Shut Out By Orionids

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This morning marked the annual Orionids meteor shower. Cometary shrapnel rockets into our atmosphere and burns up. Even though what’s burning is mostly around the size of a grain of sand, it’s a spectacular show.

Whatever. I stood outside nearly two hours and saw none! Disappointed? Absolutely.

Don’t get me wrong. It was still beautiful. The photo at the top of this entry is too small to show any detail. Please click here to see a larger version.

I met a friend at the edge of Lake Watrouss. It’s part of the reservoir system that serves Greater New Haven. I’ve photographed it many times.

Meteors burning over an idyllic lake sounded appealing.

I knew looking south over the water would bring in light from New Haven. The southern sky was much brighter that I expected. No good!

Instead we mainly pointed our cameras up. The sky still wasn’t as dark as expected. I guess the next time I’ll have to head to a much more rural spot.

My setup included a Canon 7D, Rokinon f/4 8mm lens, tripod and intervalometer. I could literally set it and forget it! Over 100 shots, mostly taken automatically.

We had a good time. We chatted while the cameras fired away. It would have been nicer had a meteor shown. Am I asking too much?

I’ve gone through my photos once. Maybe something will show up with a closer look. A dim meteor would still work for me.

Stars Over Hamden: Time Lapse Animation

I pointed the camera toward the sky. A few stars were bright enough to use to focus. This was going to be a 100% manually set shoot.

My intention was to go out and view Comet McNaught last night. For a variety of reasons (including disappointing results from others) I stayed home. Still, stars and sky were on my mind!

I pulled out the camera (aka Clicky), threw on my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens (Thanks again Santa… how do you know?), picked up my tripod and intervalometer and headed out to the deck. After yesterday’s hellish storms it was good to be outside on a clear, nicely breezy, warm night. The oppressive humidity of the afternoon was long gone.

I pointed the camera toward the sky. A few stars were bright enough to use to focus. This was going to be a 100% manually set shoot.

I pulled back the zoom from its maximum focal length down to 100mm then snapped off a shot at f/2.8, 1 second, iso 1600. I needed to make sure the camera would capture something. It did. Zooming in showed the picture was pretty sharp.

The one second shutter was a critical number. As you’ll see in the animation the stars move across the sky. Hold the shutter open too long and the stars will be streaky blurs.

My last step was setting the intervalometer. I set it to six second intervals which gave me ten shots a minute.

I let it run for around 45 minutes.

The finished product was run through Sony Vegas 9, a video editor. Levels were adjusted, but there’s an interesting conflict between stars and noise if you bring the gain up too much. That’s a technique probably only learned through trial and error.

Originally this was uploaded to Youtube. It was compressed so much the stars virtually disappeared. This method is a little better, but I’ll probably work on another method this weekend.

Late Afternoon Cloud Time Lapse

I parked myself across from my neighbor Joe’s house, pointed the camera skyward and sat down right in the middle of the road! We don’t get much traffic.

Talk about your wasted days! Sunday was totally devoid of anything meaningful.

Around 7:30 PM I decided to go out and do something… anything worthwhile. I carried my camera, a wide angle lens, tripod and intervalometer.

I haven’t shot any time lapse in a while. Shooting one today provided at least some intellectual exercise.

It didn’t take long to realize there aren’t many places on my street with a wide enough view to make this work. Watching Ross Ching’s work has made me more-and-more aware of the importance of shooting wide.

I parked myself across from my neighbor Joe’s house, pointed the camera skyward and sat down right in the middle of the road! We don’t get much traffic.

For the geeky: Canon 450d and Sigma 10-20mm lens at 10mm focal length, f/9, iso 100, manual focus, 5 seconds between each shot. Shooting was in aperture priority so the shutter length varied as the light diminished without affecting the depth-of-field. I assembled the whole thing in Vegas 9.

Ross Ching

Ross and I have known each other via the Internet for a few years. Until this evening we’d never met.

While Stef and Helaine were bowling tonight (Ray Romano. Next lane. “Oddly attractive in designer jeans,” reports Stef) I was driving to Westwood to meet Ross Ching. I am a fan.

Ross and I have known each other via the Internet for a few years. Until this evening we’d never met.

I marvel at his meticulous work in time lapse. His videos have been seen millions of times online. He is the master of this genre and smart enough to see he has to keep ahead of the pack.

Smart is the part of Ross that’s most impressive. He has a better ‘big picture’ view of life than I had… than I think most 24 year olds have.

He started as a teenager making skateboarding videos with his friends. They were slick for high school level production. People were impressed. He kept moving.

Ross began shooting time lapse using a DSLR, a still camera, with an intervalometer to control the shutter. He shot the low hanging fruit–clouds, stars, the graceful motion of water. With his series of Eclectic videos and the help of Twitter and Digg he became well known. Again he kept moving.

A film school graduate from San Diego State and Ross works for a production house here in Los Angeles. He shoots music videos and commercials. He keeps adding to his technique.

While we sat drinking coffee I watched his video for Kina Grannis’ “Valentine.” Then I watched again. The second time through was spent hitting pause and quizzing him on the shoot and how he achieved what was on the screen. Though post-production is sometimes looked upon as a magic bullet this shoot’s success was cemented in pre-production and detailed planning.

I suspect Ross is organized in ‘real life,’ maybe obsessively so. He’s definitely organized as a director. I wonder if he understands how valuable that is?

I gave him some advice: Don’t worry about money. If you’re good the money will find you. Enjoy what you’re doing. That’s much more important. Successful people are nearly always doing what they enjoy.