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Took an hour outdoors this evening to capture the Northern Lights. Been a long time since I have had a decent auroral shoot. Only it was -35ËšC outside this evening, I was happy to leave when the activity started dying down.
A few photos I did not upload from the May 10/11 storm. That was an incredible storm. The yellow/orange colors in these corona shots are not a result of any photoshopping. My typical workflow does involve some contrast and highlight/shadow adjustments, but I rarely even saturate the colors. If anything, I will lower the saturation at times when the contrast adjustments oversaturate it.
All that to say, these colors are real.
From what I have read, oranges and yellows are the results of overlaps of the typical greens and pinks. Still, these yellows are intense.
For the second night in a row, the heavens opened up. This time, I am beginning to recognize a pattern. I love auroras that are well-defined with brilliant curtains, and I have seen enough now to recognize that they typically come strong in these times out of times of soft, diffuse bands of lights across the sky. I saw it some last night, and tonight, I was just about to turn in when I saw this and decided to look for another location to shoot from. So glad I did. I found a pigeon barn on the outskirts of town on the side of the road. I set up my camera, and started getting shots of the auroras with the barn in the foreground. Soon, the heavens opened up, just as I predicted. WELL worth the extra time out tonight.
Revisiting my pics of American White Pelicans from this summer at Prince Albert National Park. I am playing with darker exposures to see how they look.
Constructive criticism is appreciated.
I decided to rework these Silver Fox pics tonight as I have noticed my tendencies to brighten images up, often too much. These were taken in dark morning twilight, at ISO 51,200 (my camera's max), but instead of trying to make them look like daylight pics, I thought to try to darken them to look more like the night shots they are.
In my quest to become more comfortable and skilled at dark images, I want to open up comments to helpful tips and criticisms. Some of these are stacks (which amazes me that I could get 5 or more images close enough to identical with a subject like this TO stack), and there are interesting things playing with the lighting on some surrounding vegetation.
A nice morning out at Crex Meadows. Delighted to hear and see Sedge Wines and Golden-winged Warblers all around.
I decided to rework these Silver Fox pics tonight as I have noticed my tendencies to brighten images up, often too much. These were taken in dark morning twilight, at ISO 51,200 (my camera's max), but instead of trying to make them look like daylight pics, I thought to try to darken them to look more like the night shots they are.
In my quest to become more comfortable and skilled at dark images, I want to open up comments to helpful tips and criticisms. Some of these are stacks (which amazes me that I could get 5 or more images close enough to identical with a subject like this TO stack), and there are interesting things playing with the lighting on some surrounding vegetation.
As I walked the Gandy Dancer Trail north of Frederic, this beautiful fawn came out onto the trail after I passed his location. I watched him quietly for a bit until I casually stepped back into the woods.
I decided to rework these Silver Fox pics tonight as I have noticed my tendencies to brighten images up, often too much. These were taken in dark morning twilight, at ISO 51,200 (my camera's max), but instead of trying to make them look like daylight pics, I thought to try to darken them to look more like the night shots they are.
In my quest to become more comfortable and skilled at dark images, I want to open up comments to helpful tips and criticisms. Some of these are stacks (which amazes me that I could get 5 or more images close enough to identical with a subject like this TO stack), and there are interesting things playing with the lighting on some surrounding vegetation.
Enjoyed a night out with my kids as we watched Northern Lights and looked for Perseid Meteors.
Not the best display I have seen, but certainly a very nice one.
I asked a friend for a banana leaf from their tree today (in the middle of a Canadian winter), and had a blast shooting on it. I am quite pleased with the results.
A morning drive to church was interrupted by this find along the side of the country highway.
I have seen many of these in Saskatchewan, but I was not expecting to see it in Wisconsin. This is apparently shaping up to be an irruption year where population booms in the northern have forced many father south for the winter. While this is great for photographers and birdwatchers, these birds tend to be stressed and often starve to death.
We were able to get shots of this bird without disturbing it, leaving it on its hay bale, where a friend passed by it a few hours later.
While visiting a friend in Tennessee, I watched numerous bluebirds in their backyard. Eventually had to get my camera out for a few shots.
My second total solar eclipse in my life (just 7 years from the last. What an amazing experience! Afterwards, I looked at my last shots on my camera and saw they were hopelessly out of focus. I was still so thrilled about the day that I didn't let it get to me.
I got back to the hotel and saw I had some decent ones from the beginning of totality, including the diamond ring shots I missed last time. The irony is that I was busy getting video of in beginning of totality last time that I only got shot of the end of totality. This time, I got the beginning and not the end!
Here is the YT video I got with my other camera and lens.
One thing I have loved about the EF100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II lens is its speed in focusing. Coupled with my Canon 7D mark ii (that has an amazing arsenal of auto-focus options and bells and whistles, this has been wonderful setup for wildlife photography, especially birds in flight. In fact, having shot with the mark 1 of both camera and lens, I can say the two are a significant improvement over the original. And between the lens being sharp wide-open (2 stops improvement over the old where I had to stop down to f/8), having another stop of image stabilization, and the camera's sensor adding at least another stop in image quality at higher resolution, I would say this set up is a good 4 to 5 stops improvement over the old!
So I have so loved this setup!