Tenerife!

Hola people! Last week I was on a vacation at Tenerife, and I took pretty awesome photos! I'll post some of them as I manage to process them ( plenty of panoramas incoming! ).

... And yes I was photographing sunset above clouds!

Farewell summer

Now I'm 100 % sure that summer has definitely ended. I'm not happy about it because I love summer, but on other hand the autumn colours are one of the most coolest thing we have in Finland. These two photos were taken at a nature photography course, thanks for everyone who participated. I had really nice feedback about these photos from my teacher, his comment was something like this: "hmmmphmm ... hmmmphmmhnm ... There's nothing that I would change, these are ready to be sold".

Perseid self-portrait

Here's a slightly unusual self-portrait taken during the perseid meteor shower last week. The location is my usual astro-spot. I noticed it is still too bright even though there's no Moon on the sky. This photo was taken around 2.30am and you can already see the dawn - conclusion: I still have to wait for darker nights.

EXIF:
exposure time - 105 sec
aperture - f/2.8
iso - 100
focal lenght - 11mm
body - nikon d300s

Seaside panorama

Here's a panorama photo from my summer trip. I stitched this from 7 photos.

Lakeside sunset

Filter try out

Recently I bought ND8 filter. I've never had any sort of filter before, so this was pretty exciting to see how much does the ND8 filter dim the photos. I took this photo around 11pm, the weather was still pretty bright even though the sun had gone to sleep beyond the horizon. I am satisfied with the results, so I will definitely use this filter in the future as well. 30 second exposure makes the surface look pretty smooth, which looks pretty damn cool in my opinion.

EXIF:
Exposure: 30 sec
Aperture: f/11
Iso: 200
Focal lenght: 12mm

Open letter

Dear clouds. Please be kind and leave my perfect photography spot immediately.

Sincerely yours Esa

Milky waaaaayyyyy!

Here is an another photo from previous star hunting. This one is processed with more time and effort given. And as I personally like more of vertical astrophotos this one looks lots of better than the previous one to me even though this one is without shooting star. 

Day after this photo we went to photograph nearby, and I managed to capture something beautiful as well, but I will post them later. Next photos will be something different than astrophotos I PROMISE :D My nemesis (clouds) have returned to the sky, and next clear night won't come soon if you believe the forecast.

EXIF:
exposure time -  30 sec
aperture - f/3.5
iso - 640
focal length - 8mm 

Milky way, nothern lights and shooting stars

As I said yesterday, fuck the portraits, it’s time for another astrophoto! It was freezing cold outside, but what wouldn’t an astrophoto addict do for a proper shoot. There are better photos as well but I decided to post this one as it has the shooting star in as well.

In this photo, I managed to capture many exciting things. My main goal was to take a picture of the Milky Way but just because I am so pro, I managed to capture the northern lights as well. And if you watch carefully enough, you might also the shooting star I mentioned. At first I corrected the barrel distortion caused by the lens but after all decided to let it be. What do you guys think, should’ve I corrected it after all or not? While I was taking these photos, I actually managed to lose one of my lenses. The 30mm lens was lost for an hour but I luckily found it. It lying between the rocks just 10cm away from the freezing cold water.

EXIF:
exposure time -  30 sec
aperture - f/3.5
iso - 1000
focal length - 8mm

... Astro pt.5

Here we go again. Another astrophoto, but this will be the last one for a while before these annoying clouds decide to leave my sky. I got plenty of material from portrait photography course, so I will post some portraits next (if the sky won't clear up soon). I guess I should buy wider lens for this astro thing, because I have problems fitting enough stuff in the sky. I've been looking for tokina 11 - 16mm, samyang 14mm and nikon 14 - 24mm, but at the moment I'm too poor to invest to that nikon lens at least. Which lenses do you use for astro photography?


EXIF:
exposure time -  20 sec
aperture - f/5
iso - 640
focal length - 30mm

Astro pt.4

I'm really hooked up with astro photography. This photo is taken from the same spot with photo in previous post. Except this one is vertical. In my opinion it makes huge difference after all. The reason for posting a photo similar to the previous one is to show you the the difference between horizontal and vertical landscapes. Compare this one to the previous photo and let me know which one you like more. Personally I like more the vertical one in this scene, because I can fit more stuff into photo, like the rocks in the bottom and I have more space for the stars. Horizontal view is pretty much all the same, woods and a few cottage, so there is no reason extend it.

EXIF:
exposure time -  30 sec
aperture - f/5.6
iso - 400
focal length - 30mm

Astro fever pt.3

Once again I was freezing out in the forest chasing stars, but my arch enemies (moon and clouds) were polluting my precious sky. I didn't capture too many stars, but I got couple of decent landscapes. It was definetely worth catching a cold last night.

EXIF:
exposure time -  30 sec
aperture - f/5.6
iso - 400
focal length - 30mm

Astrolakelandwhateverscape

The new and interesting thing (at least in my opinion) I told you about was astro photography. My torment is now over, I saw clear night sky (partially) first time in two weeks and of course I photographied it. I'm still strugling with the focusing and exposure. Here is one photo from this week, I will post more of these later as I learn to photograph the night sky. 

EXIF: 
exposure time - 30 sec
aperture - f/5.6
iso - 800
focal length - 30mm