Star Trails

Quick Lessons Learned from my first Star Trail type shoot:

1.) Use a larger aperture to make the stars more apparent. They give off so little light in the first place such that a larger aperture will help bring the stars out from the dark sky. Using the largest aperture on your lens may introduce unwanted vignetting or other artifacts, however.

2.) If you use a wide angle lens, expect to sit out there longer. The stars will take longer to move across the sky. If you use a nice zoom lens, the opposite occurs.

3.) Point towards the east or west for the most star movement. Stars closer to the north/south poles move much less.

4.) Have some patience and bring a friend to chat with. Bringing some beers will also help pass the time.

5.) If you have something in the foreground, you'll have to separate your shots into segments instead of one continuous exposure.

28 Minute Exposure cut into 30 second frames (56 frames total), f/4.0, ISO 100

Happy Holidays

Behind the Scenes

Caution, Yield To Aircraft

DSLR and Video!

So time and time and time again, I like to tell people that you don't really need a fancy DSLR to take really amazing photographs. For many years I have been taking some amazing photographs with my Canon SD1000 point and shoot. I just got tired of not being able to blow up my digital pictures into anything bigger than 8x10 without them getting pixelated. I started saving up money and finally made the plunge to purchase a DSLR. I still stand by my opinion that you can still take amazing photos with a point and shoot.

However, what I would like to tell you all out there on the internet is that this weekend, I discovered how awesome it was to use a DSLR for video shooting. All this time I have been using cheap portable hand held cameras (i.e. Flip or Kodak Zi8) for shooting video. After shooting video with a DSLR this weekend at my local air show, I was impressed by the quality and versatility that the DSLR can provide.

I rendered this video at 720p 60fps. When I watch it on my desktop, the quality is astounding! Youtube doesn't really do it justice because I think it downsizes it to 30fps and the compression artifacts show up a bit more. When I watch the fully rendered high definition version on my desktop monitor, it was a bit breathtaking. I think the only downside was that the 5 minute long clip was close to 800MB.

The small things in life....

Ever since I moved to the Midwest, there has been a lack of boba. There's no surprise here because the Midwest is known for BBQ, corn, steaks and a bunch of other good American food.

So you can imagine my surprise when I spotted a Lollicup shack while I was sightseeing in Kansas City. It was $3.75 for a cup of boba milk tea.

It tasted like Lollicup boba milk tea alright. They used the powdered stuff and the boba was mediocre. Ever since I was introduced to Half and Half during my last visit to Southern California, all the boba milk tea from the other tea shops started to taste average and boring.

I was still happy I had a cup of boba milk tea though. It was better than nothing. This is one of those times where you appreciate the small things in life....

Lessons Learned From Shooting with a Big @ss Lens

I had the opportunity to rent a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L Series USM Lens with Image Stabilization. This lens retails for $1700 and I rented it for $90 a week.

This lens has image stabilization which is great for daytime shooting on or off a tripod using reasonable shutter speeds.

However, evening shots are a different story. I tried to take a photo of the space shuttle on the launch pad at night using a tripod and a remote switch and couldn't figure out why photos were still coming out blurry.

It turns out that the $50 tripod I have was the culprit.


If you look at the base of where the lens mounts to the tripod, it's sort of a ball joint that is held tight by the screw handle. Even when I have the screw as tight as I possibly could without breaking it, the ball joint still moves with the enormous weight of the lens sitting on top of it.

When does it move you ask? This is the stunning part. The camera is completely still....until the shutter inside the camera flaps open. Once the shutter flaps up, that tiny movement internal to the camera is enough to rattle the entire camera body due to the offset of the weight of the lens sitting on a ball joint that cannot itself hold the weight.

When you have a distant object zoomed in, a slight shift in the camera body is enough to move what the lens sees by ten fold. I'm sure you all know (because we've all looked through telescopes before) it's the same effect as looking through a telescope. Lets say, you have the telescope focused on the moon but then you give it a nudge smaller than a centimeter. It may knock it completely out of your field of view.

In addition to the ball joint moving ever so slightly, the legs of the tripod was just about ready to collapse if I gently pushed down on the camera. This tripod is one of those where the leg is cut into three segments and each segment is held in place by a flap type rotating thingy.

I didn't realize it yesterday when I was shooting but I looked at the specs of the tripod this morning and it can support up to 13lbs. I must have been borderline otherwise, the thing would have collapsed on itself.

Food for thought. :D