Via Flickr:
Twenty minute exposure, shot from the roadside on the arm of a deck chair (no tripod on long haul flight...) next to our hotel in Wawona, California. Convoys of road repair trucks were shipping tarmac into the park, whilst staggered convoys of cars left the park - hence the dense block of traffic trails.
The distant bank of trees looks much nicer on one of my screens - if it looks too orange to you, please let me know and I will adjust. The "nicer" screen for this one gives it a bit more grim threat; a real "edge of the dark wood" feel, that is missing from my main (much brighter) screen. I generally go with my iPhone as the final say on brightness, contrast and WB; but would love some feedback.
I might later post one of my short exposures of this. For any long exposure I shoot a few frames at ISO 25k and then calculate my "proper" exposure by doublings stopping down to 100-400 ISO. On the MKii those H2 ISO shots simply don't cut it, so I don't bother with them beyond the exposure calculation and checking what's in the dark areas of the frame (which are black at night!). A four second test shot like this saves me lots of time correcting basic stuff quickly.
In this case, however, I think one of the test shots might be usable, so might give it a go. The Milky Way looks really cool in that version. Lots of work I need to do learning to shoot the stars without trails, though. If anyone has tips for that, I'd love to hear from you - what's the maximum shutter to get sharp stars, for instance?
Hope everyone is having a great week!
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
Exodus (Wawona Headlight and Star Trails), Yosemite
