Its been a long time since our last blog post documenting our 30th anniversary trip through Europe. Please excuse the delay and hopefully we will get back on track with this installment.
Leaving Paris we headed 20 km south west from our hotel near the base of the Eiffel Tower to visit a hunting lodge built in 1624 by Louis XIII, which was later ‘spruced up’ by Louis XIV to become the Palace of Versailles. Louis XIV moved from his house in Paris (The Louvre) to Versailles in 1682. The French Royal family and thus the seat of political power in France remained in Versailles until 1789 when the French Revolution forced the Royals back into Paris. The Palace of Versailles is one of the largest and most opulent palaces in the world constructed at a cost of two billion dollars. The few images posted in this blog can not adequately convey the immensity nor extravagancy of the palace and the 19,262 acre gardens that surround it.
Here’s Deb at the gate leading into the central court yard.
The Royal Chapel required twenty eight years to construct and was completed in 1710. It was only used by Louis XIV for five years before his death in 1715.
After the ‘new’ chapel was completed the original chapel was repurposed and part of it became the Hercules Salon, the vaulted ceiling of which contains the Apotheosis of Hercules, an enormous painting by Francois Le Moyne. The painting is on canvas which was glued to the ceiling.
It is difficult to effectively capture the opulence of the palace as virtually every square inch of the building is a visual masterpiece as seen in the image below.
The Hall Of Mirrors is perhaps the most well known room in the palace, and rightly so, as it was designed to show off the political, economic and artistic power of seventeenth century France to all who visited the palace, including heads of state of neighbouring countries and those abroad. The hall is 73 metres long and has 357 mirrors between its 17 marble arches and windows with gilded gold and bronze accents. Seventeen large and twenty six smaller sterling silver chandeliers that cradle 1,000 candles light the hall. The ceiling serves as the canvas for thirty Charles Le Brun masterpieces. The throne was on a podium at the end of the hall, where Louis XIV would receive his visitors after they walked the full length of the hall.
The Treaty of Versailles which marked the end of World War One was signed in the Hall of Mirrors on June 28, 1919.
The Salon de la Paix, or Room of Peace is at the end of the Hall of Mirrors at the end where the King’s throne was located.
We didn’t spend the extra 10 euros to visit the palace gardens as the flowers were not in bloom while we were there however this image, taken through a window in the palace, gives a small glimpse as to what the gardens and countryside look like. I’m sure in the spring and early summer they would be absolutely spectacular.
The entrance way to the King’s apartments which include the King’s and Queen’s bedchambers and ultimately leading to the Hall of Mirrors.
The Mercury Salon, also known as the bedchamber, was rarely used as bed room but rather a gaming room. It is also the room in which Louis XIV lay in state for eight days in September, 1715.
The King’s bedchamber is adjacent to the Hall of Mirrors and designed to face out over the gardens with a wonderful view of the sunrise. Apparently Louis XIV liked to sleep in however as his bed is surrounded by heavy curtains to block out the very sun light the bedroom was designed around! Louis XIV died in this bed on September 1, 1715 after reigning over France for almost 73 years. He was the longest reigning monarch in European history.
This next pic is of the Queen’s bedchamber. The small open door on the left, next to the jewelry cabinet, is the secret door through which Marie Antoinette escaped when a mob from Paris attacked the palace is 1789. The Queen’s bedchamber is the largest in the palace, including the King’s, as during that era childbirth of the royal family was a public event and believe it or not, more than 200 people attended the birth of Louis XVI.
The Battles Gallery is the largest of the galleries in the palace occupying the top two floors of the entire south wing of the palace. Its walls are lined with thirty three huge canvases depicting the major battles fought by France between 496AD and 1809. As the Hall of Mirrors showcased France’s political, economic and artistic superiority, the Battles Gallery showed the military strength and conquest that France was built on.
Along the Battles Gallery are extravagant and impressive marble columns with gilded archways. The people in the frame below provide a great perspective as to the size of the gallery.
I had to wait a few minutes to get the next image but I really enjoy the two women in the frame. Within the walls of one of the grandest museums in the world proudly depicting the military heritage of France, one women takes it all in pondering each canvas, while the other turns her back to make a cell phone call!
Along the hallway of the Battles Gallery are eighty busts of famous French people.
Perhaps my favourite bust was of Rene Descartes (1596-1650) the famous French mathematician and philosopher, known for his famous declaration “I think therefore I am”.
This last photograph is a multi image 180° panorama taken in the inner court yard of the palace. The absolute attention to detail demanded by Louis XIV in the construction of the palace is evidenced by the symmetry of the inner court with each side being a mirror image representation of the other.
Following our half day long meander through the vast palace we left Versailles and headed south east to Lyon where we spent the night before continuing on the next morning to Antibes, in the French Rivera where we spent a couple of days.
I trust you enjoyed this visual tour through the halls of the Palace of Versailles and as always your comments are much appreciated.
Well, as it is for everyone, time slips by at what seems like an ever increasing pace and we find ourselves already into February while Christmas feels like it was only yesterday. It’s also been over a month since our last blog post and although I have a number planned for the upcoming months, there just hasn’t been enough time to prepare them, so I thought I would post a few quick bird images taken over the last month or two.
Before Christmas I spent a morning at Lynde Shores Conservation Area with Joe & Harv, two wonderful photographers who I’ve known for many years and have learned much from when it comes to capturing great bird photographs. We had a terrific time kibitzing, telling stories, arguing over camera gear and even taking a few pictures in the process. The images that follow are a few of them.
Deb’s favourite bird is probably the Black Capped Chickadee (BCCH) and I never tire of trying to get a good picture of one. They are extremely cute and friendly little birds that dart from branch to branch and follow you along through the forest paths and readily landing on your hand if it contains some black oiled Sunflower seeds.
From a technical perspective, the close proximity of blacks and whites on the Chickadee presents an exposure challenge. How do you preserve the details in the whites without underexposing the blacks and how do you expose to see detail in the blacks without blowing out the highlights in the whites? The short answer is that you can’t, especially in strong light. An overcast sky is your best friend in cases like this! Personally, overexposed whites that present as white areas with no visible detail ruin pictures more than anything else, so my rule of thumb is to always expose for the whites and if needed improve the dark areas in post processing (this is another reason to always shoot in RAW format as doing so provides about 3-4 stops of exposure adjustment on the computer).
Compositionally, practice taking shots in both landscape and portrait orientations. This is easy with birds like Chickadees that will allow you to get close to them and provide you the privilege of ‘cropping in the camera’. When getting this close make sure you move your focus point to allow for proper positioning of the bird in the frame. There is nothing worse that being treated to taking full frame images of a bird in portrait orientation only to find you’ve placed the bird in the middle of the frame and have no margins left for cropping on the computer. With today’s high megapixel camera sensors, you may be happy to shoot everything in landscape orientation and simply crop for portraits later but doing so always costs by way of reduced detail.
The following four images show two portrait and two landscape images with the bird facing in opposite directions for each similar orientation. If you make a practice of getting these different views in the field, you can be relatively certain of getting some good ‘keepers’ every time out.
In the same family of birds as the Chickadee we find the White-breasted Nuthatch (WBNU), which happens to be my Mom’s favourite bird.
They are known for spending most of their time upside down on three trunks. In fact you may not recognize the bird when perched as it is above, but it certainly looks more familiar in the next two images as that’s the way we see them most often.
They look very different when foraging for bugs the way the other birds do as seen below.
Another friendly bird in our area is the Blue Jay (BLJA) which will gladly take peanuts from your hand. Their brilliant blues and superb primary wing feather patterns also make them very photogenic. The first two Blue Jay images are very similar portraits however the first is a much better photograph due to the more natural appearing body shape of the bird (the disproportionately wide neck in the second created by the forward posture of the head is distracting). Also the dark back ground along the lateral edges of the first frame provides a natural vignette effect which is pleasing. It’s enjoyable to be able to choose from a number of similar images to pick the best one and this can only happen by taking lots of images!
The beautiful blue, white and black feather patterns of the Blue Jay.
The Blue Jay gets its vibrant blue hues as light is refracted when passing through the unique structure of its feathers and not from blue pigments in the feathers as most presume. The next time you find a Blue Jay feather on a trail, crush it up with your hand and watch the blues turn grey as you alter the structure of the feather and hence the refractive properties of the feather. You will be surprised!
This Red-bellied Woodpecker has been a popular resident at Lynde Shores for a while now, however this was the first time I’ve been able to photograph this beautiful bird. This first image shows the characteristic red belly from which it gets its name.
The male and female of this species are similar other than the cap, the male has a red cap while the female’s is grey. These images are of the male.
Interestingly, the males forage on tree trunks while the females prefer the tree limbs. Males also have longer beaks and wider tongues than females.
The Red-bellied Woodpecker is near the northern limits of its normal range so we don’t often get a chance to see them around the Durham region .
The darker brown eye of this bird indicates that it is an adult.
Now that winter is upon us, bird photographers often turn their attention to owls, especially the Northern Owls (i.e., Great Grey, Snowy and Northern Hawk Owls) that will often get displaced southwards from their Arctic breeding grounds when food supplies are scarce. The environmental situations that arise to force more owls south tend to become acute about every eight to ten years. These years during which a disproportionate number of a given owl species arrives this far south s known as an irruption. This winter is an irruption year for Snowy Owls with many being found in Southern Ontario. So the goal this winter is to get some great images of the Snowy Owl. Unfortunately it hasn’t happened yet although we’ve been out looking a couple of times! The following two images were taken just after Christmas and are both cropped images taken at a distance of about 70 yards…..much too far away for a good image.
The most enjoyable part of this day, during which we traveled about 400km and saw ten or twelve different Snowy Owls was that were joined by our friends Arni & Dianne. So the times we spent standing out in the very sub-zero temperatures were off set by lunch in Angus and hot chocolate and coffee at Arni & Dianne’s place.
This past Friday Deb & I spent another day travelling around looking for Snowy Owls and although we saw one owl, there were no photo opportunities. That’s the nature of wildlife photography but it’s always fun to get a day out enjoying creation. Our day was cut short by the weather as an intense snow storm hit while we were travelling from Minesing to Orillia, forcing us to head south on HWY 400 to get out of the storm and head home. Here is a short clip of the snow we found while out looking for Snowy’s 🙂
Sometimes, when you take the time to scout out the perfect location, place a unique looking perch where the lighting is perfect and there is great separation from the background and you’ve created the ideal outdoor studio for bird photography, other ‘models’ come along with well groomed manes to show off their best poses for the camera…..always make sure you oblige them!
All the images in today’s post were taken with the Canon 5D Mk III body and Canon EF 500mm f4 L IS lens (the Snowy Owl images also used the 1.4X TC to provide 700mm). The video clip was taken with an iPhone 6.
In October Deb & I were able to free up five days and get away to visit one of our favourite places – California – and more specifically Deb’s favourite spot in California, Huntington Beach, which is located on the Pacific Coast about 40 miles south of Los Angeles along the Pacific Coast Highway.
From a photographer’s perspective The Golden State offers a plethora of opportunities amongst some of the most varied subject material anywhere in the world. We will see but a few of them in this post. The interesting thing about this trip was that for the first time since I was a teen, I didn’t have an SLR or DSLR with me, instead using a mirrorless Fujifilm X-E2 body with an array of six lenses ranging from 8mm to 200mm in focal length. This new Fuji system is arguably one of the best travel camera gear set ups available today as the image quality rivals that of any professional DSLR system and is significantly smaller and lighter, two valuable premiums while travelling. In fact, the X-E2, six lenses and all the associated trinkets (SD cards, Intervalometer, spare batteries and charger) easily fits into my Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home shoulder bag and weighs in at about one third of what the comparable Canon gear weighs. Needless to say, all of the images in today’s post were taken with the X-E2 and I will try to select some images taken with each lens. Although this post is not designed to critically evaluate the Fuji X-mount system, I trust it does give you a flavour of what the camera is capable of, which is impressive, and although it will never replace the Canon gear, it does provide a very capable adjunct to it.
Heading north from LAX along the Pacific Coast Highway you first encounter Marina Del Ray, Los Angeles’ largest marina. On the north side of the marina is the start of Venice Beach which seamlessly runs into the Santa Monica beach and its very famous pier.
The well known Venice Beach Logo staking its claim to the beach.
Venice Beach is one of the most eclectic beaches in the world and attracts people of every conceivable stripe which creates a most unusual beach side community. It is also famous for Muscle Beach which is an outdoor, on the beach, weight training facility started in the 1930’s (just south of the Santa Monica Pier) and relocated to Venice Beach in 1950.
An artistic impression of the stylized concrete bar-bells at Muscle Beach.
Hundreds of small shopping stalls line the walkways of Venice Beach and there are no shortages of places to purchase anything that has to do with life on the beach. Sunglasses anyone?
The California Coastal Beaches are exceedingly wide with perfect soft sand, so beach volleyball courts abound. At Venice Beach there are also expansive skate parks and paddle ball courts, but long before these were popular, Venice Beach had hand ball courts pictured below.
Just a quick photographic aside re these two pics of the hand ball courts. Always think about the foreground (and back ground) elements of every image you take. Doing so will improve your skills immeasurably. Although these two images will never be more than snapshots in our travel album, I waited for a number of minutes in both cases for cyclists to pass through the frame and exposed the image when they were positioned where I wanted them compositionally. The cyclists are not the object of the image but add a touch to the final result that makes the whole image a little more interesting.
The ever present California surfer.
I think I’d rather be swimming.
The Venice Beach area is rather devoid of graffiti, except in the designated graffiti area in which every inch of available real estate is tagged.
The Santa Monica Pier immediately north of Venice Beach.
The famous Route 66 or Will Rogers Highway covers almost 4,000 km beginning in Chicago and ending on the Santa Monica Pier.
Looking out along the pier standing on the original site of Muscle Beach.
Heading north from Santa Monica you pass through Malibu with its amazing beach front properties which are home to the rich and famous. As you progress north along the Pacific Coast Highway from Malibu the urban areas transition into more natural terrain and you find one of California’s most recognized vistas, seen regularly on movies, TV shows and automobile commercials.
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As this view is often associated with car scenes in movies and commercials, it was necessary to get an image from the road’s perspective. With Deb watching for cars I was able to catch a shot from the road.
After spending most of the day on the beaches we headed up Sunset Boulevard from Malibu and walked around Rodeo Drive, the shopping area for the uber-rich which also makes it a great place for car watching 🙂
Here is a $2,000,000 Bugatti Veyron, the world’s fastest production car with over 1,000 horsepower and a top speed of 257 mph from its 8L V-16 engine with four turbo chargers.
Here is what it looks like from behind and also an image that is included solely for my great friend Arni, who I know will get a chuckle from this picture.
After looking but not buying anything on Rodeo Drive we headed for Palm Springs, a beautiful spot in the Sonoran Desert about 175 km east of Los Angeles in the Coachella Valley bounded on all sides by rugged mountain ranges. We arrived in Palm Springs well after dark, so the photography options were few, however here is a view of the entrance to our hotel, which was the perfect spot to stay. We had a cabana suite which was fabulous.
I was intrigued by the Palm Springs mural in the above shot so we set out to find it and fortunately it was very close to the entrance road to the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway which was on the agenda for our fist day’s activity.
The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway is on the north side of Palm Springs and provides a wonderful eleven minute ride to a mountain peak which offers a 360° view of the region. The Tramway took over 26 months to construct beginning in 1961 and opening in June 1963. Since then over 20 million people have taken the trip to the peak. The gondolas used today are among the largest in the world with room for 80 passengers and the floor of the gondola rotates through two complete revolutions as you traverse the mountain.
The gondola docked at the summit, notice the water pouring out of the base of the tram. Hundreds of gallons of fresh water are taken to the top with every trip and stored in a large reservoir. The only source of water at the peak.
Looking down to the valley from the tram.
One of our favourite places to hike is in Joshua Tree National Park which is about an hours drive east of Palm Springs. This year we were able to watch a beautiful sunset inside the park in an area where the Mojave & Colorado Deserts converge. The first image is just after sundown with the silhouette of a Joshua Tree, which is not really a tree nor a cactus, but its own unique plant.
The use of a fisheye lens with its unique distortion pattern and 180° FOV (field of view) makes for some interesting cloud formations.
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Leaving Joshua Tree National Park we headed west for the 150 km drive to Huntington Beach on the Pacific coast where we spent a couple of days enjoying walking the beaches and keeping our FitBits happy.
Sunrise is a very special part of each day, yet sadly an event that I miss other than while on vacation. You just know its going to be a good day when you take the time to watch the sunrise….its kind of like watching God turn the lights on for another day He has planned for you. Here is the view from our hotel room at the Hilton on Huntington Beach.
The landmark that dominates Huntington Beach is its large pier that extends well it into the Pacific Ocean and provides the perfect location for Ruby’s restaurant at the very western most reach of the pier.
Fishermen and women line the end of the pier and although they are perched some thirty feet above the water they quite adeptly retrieve their catch although the ever-present gulls will try to take the fish from the lines while they are being reeled in. If you are an expert you can handle five lines simultaneously!
Walking along the beach beneath the pier also provided for some interesting photographic opportunities. The next two images were taken from pretty much the exact same spot, the only variable being the focal length of the lens. The first was taken with an 8mm fisheye lens and the second with a 55mm lens. They serve as a good example to always carry a number of lenses with you and when you find an interesting subject take some time to experiment with different focal lengths. The results can be surprising and tell very different stories. (A cautionary note; always be careful and minimize the likelihood of letting salt spray and sand get at your sensor when changing lenses. Face your back to the water and the wind and use a towel to create a tent around the camera. Face the camera body downwards and minimize the time the camera and lenses will be exposed to the air. Over the years Deb and I have developed a very efficient ‘four handed’ system for quickly changing lenses).
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Just after sunset.
….and a few more of the pier.
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Long after the sun has set. Use very small apertures (f18-22) to create the starburst effect on the floodlights. This requires long time exposures which also has the added benefit of blurring the water which helps soften the fore ground and creates reflections on the water. The number of rays emanating from the light sources is determined by the number of blades in the diaphragm of the lens (which are used to set the aperture of the lens). With lenses having an even number of blades, there is one ray produced per blade, while an odd number of blades produces two rays per blade. If you take time to count the rays in the following images you will see there are 14 rays around each light source created by the seven diaphragmatic blades in the Fuji XF55-200mm lens I was using. Have a look in the Naturescapes Gallery for a similar image taken a few years ago of the same pier with the Canon 24-105mm lens which has eight diaphragm blades producing eight rays from each light source. You will notice the effect is quite different, so based on your preference you may want to inquire as to the number of blades in the diaphragm of the next lens you buy….or better yet buy two similar focal length lenses, one with an even number of blades and one with an odd number!!
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As mentioned earlier this trip was the first time I’d ever travelled without any Canon gear, which also means no specialized equipment for bird photography. For this Californian excursion all bird photography would be with the Fuji X-E2 and the 55-200mm zoom lens. We headed north to the Bolsa Chica Conservancy looking for some birds to practice with and although it was a quiet birding day there were a number of Brown Pelicans fishing in the wetlands.
Although the keeper rate was low compared to the Canon, the slow flying Pelicans did afford a few decent in flight photo ops.
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We had a wonderful few days in California and look forward to our next trip west. Travelling with the new Fuji mirrorless camera system exceeded my expectations and I trust this blog post has given you an idea of capabilities of this type of gear. Images in this post ranged from 8-200mm focal lengths and covered a wide range of photographic challenges. I’m not of the opinion that this new breed of camera will replace the DSLR, however it does provide a superb travel gear system that is fully able to meet virtually every photographic challenge and do so with gear that is less conspicuous, much lighter and yet retains superb image quality.
I’m still a Canon guy but do like the Fuji….a lot!
Although this last shot was taken through some dirty glass windows at LAX, Deb & I enjoyed our last sunrise in California while waiting to board our plane for the rather long flight home.
This summer my parents and Deb & I travelled around the Gaspé Coast of Quebec and as part of the vacation stayed in the little hamlet Percé, famous for the rock from which it takes its name, Percé Rock. Not far from Percé Rock lies Bonaventure Island which is well known in the birding world as it is home to the world’s second largest, and most accessible, nesting site of the Northern Gannet. You can see Bonaventure Island in the back ground of this image of Percé Rock.
We were in Percé for two and a half days, so we could be reasonably assured to be able to take the short ferry ride over to the island to photograph the Gannets in community and maintaining their nests. Unfortunately heavy rains on the first day and high winds on the second precluded us from getting to there…..it was a classic case of “so close but yet so far”, which is often the nature of wildlife and landscape photography. The upside is that we can plan a return trip to once again see the beauty of the Gaspé Coast.
In terms of the Gannets, all was not lost as I was able to spend a couple of hours on the end of the ferry pier enjoying the high winds and photographing the odd Gannet that flew overhead while looking for fish! They are a truly a beautiful bird.
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The Northern Gannet is a rather large bird measuring up to 43″ long, weighing almost eight pounds and enjoying a six foot wingspan. Although large, it is famous for its torpedo like diving style which allows it to strike the water surface at speeds up to sixty miles per hour. As noted above Gannets are primarily white with black wing tips in their adult plumage. When younger they are a uniformly brown colour and gradually take on the adult colouration when they are fully mature at about five years of age. In adults the colour of the head, cheeks and upper neck is variable depending on the time of year and during breeding season they become a beautiful golden yellow colour, which perfectly compliments their aqua blue eyes.
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When photographing sea birds, the typical background is water & sky, however it was a pleasure to capture one bird against the greenery of the forest as if flew behind me on the pier.
The Gannet has many unique and interesting design features that allow it function on the sea with maximum efficiency. Its wings are proportionally long and slender, and it fact weaker than most birds. As a general rule a bird’s wing muscles comprise at least 20% of their muscle mass, while the Northern Gannet is only 13%. Even still they are capable of cruising at speeds of up to 50 mph and can dive much faster than that. The next image highlights the long slender wings.
There are many other amazing design features of the Gannet that allow it to dive efficiently and also protect it from the water impact pressure when it strikes the surface at high speeds. They have no external nostrils and the secondary internal nostrils can be closed when under the water. Also their external auditory canals are small, covered by feathers and can be closed by a mechanism similar to the one used to close the nostrils. Perhaps the most remarkable diving protection enjoyed by the Gannet is its longer than usual sternum which guards the internal organs from direct impact pressure. Equally impressive are a series of inflatable air sacs, connected to the lungs which line the sides and back of the Gannet as well as between the sternum and pectoral muscles, further cushioning the impact pressure as the bird enters the water.
Gannets fly in fairly large groups about fifty to sixty feet above the water looking for schools of fish to feed on. You can see in this next image a few of the Gannets have spotted some fish below and are initiating their dive.
Gannets Fishing
When a Gannet spots a target fish it quickly applies its air brakes and locks on to its acquired target, which is seen in this next shot.
The next series of images shows the Northern Gannet in various stages of its dive (taken from the same dive sequence).
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And a dive shot from another sequence showing the classic Gannet torpedo posture immediately pre-impact.
The diet of the Gannet is virtually 100% fish although they have known to eat squid opportunistically. They are no respecter of fish and will eat any variety available between the lengths of 1-12″. Interestingly they always swallow the fish while still underwater and will never carry a fish in their bill while inflight. When feeding the young before they fledge, the adults provide regurgitated fish.
When Gannets hit the water at up to sixty miles per hour momentum allows them to penetrate to depths of up to 15′ however they are also able to swim even deeper and have been recorded at depths of up to 45′.
Although we didn’t get to photograph the nesting sites on Bonaventure Island, there are lots of nest there. In fact it is estimated that there are more than 40,000 nests on the island accommodating over 100,000 birds.
All of the images in today’s post were taken with the Canon 5D Mk III with the EF500mm f/4 L IS lens.
I trust you have enjoyed this brief photo exposé of the Northern Gannet of the Gaspé Coast. The Gaspé region is an absolutely fabulous place to visit and if you’ve never been, its one of those destinations that should be on everyone’s bucket list.
Since a young boy growing up in the Ottawa Valley, I’ve always had a fascination for stargazing and never tire of looking into the dark sky and with a sense of awe take in God’s handiwork as it stretches out across the heavens. As you take in the majesty of the Milky Way making its way across the night sky you are reminded of Psalm 19:1 which says “The heavens declare the Glory of God. The skies proclaim the work of His hands”. Although there have been years of looking upwards, it has not been until this past month or so that I’ve made any serious attempts to photograph the night sky. Today’s post will show case some of the images taken of the Milky Way and hopefully encourage you to get your camera out and experiment with astrophotography. Besides your camera, you really only need three other things to be successful; a tripod, a flashlight and coffee! This is my first attempt, taken with the tripod set up on the dock at the cottage.
The best Milky Way images have a wide field of view so you need to use your lens with the shortest focal length (a wide angle lens). As the light levels are low you also want the ‘fastest’ lens possible, meaning a lens with the largest aperture, allowing the most amount of light to reach the sensor in the least amount of time to effect a good exposure. So in terms of gear, the two most important considerations are focal length and aperture. Most of the images in this post were taken with an 8mm f/2.8 fisheye lens which has 180° field of view.
Astrophotography is also the perfect avenue to encourage you to shoot manually…. you really do need to have individual manual control of aperture, shutter speed and ISO. To top it off, you also need to focus manually!
In terms of exposure, long time exposures are required as there is so little light available. This is why a tripod is an absolute must for night time photography. Long exposures are not a problem with a tripod, however time is not always your friend with dark sky photography. As the earth rotates it effectively makes the stars appear to move across the sky and this motion is recorded in long time exposures. The stars cease to look light single spots of light but rather form star trails that get longer as the exposure time increases. So the ‘trick’ with Milky Way photography is to find an exposure time that is long enough to properly expose the image but not so long that distracting star trails form which detract from the image. To find the right exposure, photographers use the ‘500 Rule’ which states that the maximum allowable exposure time to prevent start trail formation is 500 divided by the effective focal length of the lens being used. I use the term ‘effective’ focal length as you must consider any crop factor that exists based on the sensor size of the camera you are using. So we can define the 500 Rule mathematically as Tmax = 500/(focal length x crop factor). For example, the Fuji X-E2 camera I was using has a crop factor of 1.5 rendering the 8mm focal length to function as a 12mm lens (8 x 1.5). Applying the 500 Rule we find that the maximum exposure to prevent motion blur of the stars is ~42 seconds (500/12). If I was able to use the same lens on the Canon 5D MkIII which is a full frame camera, the maximum exposure time would be ~63 seconds (500/8). If you don’t have an ultra wide angle lens, the standard zoom that comes bundled with most DSLR’s is usually in the 18-55mm range, which when used in portrait mode will still do a good job photographing the Milky Way. The maximum exposure to ensure no star trails will be 500/(18×1.5) or ~20 seconds.
Milky Way looking down Long Lake just north of Utterson Ontario.
Once you have determined the required exposure duration using the 500 Rule, set your camera shutter speed accordingly. If the exposure is thirty seconds or less, simply set that shutter speed. If the exposure is longer than thirty seconds (the maximum pre-programmed shutter speed on most cameras) you will need to set the camera on the Bulb setting, which allows for unlimited exposure times, however you are responsible for timing the exposure. This is most easily done by purchasing a remote shutter release (inexpensive and available for most consumer cameras) or an intervalometer which also includes a timer that can be programmed for any shutter speed. The advantage of an intervalometer is that it can also be used to do Time Lapse photography and other things not possible with a remote shutter release.
We’ve talked a lot about shutter speeds for night sky photography as of the three exposure components, it is by far the most important. The next two things we have to determine are aperture and ISO and happily they are pretty simple. We set the aperture to the largest setting possible for the lens (the smallest f-stop number). For most lenses this will be between f/2.8 and f/4. This ensures the lens is capturing as much light as optically possible. ISO is the last parameter to set and we simply increase the ISO high enough to arrive at the correct exposure. The ISO effectively becomes the determining factor for the correct exposure (we’ve determined the shutter speed that can’t be exceeded and we’ve opened the lens as much as possible so we are left with the ISO as only remaining variable). The problem is that, although high ISO technology in cameras has improved dramatically over the past few years, as the ISO increases the amount of digital noise increases, especially in the shadow or dark areas, of which there are many in astrophotography. Noise is the bane of night photography and we will talk more about that in a moment.
In terms of ISO, I have found that anything in the range of 2500 – 4000 will produce an acceptable result with 30 second exposures at f/2.8 on the two set ups I use for night sky photography (Canon 5D Mk III & 16-35mm f/2.8 lens and a Fuji X-E2 & 8mm f/2.8 fisheye lens). The following image was taken at a marina near our cottage with a 30 second exposure, f/2.8 and ISO 2500.
The last technical item needed to be discussed to help produce great astrophotography images is focusing. The extremely low light levels experienced during night sky photography render the electronic automatic focusing (AF) systems useless. Most electronic AF systems work by looking for adjacent areas of high contrast and then focus the lens to make the demarcation between adjacent areas of differing contrast as sharp as possible. To solve the low light focussing problem, most modern digital cameras fire an AF assist beam before the exposure which is usually in the form of a red beam of vertical lines, which project on to the object being photographed. This creates a series of adjacent high contrast lines which are recognized by the AF system and allows for accurate focusing in low light. The AF assist beam may work well indoors in low light, however is of no use at all when the object being photographed is light years away! Even the objects we place in the foreground of night sky images are usually hundreds of feet away. So our only option is to turn the electronic AF system off and focus manually with the focussing ring on the barrel of the lens. We need to turn off the AF system for two reasons; it won’t work in the dark and two, we don’t want the AF system to ‘hunt’ during the exposure. (Hunting is when the AF system moves the lens back and forth through the entire focusing range trying (unsuccessfully) to focus the lens). Although the simple solution for focussing is to focus manually, we still have the problem that we can’t really see anything through the viewfinder in the dark, so we often need a few test shots to get the focus of the lens just perfect. So remember when you are zeroing in on the proper ISO to get the right exposure, always check your test shots for focus as well. Fortunately focussing in the dark is not too hard as the depth of field (DOF) at small focal lengths is very large, even when using wide open apertures. To find the right focus I typically set the focusing ring to the infinity mark on the distance scale on the lens barrel and them back off that position slightly to make sure any foreground objects are properly focused. This technique generally works very well.
Landscape orientation over Torrance Barren Dark Sky Preserve (25 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 4000)
One final topic to cover that will help improve your results is to always think about composition when photographing the stars. This may seem counterintuitive, especially when shooting in the dark and thinking about the stars, but interesting foreground elements, whether they appear in silhouette or are illuminated must be considered if you desire great photographs. This means moving around a lot in the area where you are photographing, finding the spot where the foreground elements can frame the stars to effect the most pleasing result. In the image above the tripod location was selected so the two tall trees framed the Milky Way (and the Milky Way was positioned off centre in the frame according to the rule of thirds).
When playing with composition, it is wise to take a number of different perspectives in order to arrive at the best result and that is one of the great things of digital photography, the cost is the same whether you take one or one hundred frames. Ironically that is also one of the downsides of the digital age….in the old film days, when each trip of the shutter cost $1.00, you thought a lot about composition (and all the other exposure details before taking the shot) and this cost driven pressure help keep the image quality high!
There is an interesting bridge that crosses the entrance to a marina near our cottage that provides and interesting foreground object for dark sky photography. The next three images show slightly different compositions trying to create the most pleasing result.
The first shows the bridge in three quarter perspective in landscape orientation with the Milky Way at the end of the bridge. It is probably the least pleasing image as the Milky Way is in the centre and the frame orientation reduces the amount of Milky Way in the frame.
Here is the same image taken in portrait orientation. A much better result.
The next image is taken looking directly down the bridge and giving the appearance that the bridge is leading you to the Milky Way that awaits at the other end. This is the best image of the group (IMO) and hopefully a good example of always thinking about the foreground elements when composing images of the Milky Way. However photography is subjective and you may disagree….please feel free to comment!
Earlier we referred to digital noise being one of the problems that must be dealt with when doing long exposure night time photography. As a general statement, digital noise is most apparent in the shadow or dark areas of an image and noise increases as ISO increases. Photographing the Milky Way always requires high ISO’s as the exposure time is limited by the 500 Rule (otherwise we would simply use a low ISO and longer exposure time to reduce noise). A more detailed discussion on noise is beyond the scope of this post however I do want to show two examples of noise reduction and make some general comments on how noise reduction is achieved in most cases.
First, most good camera bodies have settings that allow for in camera noise reduction on long exposures. My experience has been that in-camera noise reduction is not as effective as the many methods offered in post processing. Also when in-camera noise reduction is employed the processing time required greatly increases the time needed to write the file to the memory card (often approaching the exposure time). For these reasons I always turn off in-camera noise reduction.
This next image is a single frame taken from the dock at our cottage. Noise reduction by Define 2, a Nik software plug-in for Photoshop. This is a one click automated function that works very well.
Another way to achieve great, perhaps the best, noise reduction is to stack multiple images and combine them afterwards in Photoshop. This is a time consuming and rather complicated process however the results speak for themselves. The following a stack of eight images (including the above image).
Compare the darkness of the sky in the stacked image as opposed to the single image. The single image is acceptable but the stacked image is much better. The one problem with the stacked image is that in the post processing I neglected to include the reflected stars in the water and I haven’t found the time to reprocess the stack to include the reflections. In any event it is good practice to take four to six of the same image when shooting at night which allows the possibility to stack them afterwards if you have a really great image.
The following images were taken at the Torrance Barren Dark Sky Preserve in Muskoka Lakes Township about two hours north of Toronto by car. I met there with my good friend Arni, of ArniWorks Photography, for a few hours of night sky photography and it was a beautiful night with above zero temperatures and perfect stars. As an unexpected surprise we were also treated a beautiful display of the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights. You can see Arni’s blog post from the evening by following this link.
Here is a shot including Arni and you can also see a hint of the developing aurora just above the horizon.
A meandering boardwalk.
Light painting is a technique that involves using a flash light or camera flash to ‘paint’ the foreground during the exposure. With a little practice it can produce interesting results, especially when you remember to be selective with your painting, using the technique to highlight certain objects in the foreground that will augment the image but never to uniformly illuminate the whole area. This next image was painted with a small LED flashlight.
As already mentioned Arni & I were able to see and photograph a display of the Northern Lights which added a wonderful dimension to our evening and the images we were blessed to capture. This next image shows the extent of the display and you should be able to easily distinguish the Big Dipper and Polaris (North Star).
It looks good in portrait orientation as well.
I trust you have found this post helpful and if you have never taken your camera out at night, you will feel ready now to give it a try! Night photography is not as difficult as it sounds and the results can be spectacular.
There are a number of other Milky Way images (25) that can be found in the Naturescapes Gallery of the SMP website.
Last Friday Deb & I were able to enjoy a few hours sharing a blue berry patch with nine Black Bear; Deb picked the wild Blue Berries and I photographed the wild Black Bear! The nine bear we saw comprised three families, each with an adult female and two cubs. Neither of us had ever seen that many bear sharing essentially the same space for such a long time. The bear were in the area to feast on the abundant Blue Berries and although the three families never mingled they were regularly within about 100′ of each other. Each mother bear would move rather systematically through the patch with the cubs bounding around behind her, constantly on the move, never too far away and occasionally slowing down to eat some berries. There was no doubt they were tight family units as seen in these next two images.
This next shot is in very harsh light but I liked the symmetry of mom and cub.
Black Bears are found throughout Canada and it is estimated that there are more than half a million bears in the country. They are found in all of the Canadian provinces and territories with the exception of Prince Edward Island where they have been extinct since 1937.
Adult Black Bears vary a lot in size, with a typical weight range between 125 and 550 pounds. The average adult male in Ontario is around 250 pounds while the females average less than 200 pounds. As Black Bears hibernate their weight fluctuates a lot over the course of a year with their spring weight usually 30-35% less than their late fall weight. The heaviest recorded wild Black Bear was from New Brunswick and was estimated to have weighed 1,100 pounds. The pelage, or coat, of a Black Bear is thick, dense and at this time of year very healthy as can be seen in this next image.
Bears move into their dens for winter in late October and early November and for the two months that precede that, their full time job is eating enough to put on 30-50 pounds of fat that will sustain them through the winter. Eight five percent of a bears diet consists of vegetation and the animal sources of food are usually bees, ants and larvae. In the spring when they emerge from their dens, they will eat carrion in order to quickly replenish their muscle mass. They rarely attack other animals, or people, for food, although the rare cases in which they do are well publicized and perhaps earn the peaceful Black Bear a reputation worse than they deserve. In this next shot you can see that the girth of the adult is growing as she readies for the winter.
This next image reminds me more of a beautiful black dog, than a bear. It almost looks like you could wander up and pet her.
…..and a more traditional looking bear pose!
The above images are all of the same adult female bear. These next images are of the second family that wandered into the blue berry patch. The next uncropped image is one of my favourites as the bear was lying down on a small knoll under the branches of a tree keeping watch over her two little cubs. This afforded the time to take some portraits of her and actually get low enough to the ground so I could be looking up slightly at the bear providing a rather unique perspective for a bear photograph. She looks so peaceful!
There was one other photographer in the area when I took the above shot and apparently he caught the attention of the bear as she got up from her spot under the tree and took a step towards him with a much less docile looking demeanour as seen in the next image.
The bear in the above image was actually missing its front right paw which is shown in the image below. Although one might think it would have the lost the paw in a bear trap, this is unlikely for a bear living within the safety of the vast expanse of Algonquin Park. A good friend of mine (and bear expert) who was with Deb & I when we saw these bears explained that the more likely cause of the missing paw was the bear defending her cubs against the attack of another adult male Black Bear. Apparently, other than during mating season when males impregnate as many females possible, the relationship between the adult sexes is very antagonistic. Male adults will kill young cubs in order to preserve their dominance in the community. Similar behaviour is noted among Lion populations in Africa. Although this bear was missing her paw, she was able to get around fairly well although with a very distinctive gait that was easily recognizable. People in the area said she lost the paw about three years ago so she has obviously adapted well to her disability.
The next two images are of the third adult female Black Bear we observed. She was a large bear that also had two cubs. The first shot is of her standing amongst the ferns and providing a great profile portrait. Although rather artsci for a wildlife shot it’s another of my favourites from the day. This was the only tagged bear we observed and you can see the tag in her right ear.
As a wildlife photographer you always hope to capture a shot of a bear standing up and it was a thrill to not only observe the bear rising to its full height, but to catch it on the sensor of the camera. The wild bears don’t spend as much time on their hind feet as Yogi seemed to 🙂
The cubs were difficult to photograph as they were small enough to easily hide within the ferns and rarely came into the open for an unobstructed view. Even when they were just peeking out from the vegetation they sure looked more cute and cuddly than they actually are!
This next image is another favourite, with a young cub standing up and checking out the surroundings. This bear is one of about 20% of the bear population that has a white chest patch in its coat.
This final image was one of the last taken on the day…..I think mom and her cub were eyeing Deb’s blue berry container which was quite full after a few hours of picking.
All of the images for this post were taken with the Canon 5D Mk III and 500mm telephoto lens. Instead of using a tripod which is awkward to use when you are constantly moving around, I used a Jobu monopod and Jobu Jr. 3 gimbal head to support the heavy camera and lens. It would have been impossible to hand hold the heavy gear for the few hours we spent with the bears and the monopod with gimbal head provided the perfect solution for support of the gear and easy mobility over the terrain. If you don’t already own a monopod, I highly recommend that you purchase one and the Jobu is the one to buy, its carbon fibre makes it very light and Jobu is a Canadian company.
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