TwistedThrottle's twisted images

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
Landscape outtakes.
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My daughter dislocated and broke her knee this week. I got to the school just in time to hop in the ambulance with her. Needless to say, photos have had to take a back seat this week.
 
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TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
Wishing your daughter a speedy recovery!

We'll be here when you get back.
Thanks! Shes been a trooper through it all. I was able to sneak out this morning before anybody woke up, take a few landscape shots within a few minutes of my house and was back in time for fresh coffee!
 

blackstar

Senior Member
Young troopers always get recovery in no time. No worry TT.

Are those landscapes around your home? Any facing south? Could be conveniently a nice scene for the Milky Way shot?
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
Young troopers always get recovery in no time. No worry TT.

Are those landscapes around your home? Any facing south? Could be conveniently a nice scene for the Milky Way shot?

Thanks @blackstar!
That was my intention for my landscape shot last week was to do a Milky Way nightscape. Until the injury, that is. No, none of these locations are good for the Milky Way. They're all within 5 minutes of my house and I'm on the wrong side of a "hill" for southeast facing skies. Also, I have to travel an hour outside of town to get good skies, too much light pollution around here. Soon enough, though!
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
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I got this one a couple weeks ago right before the moon rose. Had to travel about an hour, ended up at a "campsite" with grass and RV's sandwiched together. Not a whole lot of room for picking a composition and this is what I ended up with. I didnt like the composition, but not too bad for setting up the tripod right next to the car and everyone's camp fires lighting up the surroundings. An hour-ish later, I snapped the below pic of the moon to in the same spot. The yellow lights on the horizon are my city lights, the orange one is the moon about to break the horizon. We have a couple "real" camping trips planned this summer for dark sky locations. Fingers crossed, the kiddo makes a full recovery before then.
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lucien

Senior Member
pardon my curiosity, why are iso settings so high with the long exposure and wide open? Do you need a faster lens? I'm intrigued
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
@lucien
This was the first time shooting night time with the Z6, so I wasnt sure what to expect. The lens max aperture is f4 and I didnt bring my star tracker, so it was a balance of enough time open without the star trails. I still got star trails, but because I wasn't wow'ed with the composition, I didnt put much time in this shoot and the moon was quickly washing anything that was there away. The moon was more fun to shoot and I intentionally dialed down the aperture in order to get the sun burst effect, but then I had to increase the ISO to (barely) keep the Milky Way in the shot. Again, not too thrilled with the composition and was mostly just getting a feel for the new camera and lens. Here is a shot with the 50 f1.8 AF-S on the D7500 at the same place.
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lucien

Senior Member
thanks for the explanation. It's not like shooting highway traffic at night is it? Light trails because those people get iso 100, 200. All good
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
thanks for the explanation. It's not like shooting highway traffic at night is it? Light trails because those people get iso 100, 200. All good
No, the lights from cars on the highway are much brighter than the stars. If you try to shoot the Milky Way at base ISO, you better have a very fast lens. I have only had experience shooting MW shots with a f2.8 lens, I still have to shoot at at least ISO 800. That was my reasoning for picking 1600, one stop of light slower lens needs one stop of light more ISO. With a star tracker, I would be able to take longer exposures, thereby reducing my ISO. Something I plan on doing next time. Another thing that can be done is to stack the images. I dont remember the formula, but it goes something like you increase your light by a third of a stop every time you double your stack. So, 1+1=2, 2+2=4, 4+4=8. 8 f4 shots stacked would appear like the same shot at f2.8, but to get to the next stop, you need to do 8+8=16, 16+16=32, 32+32=64. 64 of the same exact shot. When each of the shots are between 30 seconds and a minute, it becomes unrealistic real quick and the location of the MW strays too much for stacking to even be made possible, depending on the composition.
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
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Burn bans suck. No camp fires means we need to improvise how we cook food which forced us to bring the Traeger which forced us to get a battery pack. Best decision ever! Now we just need to get a bigger trailer to haul our crap for these 2 day camp trips, lol!
 

TwistedThrottle

Senior Member
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I used my Tamron 15-30 on the Z6 to see how it performs. Meh, I am not a fan. It's a whole lotta glass to bring out camping for not much, (if any) better image than what can be acquired utilizing the D7500 and Tokina 11-16 f2.8. In all honesty, this wasn't a fair test, the moon had dipped below the mountains but there was still a lot of moon light washing everything out. It was also exceedingly difficult to get focus using that lens. I prefer that lens on the D800 and native glass for the Z.
 
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