Cloudscapes and creative in camera stuff.

 I had a sudden inspiration yesterday after reading She Who Seeks blog. It was the photo of a thousand sunsets.

I recognized how it was done immediately and decided to try it too. The photo clearly was done with an Olympus camera LiveComp mode. I've done this too but not with the brilliant colors.

There were some clouds in the sky when I set the camera out for an experiment. I set the LiveComp mode to 4 second intervals and let it go for about 7 minutes. The camera takes a shot every 4 seconds and composites anything that has changed in the last 4 seconds on to the first shot. Every 4 seconds for 7 minutes means about 105 shots.

This mode is fantastic for Star Trails and it is what I always use it for. Doing a daylight photo was a bit tricky as I had to add a heavy lifter ND filter and use the internal ND filter of the OM-5.

So this was my view out the window from our eating area of the 'subject matter'.

Yup, the yard pony, Lil' Richard. He has been fantastic this spring at keeping the yard trimmed. Yes, I have to pick up his droppings, but he crops evenly and in circles from his tether.

This is what I shot. At first I wasn't going to even use it anywhere, but then I thought it was pretty funny to see how much Lil' Richard moved in 7 minutes time. He really moves around quite a bit! 

This morning I got up before dawn and decided to try this again with the camera pointing SW from our porch. This one turned out pretty cool and was an 8 minute LiveComp.

Oh that was cool and kind of fun! So I let the camera go for 17 minutes [yes, it is hard on the battery especially since it was 35 F outside]...and this is what I got.

I love it, but sadly...also since I zoomed in on a section of sky...it shows the dust spots on the lens!

I think the most interesting thing is...the different layers of clouds that are moving in different directions. I find that totally captivating. 

Next? I'm going to try some fun experiments that Anvilcloud has done. In camera double exposures. I did this a long time ago and had some fun results. Time to try it again. If you haven't seen his crocus photos, you need to jump over there and take a look.

Experimentation and taking chances on a new way of seeing things adds so much to the creative juices.

Night of the Fireflies...

I haven't been out to see the fireflies this year...well, that is until Saturday night. The skies have been smokey and the nights have been chilly. I decided to go ahead and look for them last night.

They were numerous!

View back towards the house...

This was just at 'Blue Hour' when Venus was visible in the sky. Our home is just to the right of the pines.

Fireflights/lightening bugs prefer the tall grasses and the woods. If you don't have an area that is unmowed, you won't see as many. I stood at the edge of our yard and took this shot of the meadow on the other side of the fence.

For anyone interested in how this was done. I used my Olympus E-M1 Mark iii which has a 'Starry Sky' Auto focus to help focus things in the dark. I used a setting called LiveComp. I set the LiveComp up to a 4 second exposure for 4 minutes. That means that each 4 seconds that passes by, the camera records any changes to the light and adds it essentially as a layer over the previous exposures for 4 minutes. ISO was set at 1600 and I had to modify the white balance.

I know that sounds like Greek to many folks, but there it is...

Setting it up and figuring out where to point it is the hard part sort of. 

I stopped while heading to the ridge:

The Driveway...

Tigen Road where I noted that the lightening bugs hung out along the long grass in the ditches.

At the mailbox...

And then I took a 'selfie'. The lights from the town 3 miles away was rather intense and gave the sky an odd color as the humidity, haze, and smokey sky increased the odd oranges. 

Could we please get some rain????

Sunday is Father's Day. So I leave these two photos of my father.

Young Dad:

I'm guessing this might be a clue as to why I love photography?

Dad in 2001 when we were in Hawai'i together.

Experimenting

My Olympus M 1 Mark iii has a couple of cool features that I love. Starry Sky AF. Most Oly cameras have standard options for taking cool longer exposures called LiveComposite. 

When using the  Starry Sky AF, the camera seeks out stars and locks in focus! Amazing. I did that Friday night even with the nearly full moon and clouds moving in. I thought I'd experiment for a bit later this year when I'd like to go to the KVR ponds on a clear night and photograph star trails reflected in the water.  

Here is a crappy shot of the camera doing its thing, taken with the cell phone.

Here is the result.

For camera buffs, the settings were ISO: 1600

f stop: 2.8 

12mm lens

Livecomp settings: 15 sec exposures for a time limit of 15 minutes.

Post process, not much just DxO PhotoLab 4 PrimeNoise reduction.

So the Livecomp basically adds any light it sees to the original picture. I really don't know how it works, however it saves me from having to purchase a program and manually stack star photos taken individually. It feels like cheating, but it also is fun.

Even with the bright moonlit sky, I got a nice star trail. Nothing exciting, but now I have figured out how to do it.

I took the Full Spectrum camera an Olympus OMD EM 10 Mark iii [entry level and damn fine camera] and set it up without any filters.

I was very surprised at the amount of light the FS had!

Cell phone shot:

That was the pasture, so I took the camera and pointed it south.

Settings

Manual Focus [I'm not as good at that as I'd like to be...old eyes?]

ISO: 800

f 1.8

25mm lens

Livecomp settings: 4 second exposures for 4 minutes.

The clouds moving through left interesting streaks. I could have desaturated the ground, but just left it as is. Very little noise in this shot!

Again, it could be fun to try this summer on top of Black Hawk rock shooting the Milky Way or star trails!

I lost track of time while out in the pasture. I didn't walk back to the house until after midnight. 

Morning brought dense fog and rain. Yuck weather.

I made a huge mistake and went shopping for some things we ran out of. The local Walmart wasn't too bad when I walked in.

I got distracted in the craft and paper section. I haven't browsed crafty stuff in ages and I got sidetracked.

I looked up and saw droves of humans.
It was like a weird social experiment.

Some humans trying to avoid other humans. Some humans standing with masks on chins chatting. Some with masks on properly chatting. Others with their noses poking out and glaring at others.

And some humans just ignoring everyone around them.

I got the heck out of there but felt queasy standing in line waiting for a check out station.

I used to have a rule of Never shopping on a Saturday. Damn. I won't break that rule again for ages!

I like doing still life photography but got a bit bored with the choice of layouts. I picked up some paper to use as a back drop. I'd seen an ad for Replica Surfaces and I thought ... Wow great! I could use those!

Yeah. Until I saw the price tag. I searched around and in some cases other surfaces just like that were up to $69 for one foam board with a pattern on it!

So my side trip into the craft section netted me this. Craft paper with patterns on it.

Cell phone photos. The first two are lay flat and terrible lighting. I did those while cooking. The last one is a patterned paper on the bottom and one sheet taped to a board for the back.

The items have to be tiny as the paper is only 12" by 12". 

Well, $5 is better than $69 right? I have about 20 different colors and patterns to use. Now let's see if I can get creative.