David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Views of the sky. Sunrise, sunset, clouds, and weather
Night and early morning star and jet trails. Also, two very faint meteor trails. Composite of 193 images taken with a Nikon D810A camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E camera (ISO 200, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Lightroom (to convert the RAW image to TIF) and Photoshop CC.
Learning from mistakes. It took a while to figure out how to make star trail images with a digital camera. My first attempts to do long exposures ran into problems with digital sensor noise, the length of time the shutter could remain open, and camera battery life — especially on cold nights. The camera had an option for “long exposure noise reduction”, however this required taking a second exposure with the shutter closed and then subtracting the sensor closed image from the sensor open image. The result is missing every other exposure needed for a smooth composite star trail image.
Other than the Big Dipper, Orion was probably the second constellation I learned to recognize.
Turkey Vulture soaring in the afternoon sun.
Sunset Panorama View of the Moon, Night Sky and Oakland and San Francisco from the Berkeley Hills. Composite of three images taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 800, 24 mm, f/5, 0.5 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and the composite created using AutoPano Giga Pro.
Sandhill Cranes in Flight. Morning at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Roswell, New Mexico. Images taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 300 mm f/2.8 VR lens.
