won't fit to frame

Today there was glimpse of light, so I went to shoot with my new lens, but as everything is wet and dead it was quite challenging to find out interesting things to shoot.

However I discovered this and thought it would look nice at center of frame:


No air pollution around this tree, even there is busy road next to it:

And adventures continue towards great unknown...

Those are both awesome! Nice one Jani

Chris_C wrote:Those are both awesome! Nice one Jani

Thanks, still lot of practice is needed so that I could take better pics, but with star pic it is pretty difficult to take good photos without tracking mount, it would require something like 50 photos stacked to get even some kind of results, total exposure time should be over 30 minutes to get it look really nice.

Hopefully I can get focus better next time when there is weather for night photos, I got few shots that would been really nice if there would been even a little bit of focus, but that is part of learning process I guess.

Yeah, I agree about the tracking mounts. Thats why I started with the moon, you can get away with 1/125 even at higher apertures, it's really bright.

One of the prof's in my department wrote this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Making-Beautifu ... 432&sr=1-2

His website is http://www.newforestobservatory.com/

Be impressed, go and look up how much the kit cost, and be content to sit and watch from afar

Wow, that first one is very impressive Jani, and now my Desktop

This is a photo I took a week or two back of lightning. It's not the normal strike lightning, just flashes up in the sky, and makes no noise. There was a flash or two every minute, so it was fairly easy to catch it with a 30sec exposure. There are unfortunately a few blobs in that image caused by condensation on the window it was taken through.


I also may have gotten to the bottom of why I've not been happy with some of my photos. I understand the principle of white balance, but never realised the difference it can make to the vividness of colours. Compare

I will probably get tracking mount at some point, just need to wait until I have that much to spare

Haven't got enough time to really read trough that site, but looks fairly interesting, there is also one finnish forum that is only about stars and taking photos from stars, which I have found lot of good stuff.

MJ, thanks from comments

I don't find nothing wrong in your flash pic, except it remainds me of movie and book of H.G Wells, martians from Mars attacked in it and there was some flashing with some interwall, be prepared
Great photo btw

I have found that white balance is indeed big aspect and so is exposure time, usually I tend to take photos with tad longer exposure time than what automatic would as that brings colours up tad better, imo.

But it is sometimes hard to find proper white balance, for stars and night photos I use daylight as I did read somwhere that is what one should use. Quite rarely I set it to automatic as I find it tends to make photos bit clinical if that is a word to use.

Knowing something however does not help at least me, it makes only possibilites, only practice helps me together with what I know and it is practice part which seem to take quite lot of time

Yeah, that lightning was a bit weird. I didn't realise it was going on until I went to bed and saw a flash through the window. I thought someone was outside taking photos with a flash. Freaked me out a bit until I realised what it was

Clinical is just the right word - the first of those photos I posted looks rather dead, dull and uninteresting compared to the second.

I've nearly always used automatic, except when shooting under incandescent lights, or once or twice when I wanted to change the atmosphere of a photo by playing with it. I knew it would remove (or add) colour casts depending on lighting, but never realised the effect on the vividness of colour.

This year we went on holidays with my motorcycle (me and girlfriend), through Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, about 2000km .

I`ve done about 500 photos, here are two of them

That city night-wiev is from Dubrovnik, it is a very beautiful old city with two good Irish pubs

second photo is from Sarajevo which is still recovering from war

token wrote:That city night-wiev is from Dubrovnik, it is a very beautiful old city with two good Irish pubs

second photo is from Sarajevo which is still recovering from war

I've been to both those places. In a 360 too Unlit Bosnian road tunnels - something to be reckoned with.

Nice pics, definitely worth hosting them somewhere where they don't lay their own logo over your pic

Tom

Would love to visit those countries at some point, looks bit like some parts of Italy, but I believe it is not so hot there.

jtbo wrote:Would love to visit those countries at some point, looks bit like some parts of Italy, but I believe it is not so hot there.

It was pretty warm wenn we went there, in 2002. I'll never forget the drive from Sarajevo back to Bonn. We left at 7 am and taking the shortest route via the Republika Srpska (including a quick search of the car by border guards) we drove the 1600kms to Bonn in one go, arriving at midnight.

A creepy feeling, knowing there was a war raging just a days' drive away from your home ...

jtbo wrote:Would love to visit those countries at some point, looks bit like some parts of Italy, but I believe it is not so hot there.

at the summer time is very hot there,...in city Mostar was at time when we arrived 37°C ...you don`t want to be in leather combi for motorcycle, believe me

the beach in Croatia is very beatiful...here is picture of beach 10km before Dubrovnik I`ve been there for 5 days

the second picture is from Mostar,...the bridge was destroyed during the war, so they build a new bridge-replica

MJ wrote:Wow, that first one is very impressive Jani, and now my Desktop [/img]

Mine to