Hey gang,
One image from this past weekend. Here’s a shot of the water tank up on Boreas Pass under a late summer Milky Way:
Water Tank and Milky Way - Boreas Pass, CO by Chris May, on Flickr
As always, questions, comments and critiques always more than welcome!
Excellent.
Stunning! Makes me think of a line from a Don Ball book, “…railroading for all eternity.”
[;)]Once, just once can you take a picture of someplace thats boring?
Thanks, Chris. You found a excellent location to take that picture.
I think it was one night in the summer of 1959 that members of the local astronomy club came out to my college observatory. One member set his scope up, aiming it at the Milky Way–and the view was truly marvelous–stars and stars and stars. I fear that there is much more light pollution at that location now.
With Chris, I’m not sure that’s possible.
As for me, words, I have none.
[:D]Agreed,
Anyone that can make an old water tower in the middle of nowhere look that great…I guess he just never gets bored?
Excellent shot.
I was out last night and at 4am this morning with my 90mm ETX and the skys here in NW Indiana were brilliant. We have quite a bit of light pollution, but still, there is nothing like scanning the Milky Way with wide angle binocs.
What direction was this shot taken? I am guessing south.
Exposure time?
Ed
Here is a boring photo:
Ream on![}:)] made me do it!
Chris has shared a picture or two of a bore, though.
The Milky Way is evocative of the smoke from a ghost C&S narrow guage steam engine taking on water at the tank.
Chris’s image would be impressive in black and white too. Would also be reminiscent of the era in which the water tank was built.
Thank you all for the very kind comments.
To answer a few questions:
Yes, I do take boring shots. Actually quite a lot of them. They (usually) don’t get uploaded to the web, though. One of the things I’ve learned is that critical editing is as important as skill with the camera. This might make a good subject for my photo tips series one of these days. I’ll make a note of that!
Johnny - I’m lucky to live in Colorado. There was a tiny bit of light pollution on the eastern horizon from Fairplay and a tiny bit on the western horizon from Breckenridge. But for the most part, I can find very dark and clear skies without too much of a drive.
Ed - It was sort of to the WSW. The Milky Way was already going down when I took this photo. The exposure was 30 seconds at f4.5 and ISO 5000. The really wide focal length lets me get away with long exposures without too much star trailing.
There’s a long standing “wisdom” in photography that you’ll get one “keeper” out of a given roll of film. Given that rolls of film were usually 24 or 36 exposures, that means that even photographers like Chris will get maybe really good shot for every two or three dozen they take, even with digital.
Fortunately, that’s a wonderful feature of digital - you can take dozens of pictures at virtually no expense. If I shoot straight JPG on my Digital Rebel, the two memory cards and three batteries I usually have with me mean I can record upwards of 500 images before I have to download/recharge. If I shoot RAW, I can still record well over 100 images.
Read and learn. There are dozens of sources of information on great picture taking (including right here on the forum - thanks Chris), and if you’re even slightly serious, consider a course at your local community college, school district, or trade school. Those “adult education” courses can be quite valuable.
The bottom line for aspiring photographers is to take a lot of pictures, and to experiment (something you’ll see mentioned a lot in Chris’ narratives). You’ll get duds - plenty of them. But you’ll also get some real jewels.
And as a caution - after you shoot those hundreds of digital images, keep the duds (unless it’s a picture of you
The real bottom line - unless you have a artistic eye - at best you efforts will be pedestrian. I don’t have an artistic eye! [:'(]
Balt - One thing I harp on (here, and elsewhere) is the “rule of thirds.” Applying this simple concept can turn a snapshot into something worth framing.
Once you get the idea down, you will start to see an immediate improvement in the artistic aspect of your images.
There are plenty of explanations on the web.
Some cameras are even kind enough to include third lines in the viewfinder…
To Chris: [tup] [tup] [bow]
One more time! [banghead] ME…
To what Tree68 and Ed said! AMEN, AMEN!