Having Fun in the Dark! - Part 2

It’s hard to believe that is has been over a year since I posted the original “Having Fun in the Dark!”, so much has changed since then. Through the trials and tribulations of 2020, photography has become my escape. I guess there are far worse addictions! What began with a practically spontaneous attempt to capture the Milky Way, has become an obsession to capture Deep Sky Objects (DSOs), such as galaxies and nebulae. They present a new and interesting challenge. First of all, they are very far away, making them very faint. The Andromeda Galaxy (M31) is over 2.5 million light years from earth and it’s the Milky Way’s closest neighbor. Additionally, they appear to be in constant “motion” across the night sky, transiting with the earth’s rotation. This motion makes finding the proper exposure balance critical.

I shot my first Milky Way attempts in September 2019 and quickly learned that I have a lot to learn!

The Milky Way as it appeared over the Neuse River in September 2019.

Fortunately, the summer of 2020 provided the perfect reason to learn more about deep sky photography when Comet F3, aka NEOWISE, appeared in the early morning skies of July. If anything, imaging a comet proved much more challenging than the Milky Way. Heck, just finding the darn thing was very difficult during my first shoot. Luckily, the weather cooperated and afforded me several more opportunities to try. The comet became an early evening object later in the month, making shooting more convenient; however, the predawn images are far more appealing to me.

Comet F3 “NEOWISE” in the predawn skies above Chocowinity Bay. July 2020

Comet F3 “NEOWISE” shines over Blounts Bay just after sunset. July 2020

A closer view of Comet F3 “NEOWISE”, notice the egg shaped stars?

Sometimes you just get lucky! One evening after shooting images of the comet, I turned around and there, in all of its glory, was the Milky Way! I quickly adjusted my gear, trying to recall all that I had learned since the previous September, and caught perhaps my best astroimage to date.

The Milky Way creates and nice frame for Jupiter over a quiet Camp Boddie, NC. July 2020

Andromeda has become my target of choice for the winter, primarily because I can shoot it from my deck. We have a perfect view of the Polaris (The North Star), which is critical for aligning the star tracker (more on that later), and Andromeda is just about straight above us. Locating it in the view finder proved to be quite a challenge during my first few attempts, but I am getting better at it.

My first attempt was a “proof of concept” shoot using just my camera, tripod, and 85mm lens. The results were far from impressive, yielding the image below, but it sure got me excited about the possibilities. Once again, I have a lot to learn!

The Andromeda Galaxy (M31). When I see this image now, I cringe!

The trick, it seems, to deep sky photography is balancing exposure time (you want as much as you can get!) with the “noise” generated by low light conditions. Remember, long exposures create egg shaped stars and egg shaped stars are just gross. Even with the relatively wide angle of my 85mm lens, any exposure greater than 2 seconds started scrambling eggs. Enter the Star tracker! Technically, it’s a German Equatorial Mount. When properly aligned with the polar axis, it moves the camera in perfect unison with the Earth’s rotation. No more eggs! It’s a little more complicated than that, but with the star tracker and the same 85mm lens, the results are dramatically better. They are still a long ways from good, but better.

Andromeda, “tracked and stacked.” December 22, 2020.

I still have SO much to learn about this stuff, but that is 90% of the fun! I tried again on December 29th, this time with a 200mm lens, but the moon was full and created far too much light pollution to get good results. I am planning to try again soon, hopefully with clearer skies and less moon.

Andromeda shot at 200mm during a brilliant full moon, December 29, 2020.

My hope is to create at least one good image of a galaxy and one good image a nebula in 2021. I know those don’t sound like lofty goals, but they will be quite a challenge. I am at the very beginning of this journey, so stay tuned!

Since I don’t want to end this post with a bad image, here is that brilliant full moon that ruined my galaxy shoot. Happy New Year!

The one that started it all!

Well, maybe it’s a bit of an overstatement that one image inspired me to stick with photography for 36 years and counting, but like anyone who has ever gotten their first birdie or caught their first fish, having one “really good” shot can do wonders for the desire to keep trying. For me, it was this image. Looking at it now, I am little underwhelmed. I have certainly taken better air show images since then, but this was the first one that I remember looking at and saying, “Wow!”

The Blue Angel Diamond Formation taken at Marine Air Corps Station Cherry Point, Spring 1984.

I can still remember seeing it for the first time. I was traveling to the beach with some friends and was popping slides in and out of a small, battery operated viewer, feeling disappointed about my lack of results and then I saw this one. I was thrilled to say the least.

These days I just pass by another shot of the Blue Angel Diamond. With a 500mm lens and 9 frames per second, I expect to see good shots of such a pass, like the one shown here at the 2018 MCAS Cherry Point

2018 Blue Angel Diamond, MCAS Cherry Point

air show. The 2018 image is superior to the one taken 34 years earlier in every way. Technology, better optics, and perhaps a little skill obtained over that period make a huge difference. Getting a good shot is still a thrill, but I don’t think anything will ever top that first one!

I had misplaced the original slide for many years and recently went on two day quest to find it. Ironically, I found in a box marked “Special!” with asterisks all over it. Who would have ever thought to look in there!?! Fortunately, that quest lead to finding many long forgotten images that I am now scanning and restoring, starting with the one above.

By mid-1984, I had been actively pursuing photography for about 4 years. I was learning the fundamentals, but was never really excited about the results until this one. I have known plenty of people that have entered the hobby enthusiastically, only to give up after achieving results lower than their expectations. Just because your images may not look like those in National Geographic (mine certainly don’t!), doesn’t mean that they are not good or even great. Keep firing away, learning as you go, and eventually you will get the one!

The "Quarantine" Images

It’s been a while since I created a new blog post.  I had one in the works a few weeks ago and then the Corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic struck our nation and our world.  Photography has, in many ways, been therapeutic for me, especially during this unprecedented time in human history.  And, since this blog is the closest thing I will ever have to a journal, I decided to create an entry regarding it.

 Like many people, I think my first few days of “shelter-in-place” were spent in shock, glued to the updates posted by CDC, WHO, and Johns Hopkins University.  Then, one evening, almost in protest… I posted this image with the description, “I’m weary of thinking about the corona virus, how about some fishing vessels instead?” 

Fishing Vessels in Swan Quarter North Carolina

I couldn’t quite believe the response, so the next evening I posted another image, challenging my artistic friends to do the same.  What was intended to be a fun distraction for friends, became photographic therapy for me.  As the days added up, so did the pressure to find images worth posting (at least from my perspective).  As a result, I started digging through literally thousands of old images, looking for hidden or overlooked gems such as this one.

Rocky Mountains, just outside Great Falls Montana

From my friends’ comments came inspiration, resulting in more digging, processing and resurrecting images that were wasting away as 1’s and 0’s on my external drives.  The daily social media posts lead to daily updates of steves-gallery.  That had never happened before, and God willing, will likely not happen again. 

This experience has been unimaginable in its scope and tragic in its impact on humans across the globe.  There is little to feel good about in the midst of such a global tragedy, but at least for me, photography as an art form as been my silver lining.

God bless everyone, with his help, we will all get through this and be stronger for it.  

Why I rarely delete a photo...

As you probably can guess, I shoot a LOT of photos. I tell people that I do photography by “brute force.” In other words, I shoot lots of frames and hope that there will be a few good ones. As a result, I have 1,000s of images stored on hard drives. And, although it is tempting sometimes, I rarely delete photographs unless they are horribly out of focus or have some other technical problem. Oftentimes, I will load all of the most recent images on my computer and fly though them looking for “that” shot. The one that I remember taking and can’t wait to see full size. This strategy means that I sometimes bypass a pretty nice image while searching for another.

Lately, I have started searching through those old files, looking for a hidden gem. This weekend was one of those times. Here are a couple of photos that I had skipped long ago. They certainly aren’t my best, but they should have a least made the “cut.”

With data storage getting less and less expensive, there is really no reason to delete files on the first pass. I am finding more and more that some of the images that I didn’t care for during the first (and brief) viewing, are not so bad. My guess is that many photographers are similar in this regard.

Fort Macon, North Carolina

Blue Heron, Chocowinity Bay, North Carolina

Cameras for Christmas (or whatever reason...)

Buying something has become so easy, you just open Amazon, read a few reviews, then click “Buy it Now.” You can get practically anything from them now, I think that they even sell books. Making major purchases online is so common place that folks are buying cars and even homes off websites. That being said, let me tell why I decided to purchase my newest camera from our local photography store, ASAP Photo and Camera. In fact, not only did I buy my new D850 from them, I have bought ALL of my camera gear from them, going back as far as the days of film.

Besides the obvious reasons of supporting the local economy, the biggest reason that I return time and time again to ASAP is for their knowledge. Everyone that works there loves this art form as much, or more, than their customers. Not only do they know their stuff about the gear, but over the years they have gotten to know me. They know what I like to shoot, where I shoot, and have more than once steered me away from an item towards something that is better suited to ME and my needs. In fact, on a couple of occasions, they have convinced me to buy less expensive items than I had intended to purchase. Don’t get me wrong, I still read my fair share of online reviews and watch way too many Youtube videos, but I never forget the fact that the people writing those reviews and posting those videos may or may not be an expert.

Although it used to be cheaper to buy camera equipment from the major suppliers like Abe’s, Adorama, and B&H, that is no longer the case. It is true that sales tax will be applied, but in most cases that is offset by the savings on shipping cost. This is especially true if you are one of the unfortunate few that gets a defective item, you just return it to the store and get a new one. So much simpler than shipping it back to some warehouse, hoping for a quick turnaround.

If you are thinking of buying someone a camera or related gear for Christmas (or buying for yourself), please check out my fiends at ASAP Photo and Camera (www.asapphoto.com/) , or your locally owned camera store (if you are fortunate enough to still have one!)

Havin' Fun in the Dark!

If you have been following along, either here or on Facebook, you may have noticed that most of my September images have been at night. This wasn’t necessarily intentional, but two of my 2019 goals were to get at least one good lightening shot and try shooting the Milky Way.

Thunderstorm over Chocowinity Bay

The Milky Way over the Neuse River

In addition to these, I have been working on selecting some of my Grandfather’s images to restore. As fall approaches, my favorite time to shoot, I plan to begin restoring his photos and creating a page dedicated to them on this site. A sample of one of his amazing landscapes is below. Stay tuned!

Digitized from 35mm Slide by Gerrit Spaanbroek, circa 1950

Inspirations, mentors and more...

I have always been drawn to images. I think it really began when I found a box full of slides that had been taken by my Grandfather, Gerrit Spaanbroek, in the 40’s and 50’s. Seeing those images as young child transported me to times and places that were impossible to reach in any other manner. They were story tellers. Some were stories of nature’s beauty, while others of people from foreign lands.

Dutch Couple - Gerrit Spaanbroek

Later, leafing through magazines like “National Geographic” and “Life” transported me the same way. Now, through the proliferation of the web and social media, I am inspired almost daily. Facebook, twitter and instagram have changed photography forever. It’s awesome!