Moonshine valley

Posted on Mai 10th, 2015

When the moon rises, the milkyway fades out and the landscape begins to shine.
At the beginning of the night I could see a very intense milkyway behind a dark landscape. But with the rising moon the landscape got more light and shadows. This was my last image of the night on this day. On the eastern sky I could already see a silver lining, time to pack together and go the long way back to home.
As we started our way back, was the landscape still very dark, but soon I could turn of my headlamp, short after I pulled off my rain pants and another night in the mountains was over. Before we reached the car, we crossed the first hikers on their way up, well they didn’t know what they had missed.

Star noise

Posted on Mai 3rd, 2015

Is there no moonlight and less light pollution, then you will see, how many stars are in the sky.
Unless the last pair of images I published, on this image you can see a very dark landscape. You may think, this landscape isn’t so dark at all, but watch the sky, compare it with my last images and see how many stars you can find on this image. The landscape is so bright, because I used the best gear I know for nightscape photography.
And now a bit technical information, this is a night HDR panorama image, boah! Yes it was veeery difficult to fix it together, that’s the reason, I published it one day later, it took me too long to fumble it together. First, it’s not possible to use an HDR software for a starry sky, you will get only dirty stripes. And then, 24mm was also not the best choice. Photoshop was not able to construct a pano, but with Kolor Autopano, which is now part of GoPro, was it possible to stitch it together. Also you have to fix all the manually parts, like the light trails of the car on the pass street, before you stitch it, because every stitch run will give you another, not compatible image to the other runs.

Waiting for sunrise

Posted on April 29th, 2015

To be ensure not to miss the sunrise, you have to get up early.
You also have to calculate the way until you are on your desired spot. But sometimes it happens, that I’m so early, that there is no sunlight and instead there are some strange light points in the sky.
Normaly I’m hanging boring around but this time I was playing a bit around with my camera. I was clicking here and clicking there, fiddled and fumbled on all the useless knobs on my photontrap and at the end I had this useless image on my memory card. Only the strange noise in the sky and hard shadows of a dull moon.
I have to plan my journeys better to be at the right time on the place, so I don’t have to waste so much time with waiting for the sunlight…

Night HDR

Posted on April 19th, 2015

A classical 3 images HDR shot with 2EV steps, but I did it during a moonless night.
Normally I can’t take a bracket series at night, because of the durage of the exposure time. But with the Sony A7s and the Samyang 24mm 1.4 I take the image with only 8s exposure time and this gave me possibility to take a 2EV bracket serie because +2EV is about 30s which is the maximum exposure time of all system cameras I know.
For the first time I could take a night image with only one click on the shutter button and the thing was eaten. If the nights will be more dark, when the snow is melting and 3200 ISO with f/2 is no more enough, I can use the huge reserve of this body and go up to 12800 ISO or use one stop more at the aperture. The only thing you can’t change is the maximum of 8s exposure time, if you still want to have stars instead of stripes.
Btw, the light you can see on the floor and at the mountains and at the clouds, came from the cities down at the valley.

Star gazing

Posted on April 16th, 2015

Last night I was for a short evening trip on the peak.
Just decided, because of the clear weather, I was for a few hours on a night tour. This time I visited the Rotenfluh near the Mythen, the mountain behind me. I drove to the Ibergeregg and walked about an hour to this viewing point. Good I had my snow shoes with me, there was still snow covering the ground and the snow was very slippery, but with my snow shoes I walked easily a steep red ski slope upwards. Okay easy with the traction but I had always be careful not to step on my tongue.
Anyway, I spend a few hours on the top with a spectacular starry sky and a good view to the near mountains. But for the moment is this the only image I processed to see what you can expect

Midnight sun

Posted on April 11th, 2015

A clear sky, the bright moon and sparkling snow.
Next winter, if you spend some nights in a snowy area, like a winter resort, you should go for a walk in the night. And do this not only between the bars, go through the forest and enjoy the silent night.
Someone asked me, whether I had photoshoped the sprinkels in the snow, because she couldn’t belief to see it so clear. But I can confirm that you will see the sparkels and it glittering all around you while you are walking.
It’s like in a fairy tale to walk nightly through a winter wonderland, you have just do it.

Grosse Scheidegg

Posted on März 26th, 2015

You are walking and walking, it goes upwards from curve to curve and when you think it will never end, then you reach the top and you will rewarded with this amazing view.
I was already late, because of the weather, the sky was completely covered with clouds until 4 o’clock and then, while I was driving to my starting point, my car stuck in the snow mud, the snow chains where a hell for mounting, then they cracked after I started and and the end I couldn’t unmount it for a whole while.
But after all I reached the Scharzwaldalp, the last point you can drive to with your car and started my nightly hike to get dreamy winter wonderland images. First it comes the work and I had to walk over 500m altitude difference up to the Scheidegg. I reached the top after about 2.5h. First I saw some huts and then I could peek over the ridge down to the Grindelwald valley.
And what a stunning view does it present to me, all the sparkling snow, bright and white illuminated by the moon. Down in the valley the lights of the village and at the slopes the lights of all the snowcats and overall the blue sky with all the sparkling stars.

Wintertale

Posted on März 12th, 2015

The bright moon was shining on this valley of silence in the middle of the alps.
It was only half moon but the night was so bright between the snow captured mountains, you could walk without any additional light source. It was really enjoyable to use the new camera. A whole new feeling, I could walk, stop and shoot. No stacking nor any astro tracking was needed. One single shot with 10 secounds apperture and this with astonishing 200 ISO.
The reason was the bright scenery and the fast lens which I used at f/2 and therefore I could easily take this panaorama with four quick shots. Zoom into this image and enjoy the noiseless landscape.

On the road

Posted on März 1st, 2015

After a stressful week I missed the deadline for my blog for several days. At the beginning of the week I had a bunch of work to do and I thought I could write a new article on wednesday. But on that day, I was working too long and at the end there was no time to write one.
Then we left our home for a longer weekend and drove to Meiringen, deep in the bernese alps. And what should I say, as we arrived our destination the sun was shining on a wonderful blue sky. So I grabbed my dog Bubu and went for a walk to the Rosenlaui. Wow, that was really awesome! The whole valley was covered with deep powder snow and there is not one ski lift or any other funicular. I could walk on my snow shoes nearly three hours to this absolutely beautiful winter wonderland.
And so I missed the next deadline… But friday, on friday the weather forecast predicted bad weather and so it was. The whole day wet snow or rain. But, my car was broken, the back door was no more closing, darn. We had to drive one hour to a service point to fix it and it cost me 600 bucks, darn again. After a very fine dinner, I was getting sick with my stomach, at my birthday! And so I spent the rest of the afternoon in the bed and missed the deadline again.
Okay saturday, the car is working, the weather is bad, but it should get better at the afternoon. I was lying in the bed and checked the foggy clouds through the windows. Nothing happend, the clouds were thick and the weather forecast guys told not the truth, for one more time. But! At half past four I saw the first blue spot in the sky, okay I was up faster as if a bee stinged me, packed my rucksack and drove again up to this wonderful valley and this time I left my dog at home, so I can shoot at night. You know, he doesn’t like to wait especially at night…
Half way up, my car stuck in wet snow, darn one more time. After much curses I had a snow chain mounted and came free, but darn the snow chain ripped. With much more curses I tried to mount the other one and missed. I tried to dismount the first one and missed too. I used a car-jack and it slipped away and stuck between the car and the floor AARRGHH  #@#&! After about an hour I could drive again. And I saw the burning sky through the forest *sigh!*.
But at the end I could shoot a few images of the alpine glow and I reached the Schwarzwaldalp as the dead end of the road. From here on, I had to walk 500m altitude difference until I reached the Grosse Scheidegg.
What a wonderful view! The moon was so bright and the snow reflected the light. Deep below me I saw Grindelwald and at the horizon I could see the Kleine Scheidegg and the starting point of the famous ski race of Lauberhorn. On the left hand I had the near wall of the Wetterhorn and the Eiger north face. Wow, how impressive to see this at night with a stunning sky above me. As you can assume I missed the deadline again and I don’t regret it, for this time

PS: If you want to see more impressions of this journey, then you have to wait until I processed it…

Light and shadows

Posted on Februar 23rd, 2015

Deep in the mountains, when the moon is rising and the shadows are playing with landscape, then you should take your camera and enjoy it.
After we reached, late in the night, the point short befor the path is going down to the valley, we thought, now is the right place and time to stay and shoot until the sun will come back again.
We had clear conditions, the moon was rising and the landscape was changing from image to image. On every new image I saw the shadows at a different place. So I pressed the butten again and again until I noticed the vanishing stars, because of the rising sun. Time to say goodbye and walk the long way back.