Africa, Land Rover, Full Moon.....sheesh.

[Mark Thorpe]

OK so this is my first attempt at night time exposure with a DSLR. I was inspired by some snaps I have seen by Dan Heller and of course our very own and mightily talented Tom.

It was a full moon so no real star rails but I took the Landy out to some sugar cane fields and had a try out. Max exposure time I got on the shot selection was five minutes but it looks like a midday shot with a few stars so here's one of the first shots.

Canon 400D / Canon EF-S10-22mm @10mm / f5.6 @ ISO 400 for 1 minute flat.

I'm off to the Kruger National Park for the first part of April and have a definitive shot in my head that will sum up Africa really and my experience here so far as the terrestrial stuff is concerned. Hopefully I'll be posting the positive feedback on that in due course.

Cheers,
Mark.

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Nice shot, Mark. It almost looks like a composite shot with the star sky added in since you owuld virtually never see it like this in real life.

Time exposures are very cool and so easy with modern DSLRs like the 40D. Usually the camera nails a pretty good exposure - but if it doesn't you have instant feedback and can just trash it. I've had fun just shooting the lake behind my house.

 

[Mark Thorpe]

This was all manual to allow for the extended exposure time. Just SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess) it is the motto. Something tells me I'll be doing quite a bit of that in the near future

Cheers,
Mark.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Ah, the shot we've been waiting for! Very nice. It would have been a neat timelapse sequence, I'm sure.

That's the thing about the moon - a full moon almost kills the stars, but it also makes the sky a beautiful blue. The ideal moon, as far as I can tell, is a half moon or 1/3 moon or a 1/4 moon.

Of course, if you are hoping to get a full night with a 1/2 moon, with moonrise around 9pm and moonset around 6am, there are only a handful of days out of an entire year when all those things happen, so you have to watch your moon charts.

Can't wait to see your stuff from Kruger.

 

[Mark Thorpe]

Hey Tom,
Still haven't gotten my head around the timelapse stuff but will be looking to give that a bash sometime. Its like a new adventure playing with photography seeing as I come from 1/3" CCD land. Can't wait to get stuck in with RED. Learning all the time.

Cheers, and prepare yourselves for some 'Noobian' questions soon.

Best,
Mark.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Sounds like you've got the bug, Mark. I know the first time I really did one of these neat DLSR shots at night, it really motivated me to keep shooting and to see what else was possible. Like you said, you start dreaming up great shots in your mind. Then it's just a matter of trying to actually pull it off. And as you said earlier, half of it just guesswork, voodoo and good old fashioned luck.

 

[Greg Syverson]

last night I was in Talkeetna Alaska. I looked out the window and saw the bright moon behind a couple birch trees. I wished I has had a nice DSLR to try some shots. This morning I watched Denali tower above the landscape. Same thing, wished I had a nice DSLR to experiment with. Thanks Mark for posting the images. It is inspiring. Hope to be able to share my part of the world as you share your part.

Thanks

Greg

 

[Ketch Rossi]

Nice shot Mark,

even so I'm an advocate for L series lenses and 1D bodies, the 400D is a great little sucker, and the 10-22 has definitely proved to be a wordy adversary, and even so it can't be used on any 1D bodies or the 5D for that matter, it is going to be a great companion to the RED/Birger combination.

Keep shooting ... and posting, enjoyed.

Ciao