TomFear » starscape

The horse head nebula

admin — Thu, 13 Mar 2014 18:02:24 +0000

Do you see it? The horse head? On the right side in the red part you can recognize a horse head. I nearly missed it because I didn’t see it so bad on the original image. This explains the the horse head at the border of the image, next time I know where to find it
I shoot 8 images each 120s with 3200 ISO at 400mm to get this amazing picture of our universe.

The night on the peak

admin — Fri, 28 Feb 2014 17:58:12 +0000

It was a real hard piece of work to get up to the Selun with all the gear. But the sightseeing was awesome! Me and my friend enjoyed the stunning view only a bit, but then the gear has to work. The first break I took, was when I realized the stars are going and the horizon is getting brighter. It was a good idea to climb this mountain, altough both way were hard to go.
I composed this image with 8 shots for noise reduction and 3 extra long exposures to brighten up th foreground.

Planes on the sea of fog

admin — Sat, 22 Feb 2014 22:15:02 +0000

I’m living below this fog, far away at the horizon. So I decided to climb up a mountain to see the sky. I took a cable car for the lower part and walked up the steep path up to the top, missed the sunset, like everytime, and enjoyed a wonderful landscape. This mountain is called “Mythen” and without fog you can see several lakes. But the lakes are now replaced by the sea, the sea of fog. And if you are check the horizon, you will see strange light curves. This are landing planes at the airport of Kloten. I made this image with a new technique by two shots of 180s.

Sunlight in the winter night

admin — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 19:08:30 +0000

Yes you read correctly, sunlight. The bright spot on the right border is the rising moon and the time is about 22:40. Why sunlight you ask? Didn’t you know that the moon is only large dirt ball and all the light you see is the reflected sunlight? Okay we call it moonlight, but technically it’s sunlight. This is a fantastic thing, if you think the sun is so bright that a ball of dirt can reflect so much light to see the whole landscape at night. I mean this is really awesome, much more than thinking the moon is glowing, imho.
I made this image from 8 shots to reduce the noise. And forgot to take an image for the bright lights so I can’t bring back the burned out parts.

Cows on the mountain

admin — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 18:02:54 +0000

Like mostly we were too late and missed the sunset. On this hike I was testing my brandnew outdoor equipment, tent, sleeping bag and backpack. Damn was the mountain steep and the equipment heavy I was short before a heart attack and I could use my tongue as a tie!
On the half way up, we saw the lake and the last sunset glow at the sky, so we stopped for a photo session, probably this saved my life. The cows in the front are a really nice eye candy, but the couldn’t sit still and I get only blurred cows. But all together I like this image, because there is everything on it: animals, a lake, sunset, mountains and the stars.

A starry sky in the wood

admin — Sat, 15 Feb 2014 17:49:38 +0000

After starting to hike up the hill, the sky was getting clearer and clearer. So we had no choice to stop in the middle of the wood to take some photos. It was also a good opportunity to try something new. Because of the missing moon, it was very dark in the forrest and you saw only the border of the trees. So I took my super bright flashlight and lighten the trees up. For me it looks better than only a black outline of the trees.

Tschappina again

admin — Sat, 08 Feb 2014 17:39:29 +0000

Some of you will remember other pictures of Tschappina, which I have postet earlier. Well, as you know it was hard to get some shots with a view to the starry sky. But after only 4 times to drive up there, we had a chance to see some stars. And this is one of the pictures I could shoot at the short breaks the clouds get us. At the 4th journey was it mostly cloudy too, but not complete and we used our chances shamelessly

Arosa at night

admin — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 17:00:51 +0000

If you’re going to a holiday destination were you can hike, then you will go for sleep at night to be fit for the next day. How boring! Go for a hike at night, watch the stars and the moon. And take awesome photos which other tourists won’t ever have, because they are sleeping. I took this image while the fullmoon was shining and brightened up the landscape. I made 8 shots for a stacked image.

The enchanted castle

admin — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 22:17:04 +0000

There were rumors about a castle, deep in the wood, nobody knows exactly about it. Good reason to pack my gear and my boots for a hike thru the spinney. Armed with our tripods, we fighted against thick brushwood until we saw deep in the wood this beautiful castle. It was an especially night were you could see Venus, Jupiter and the Moon near together. It seems they were shining down to this enchanted place to set the castle in the right light.
For this image I needed 12 images with different shutterspeed over 6EV.

Fog over the lake

admin — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 19:50:05 +0000

For another test journey, two of my friends and I were going to the Kloental. For this event I organized a Canon 5DmkII and rented some Lenses to test what I can expect from more expensive gear than my Canon 60D with the Tokina 11-22mm f/2.8. This shot was taken by the 5DmkII with the Canon 24mm f/1.4 by 800ISO and 4s 8 times. Short before I took this image, the fog was so thick, we couldn’t see the lake and suddenly the fog disappeared and the bright full moon set the valley in this moody atmosphere.
After this test shooting I ordered a Canon 5DmkII and a 16-35mm f/2.8 which I still use.