Aurora

October 28, 2024  •  Leave a Comment

Why have the northern lights been so visible lately?

A question I've gotten a lot recently, especially with all the photos I've been posting of them.

Three occourances this year, May, August and October there were opportunities to capture them. 

So why is this year so special for northern lights? One reason is we’re in the midst of solar cycle 25. And the sun has been super active. The solar activity undergoes an 11 year cycle and this particular solar cycle has been stronger than usual. It's something about 50% higher than the predicted values at this point. So there's been a lot more solar activity.
Other factors that come into play is, the sun will shoot out these blobs of plasma in all different directions. And of course, only when it hits the Earth does it affect us and causes aurora. So in a sense, there's a matter of luck where we've been in line to catch some of these CMEs, and they hit the Earth to make our auroras.
It turns out this solar cycle has been very good at producing auroras visible over our area. Also the weather has been pretty good. The atmospheric weather in the previous solar cycle of about 11 years ago, there was quite a bit of magnetic activity, but it seemed like it was a cloudy day every time.

Another question I get is why so much color in my photographs? Cameras capture more vibrant photos of the Northern Lights than what the human eye can see because camera sensors can gather more light and color detail in low-light conditions than the human eye, which primarily uses "rod" cells in darkness, resulting in a less colorful perception; (inside the human eye, there are two types of cells used for seeing. The “cone” cells are sensitive to color but need plenty of light in order to function, whereas the “rods” cells are sensitive to low light levels but cannot distinguish color. Essentially, cameras can capture a wider range of light wavelengths and build up an image over a longer exposure time, revealing the full spectrum of colors in the aurora that might appear muted to the naked eye. Especially when on a tripod, and using a time exposure, leaving the shutter open for 10 to 15 seconds to capture more chroma on the sensor.

It sure has been an amazing year to Aurora photos!

Aurora Aurora Aurora Aurora
 


Film

January 11, 2024  •  Leave a Comment

There’s a resurgence of taking photographs with film. An entire new generation are finding the wonder and fun of taking photos with film. And I am enjoying see the results.

My only option when I was learning photography was loading the film, choosing settings, developing the film, wet printing, trusting the magic of light, and developing skill. No digital.

There was no “chimping” (that of checking every photo on the camera display immediately after capture), sometimes you had to wait weeks to get photos back if you weren’t doing the developing and printing yourself. There was a lot of mystery, and risk.

Imagine shooting an entire wedding on 10, 36 exposure rolls of film. The ENITRE wedding event. Bump your aperture dial, shutter speed, forget to change the ASA/ISO, and the whole thing could be toast.

And the mystery, yup, there was something mysterious about film, it was honestly magical. If you figured out all the settings, like scientific formulas, you could produce amazing images. Get it really right and it lent you authenticity and credibility. You had to work at mastering your craft. You also had to think about what you were shooting. A 12, 24 or 36 exposure roll of film was not really cheap, not like just looking at 200 digital shots, picking one or two, and deleting the rest. You were invested in your shots.

There was a richness and depth to film. The aesthetics of film, imperfect, grainy, you picked different film types for different projects. It was a way to create your own look, your style. It was magical.

I wish I still had my old film cameras, I do have my Dad’s Leica that I learned on but I don’t use it, and I sold my Canon AE-1 and my Rolleiflex 2.8F years ago.

Nikon does have a pretty cool website where you can download film styles and upload them to your Nikon Camera and then use the styles in the Picture Control setting. I currently use Agfa Vista 200, Fuji Velvia, Kodak Tri-X, Porta 160NC, Ektachrome P, Gold 100, T-Max 400 and Ektachrome E100 VS. These settings apply to only JPEG’s and the display, but I shoot RAW and JPEG, at the same time. Are they perfect, no, but they are a fun way to explore the old nuances of shooting film. And I don’t have to shell out money to replace my old film cameras.

01-11-202401-11-2024


Funny, when digital came out I never thought that film would ever make such a resurgence. I knew there would always be old school purists that would embrace the genre, but I’m glad there is a whole generation embracing the magic of film.

Sadly, I didn't save my vinyl records either.

 


Paint It Black

January 05, 2024  •  Leave a Comment

Paint It Black

Auntie Em 1 wmAuntie Em 1 wm


When I started photography in my teens, black and white was what I shot.  B&W is a great place to hone your skills and perfect your art.
And it's fun to explore the intricacies of working in grayscale.


B&W film has all sorts of nuances as well, even different characteristics in different brands, the two top choices being Kodak, and Ilford. Growing up in Rochester NY, Kodak was my go-to and my favorite was Kodak Professional Tri-X Pan 400.


Kodak’s Tri-X 400 was perfect to load for pretty much every situation. With an ISO of 400, made it capable of capturing scenes in environments with less-than optimal light. What made it stand out from the competition, though, was its fine grain, which produced sharp, high-quality pictures, with high contrast, deep blacks, and clean whites. A forgiving film with great latitude, you could play with exposures and still get pleasing results.


It is still available today, and though I still have the first camera I started with, I no longer use it. It’s a 1951 Leica Ic. I don’t want to damage it.

Leica 1951 Ic_05Leica 1951 Ic_05
That said there is a Photo Software, DXO FilmPack. This is from from their website:
“DxO FilmPack faithfully takes almost 200 years’ worth of photographic science and keeps it alive, giving you instant access to historic film stocks. Experience the precision, satisfaction, and undefinable joy of darkroom processing and printing techniques but with the reassuring ease of digital.”


It’s pretty cool, and it allowed me to convert this image into a facsimile of a shot taken with Tri-X Pan 400. I did my edits, boosting contrast, adjusting black and whites, and then converted it in the DXO software.


That leads me to this post. Winters here in the northeast are dreary. Continuous days of grey. For a photographer that can be a challenge, unless you accept them and find ways work with it.


One of the amazing things about Ansel Adams was his ability to “see” in black and white. His amazing photographs were created by that ability, to see scenes that were in color, (yes the world was in color in the 1920’s) and vision the result in Black and White, using full tonal range. So much so that he and Fred Archer, (a portrait photographer, specializing early in his career in portraits of Hollywood movie stars. He was associated with the artistic trend in photography known as pictorialism. He later became a photography teacher, and ran his own photography school for many years ) created the Zone System, a method of achieving a desired final print through a technical understanding of how the tonal range of an image is the result of choices made in exposure, negative development, and printing.


So, in these days of grey, the trees bare of their summer foliage, the grasses dormant, I work on my love of black and white, the first medium I started using. 


And yes, the title is a reference to the “Stones” tune, I thought it fitting to associate a song popular from the time I started my photography journey.

 


One Extreme To The Other

December 28, 2023  •  Leave a Comment

one extreme to the otherone extreme to the other

As the year draws to a close, I start to clean up all my files, backing up to the cloud and a redundent external hard drive, getting ready for a new year.

I also go through all my gear, cleaning, organizing, evaluating if I need new cards, batteries, quite a list to keep gear in top shape.

I recently purchased a new camera. One for travel and everday carry. something smaller, less obtrusive, yet still able to take full on manual raw files or JPEG run and gun quick shots to be able to share to social media, or both, one for instant gratification and one to adjust and edit later if I needed to.

I did some research and came up with a nice fit for me, LUMIX ZS100, perfect for travelers, it brings the legendary optical performance of a 10X (25-250mm) LEICA DC VARIO-ELMARIT lens with amazingly stable O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer) to a highly portable point-and-shoot travel camera. It also has a powerful, 1-inch 20.1-megapixel MOS sensor and is optically stabilized allowing depth of field dimension even in low-light conditions.

I got it a couple of months ago and took it to Florida for Marcea's High School Reunion, so if you saw any of my posts on FB, some of those were taken with that camera. (I also used my phone for shots, it's just so easy, and for social media posting it's an awesome option when traveling.)

So, one extreme to the other, where'e the title of this post fit in? As I was going through all my gear, I had both the new camera and my most recent lens purchase, a Sigma 150-600 C, (mounted on my D7500) on my desk and found the difference in size kind of amusing, and also confirmed in my mind that there is no "one size fits all" camera. Different cameras, even different camera and lens combos are necessary to capture different shots or genres of photography, once you cross over to the "dark side", it's all in from there!

 


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