Moab Man 2014 Project 365

M

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 120 Heading out!

Getting my gear together and heading out tomorrow night to shoot the red rock vistas and formations of southern Utah and northern Arizona. Meeting up with my professional photog buddy from back east. He's never shot the milky way and is in for the time of his life. However, he does shoot with that camera made by the copier people, but I won't hold that against him - much. But really, we will have an awesome time as he is a big enough camera geek as well that we will sit out there endlessly trying new things. First night, pull an all nighter from midnight on shooting the milky way as it rises and we chase it across the sky. Then, around 5 am we will start to set up for the rising sun and catch the first light on the rocks. Finally, off to bed for a short bit of shut eye before running across the desert with our heads cut off photographing everything.

So here is my cell phone shot of the night getting together various lenses and my D7100 and D600. Most importantly, I'm looking to try out the full frame sensor and its light capturing ability at night.

Off to bed.

Day120Trip.jpg
 
M

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 121 Lizard

Back from my trip down south to the red rock. Will take me a few days to get in and edit as well as catch up my thread. Until then, here is Day 121.

Day121Lizard.jpg
 
M

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 122 Milky Way

Still catching up. So many photos to work through. Here is one of the Milky Way photos shot against the red rock of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

Day122MilkyWay1.jpg
 
P

Pretzel

Senior Member
Moab Man said:
Day 122 Milky Way

Still catching up. So many photos to work through. Here is one of the Milky Way photos shot against the red rock of southern Utah and northern Arizona.

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Simply... WOW. Wish I had a place out of the way enough to get something like this. I gotta start roaming the back roads! Just the Milky Way by itself is amazing, but the cliffs in the foreground make me envious!
 
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snaphappy

Senior Member
Your lizard and milky way are just stunning! That's it I need a D600 so my pics look that good hehe You are really pushing yourself MM and it shows in your thread :)
 
M

Moab Man

Senior Member
@Deezey - I'm going to look back at my best raw D7100 shots and my D600 images and pixel peep. Once I have done that I will share my thoughts. I don't want to speak without reviewing side-by-side. I have a love affair with my D7100 and the D600 is a mistress on the side. I need to do a direct comparison of the files.
@nikonpup - Light painting. The front foreground and tree was painted with my cell phone light. The light is clean and not too powerful. The cliffs were painted using a ~50 sum led light panel with a dial to increase and decrease output.
@snaphappy - Lizard was on the D7100 and the Milky Way shot is the D600. Thanks for the compliment. I am working hard and taking every opportunity I can to learn and improve. This trip was particularly educational as I met up with my friend from back east that is a professional photographer. He was out here to shoot some event for Morgan Stanley (investment firm) and we decided to hook up for this shoot. He had never shot stars, Milky Way, or light painted. I in turn learned a new technique which is how I shot the tree. I keep getting comments from people that the tree looks like an overdone photoshop image when it's not, it was a technique. Just a something I learned from my friend. The benefits of what can be learned shooting with another person at your same dedication level approximate skill level is priceless. We both walked away far better photographers from our shared shooting. The Milky Way shots alone started at 11 p.m. and went until 5 a.m. when that pesky ball of fire started to screw up the sky. And the above image took about 20 shots to get it right as we dialed in the two lights and their exposure time.

Thank you to everyone for their comments, compliments, and help along the way.
 
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M

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 125 LED Lighting

This is the light that I use for light painting. Intensity is adjustable and casts a really nice flat light. It can be found on Amazon for less than $30.

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M

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 126 New computer for shooting.

So many of the shoots I do are hours away and sometimes remote and there is nothing worse than finding that what it showed on the LCD is not quite what it looks like when you get it on the computer. And my large laptop is just too big and heavy to cart around to tether or preview on so my wife purchased me a small 10 inch HP Pavillion x360. This computer can be used as a tablet or a computer, but even in tablet mode runs on a computer operating system instead of Android allowing me to use traditional computer programs like Faststone in the field to quickly preview images or to tether the camera to the laptop. This will be a nice in the field tool.

Thank you wifey!

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M

Moab Man

Senior Member
Day 127 CAUGHT UP!

With all the photo editing since me trip it is good to finally catch up. Wife ordered me some new memory cards thanks to DaveW's link to the discounted performance line of PNY sd cards. I have used them before reliably and the price was quite the steal. Amazon also sent some Sony cards that I will gladly use.

I now have cards of various performance. In the next day or two I will test out these different cards to see how much if any of a difference a faster card will make in the D7100. It may speed up the camera or the faster cards may be irrelevant if the write speed of the camera is the limiting factor.

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SteveH

Senior Member
I have the SanDisk extreme cards in my D7100, and I have tried both the 45 MB/sec, and the 90 MB/Sec and there is no real difference. My cards are 16 GB and I recently filled them in a day (Slot 2 set to backup), so I plan to get a pair of 32Gb cards, and will make them the 45 MB/Sec versions.

Of course, the 90MB/sec cards are MUCH quicker to copy the files off from when you pop it in the PC, but not that much faster it makes the money worth it!
 
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sonicbuffalo_RIP

Senior Member
MM....went back to day 1 and you have some very brilliant shots....on your recent trek to Southern Utah, did you go through St. George? I was there a year ago visiting my Mother. It's a beautiful area. Bryce and Zion are on my bucket list. Gotta get back out there to see the area again! Thanks for sharing your images.
 
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