Light pollution

Posted on August 16th, 2014

It doesn’t have to be bad, if you can see all the bright enlightened cities. It can also be very nice to look at all the lights, if the lights of the night are illuminating the fog from below.
On this journey I expected it and I wouldn’t be dissappointed. The fog ceiling was enough low and the Mythen was enough high. You have only to carry all the gear up to the mountain and after the shooting you have to carry it more far down, because all the funiculars are no more working. But I could take some nice images and I think it was worth it, or not?

Perseids

Posted on August 11th, 2014

Tomorrow night from the 12. to the 13. of August it happens again, the meter shower reaches the maximum.
If you want to take some pictures of it, you should looking for an area with less light, set up the camera with a wide angle lens on a tripod and let it work the whole night long. For the best result, you should use an interval timer. The camera catches the most meteors in the direction of Kassiopeia and you should use a shutter speed of 20 to 30 seconds with the biggest aperture your lens has. The ISO numbers should be between 800 and 3200.

A lot of moonlight

Posted on August 8th, 2014

My friend Sven, was a few days before at  a training camp up on the Melchsee-Frutt. He guessed, it could be worth it to stay there for a night to photograph some images.
I was boring, my indexfinger was itching and the weather was right perfectly. Therefore we drove for a short stop over nigh,t up to this place and shooted the whole night long. I have rented two additional lenses, the 17mm TS and the 14mm f/2.8 from Canon.
I have to say, both lenses are really great, extremly sharp and both had nearly no coma. Especially the TS lens I would like to have by my own, if this lens is not so unbelievable heavy. And who wants to hauling more weight up to the mountains? But you have also to learn to use this lens. Because, if you are looking closely to the image, then you can see that the stars at the upper part are not perfectly sharp. After some meditating, I found the reason why this happend. The lens was a little bit tilted, but in the darkness and on the small camera screen I didn’t notice it, how silly…

On the Selun

Posted on Juli 25th, 2014

I don’t know whether I have told this story, but anyhow: My friend and I were climbing on the Mountain at night. A really hard climb, really steep and lightly bent. If you are watching upwards, you can see the end at the horizon, okay only a bit more crucifying and then you are there. But no! After half an hour or so, another look upwards and the horizon is still in the exact same distance.
This hill kills me pretty much, escpecially with all the camera gear on my back.
But now it comes really hard; short after we arrived the top, there is another guy coming up, take a fast image with his iPhone with flash! and goes down again. What a madcap, but now it becomes more worse. So after two or three hours later, we were still photographing, the same guy was coming again with four of his dudes on his tow. And this time the fellows were RUNNING UP! This should be FORBIDDEN!
After I was on the top, I was nearly to a heart attack, but these guys were still fresh, they didn’t were gasping and more worse, they agreed upon the next mountain right after this! This should be really forbidden…

Day at night

Posted on Juli 18th, 2014

After a long and exhausting night in the alps without sleep but with many nice pictures, today a nightshot from Melchsee-Frutt last year.
If the moon is shining so bright, then you will see less stars than in a new moon night. But the landscape looks in the moonlight with this long exposure over two minutes, nearly like a day shot. But with stars in the sky.

Fullmoon over Alpstein

Posted on Juli 12th, 2014

After an awesome sunset, the fullmoon was rising in the eastern sky. And because I was on the peak of the Faehnerenspitz while the sunset, I had enough time to look out for the best places with sightseeing, while I was walking down.
Whereas the moon was already high in the sky and his light was falling over the Appenzell and the residents were preparing for bed time, there was one jerk up on the hill making images of a really clear fullmoon night…

Sightseeing from Mount Mythen

Posted on Juli 4th, 2014

This is an image, which I like especially much. First you have a wonderfull sightseeing from the Mount Mythen to the mountains in Kanton Glarus. And second I like how the mountains are stacked to the horizon.
What I also like is the clearness, which is missing in many nightshots, because of the high ISO noise. There is nearly no noise in this image. You can see this if you watch and enjoy the image in full size.

Incredibly lot of stars

Posted on Juni 28th, 2014

This is in fact only a testshot, to see whether you can see the Milky Way. Oh yeah! You can!
I took this shot in the middle of autumn and also in an area with a lot of light pollution. But anyway you can see the Milky Way very clear. What me fascinated on this picture is, how incredibly many stars you can see, because of the extrem long exposure time.
I made this image with an astronomical mounting, called Astrotrac. This allowed me to take an exposure time of 240 seconds. And I took 11 shots which makes a total of 2640 seconds or 44 minutes exposure time. With 16mm focal lenght at f/2.8 and 1600 ISO on a Canon 5DmkII.
Please watch this Image in full resolution and zoom in – it’s crazy how many stars you’ll see!

Starry sky above the alps

Posted on Juni 27th, 2014

This shot I didn’t took with my wide angle lens, but with a standard 50mm f/1.4 from Canon. Normaly a good lens, but it is not so adequate for starscape images. In the corner of the image you can see a strong coma, though I had closed the aperture one f-stop down to f/2. Therefore I stayed with my Canon 16-35mm lens.
But also there is a coma, some of you may anyway not realized it, I think this image is not so bad, because with 50mm are the mountains a nice piece closer.

Looking for the Milky Way – Part 3

Posted on Juni 19th, 2014

Today on the third part will come to the final end with the starscape image. on the first part I showed you the requirements for the best sight and on the second part I wrote about hiking up to the destination.

The work begins

As everything looked great I quickly went back inside toput on warm clothes, because outside was a nasty, cold wind. Bubu the little rascal was quite restless, as he was the whole evening. I think in the restaurant it was just too loud for him and he could not lie down to sleep.
But now we went out and walked the short path to the lookout hill next to the building. Backpack on the bench, Bubu bound to the bank with the 10m leash, and off you go.
Build tripod, put camera on it, and take a test shot at 6400 ISO with 30 seconds exposure time, to see what there is to see.

Wow, there it was, our galaxy, the Milky Way. It was still a little far in the east, but in the end, it should be directly above the Säntis at 2 o’clock. Right now, it could not be seen very bright because of light pollution in the region of Lake Constance. But we still have plenty of time.
Camera back down and mount the tracking device for the real shots. Bubu is still whining. So, camera back on and off you go with a long time recording over 120 seconds.

Unexpected events

While waiting, I noticed that my little furry friend still whines and shivers. What is his problem? Also caressing and cajolingdid not help. If he continues this way, it’s going to be a problem.
Wow, cool, I see it, the Milky Way. Still a little far to the left in the light pollution, but really good to see. And yet another shot, this time for the foreground without tracking. And Bubu is still unhappy. I start realising that this dog isn’t really suited for mountain trips.
But I’d like to have at least one more nice picture. So I change the lens and mount the Samyang 14mm on the camera.. Now another 3 pictures of about 3 minutes. Slowly Istart worrying about my little friend.

He’s still whining, so we start packing our stuff quickly and head for our two-hour return trip. Aaaand behold, as soon as we are walking on, everything seems to be absolutely OK for this little stinker! I think this little rascal had just been bored.
After two hours we were back at the car. Thanks to my good hiking shoes my feet kept dry, but Stefan has gotten a big load of water and dirt inside as he stepped into a mud hole.

Conclusion

Nearly everything was correct, the weather was exactly as it should be, even at the right time. The viewing angle was also perfectly chosen. Were it not for someone who didn’t like the whole thing. Well, next time might probably stay at home. For sure!

So I wasn’t able to get as many pictures as I wanted, and the ones I’ve got are not as perfect as they could have been an hour later, but … just look at the results. No more words needed…

Ah yes, my furry monster spent the next 24 hours sleeping, except for a really short walk he didn’t want to do anything else

Looking for the Milky Way -Part 1
Looking for the Milky Way -Part 2
Looking for the Milky Way -Part 3