Astro season is ON

Right now I'm pretty excited because I took propably the best astro photo so far. New moon, not too many clouds, nearly astronomical darkness, shooting stars, could it really be any better. In my opinion: NO, except some auroras would be welcome, but anyhow last night was stunning. The fresh autumn scent floating in the air in the middle of dark forest. I can't imagine anything cooler than this. I took 100 frames for my timelapse video also which is nice as well. Unfortunately this week's weather forecast doesn't look too good for me. It's going to rain whole week.

EXIF:
Canon 6D
Samyang 14mm
30 sec
f/2.8
iso2500

Riverscape

A couple of days ago I posted a sneak peek photo of my timelapse project on my instagram and facebook page. As I didn't post the photo here, I felt bad for those who only follow my blog, so I decided to give you something even better. Not just the iPhone quality, but a decent still photo taken with the 6D, enjoy.

The Moon Halo

Usually I hate the moon, but today is an exception. The moon made a dim halo to the sky which I found rather cool! My facebook page also hit 200 likes today, so this post is to celebrate those thumbs you've given me, THANK YOU SO MUCH! In case you don't already like my page please do it HERE

Astro remake

Hello people! Like usually "it's been quiet for a while". I'm not going to lie to you, honestly I've been lazy, and that's all. Last weekend was quite amazing, I had three workshops about astro photography at Kuva&Kamera -fair, and I met one of my biggest idols MIKKO LAGERSTEDT! I also learned a couple of new techniques how to process astro photos, which is super exciting and that's the reason for today's post. I reprocessed one of my personal favourite astro photos, and the difference between these two images is huge. The result with this advanced techinique is incredible, I'm pretty stoked!

Click to enlarge

Night photography course

Hello everyone! Once again I've been extremely busy, but I got a little something for you. Here are some photos from another photography course. Thanks for everyone who participated especially our teacher, this has been really interesting course.

Forgotten astro

Lately I've been photographing A LOT, and I totally had forgotten one quite nice astro photo. This one was taken in September. You can see more of the sweet middle part of Milky Way in this photo compared to the previous one I posted, and day by day Milky Way is disappearing beyond the horizon.

camera - Nikon D300S
lens - Tokina 11 - 16mm
exposure time - 30 sec
aperture - f/2.8
iso - 3200
focal lenght - 12mm

Sparkling sunday

Last week I hyped the amazing steelwool photos I took, and now I guess it's decent time to show one of them for you. This is the one you already saw earlier in as the teaser photo. I like this one very much because of the reflection, and there are couple of different photos coming later. This night was extreme, because we didn't just spin steel wool, Leevi was breathing fire as well.

Playing with fire

Yes, I've started my steelwool season. Since I can't anymore photograph beautiful clear sky every night I need something else to play with, something to compensates the beautiful calm nature. My choice number one STEEL WOOL! Here's a a little something what's about to come, thank you very much Juuso for this photo.

Astro lakescape

This is a follow-up for the previous photo, not self-portrait though this time. I was actually trying how far can I go with my iso. This one was taken with iso-1600 and it's still suitable even though my body isn't the most expensive high-end camera.

EXIF:
exposure time - 59 sec
aperture - f/2.8
iso - 1600
focal lenght - 11mm
body - nikon d300s

The Wanderer

Here's another photo from the stranger photoshoot as I promised. Like I hyped in the previous post I am pretty satisfied with these photos, I have to admit that I still consider these as one of the best photos I've taken so far. The atmosphere is pretty creepy, a lonely man surrounded by the darkness and mist, yikes! Personally I wouldn't like to run into guy like that in similar surroundings in real life.

The stranger

Suddenly last friday night I got call from my friend. He wanted to go out to look for mist to take some photos for his band. This was a very tempting invitation and it took less than a second before I said yes to him. I've been waiting for warm summer days to turn in chilling autumn evenings so I can start photographing stars again. Even though I tried to take some astro photos, it was still too bright in the middle of the night although it was the new Moon, but I succeeded with the mist photos and band photos pretty well. Mist photos will be posted later. Here's one of my best photos taken in my opinion.

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

Astro photo pt.2

Here is an another photo from my astro photography adventures. This one is taken with fisheye, that explains the massive barrel distortion. 

EXIF: 
exposure time - 30 sec
aperture - f/3.5
iso - 400
focal length - 8mm

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

Long exposure motion

I guess it's time for a little experiment. This is very easy one to do. All you need is a camera and a tripod. The idea is to capture head- and brakelights as one lightbeam. This would be much easier to do if you don't live in a ghost town like I do. There were like two cars driving past my spot in minute, so I had to do a little stitching in photoshop. Just put all your photos (taken from same spot) in one file in separate layers and change blending mode to lighten in every layer except the original one. I had five or six layers in this one. Photos were take with around 8 seconds timing, f8 and iso 200. If you have taken photos like this, post them for me :)