Landscapes, Cityscapes, Waterscapes with or without bikes

[Cupid Stunt]

Autumn colours are nearly here again
This was a previous Autumn at Pont Cwmfedwen

 

[Pedro]

11 minutes ago, Cupid Stunt said:

Autumn colours are nearly here again
This was a previous Autumn at Pont Cwmfedwen

 

Love those names with almost no vowels 

Cfgmhjswds 

[Cupid Stunt]

The Milky Way core over Three Cliffs Bay

 

[boboneleg]

12 hours ago, Cupid Stunt said:

Autumn colours are nearly here again
This was a previous Autumn at Pont Cwmfedwen

 

Terry, how do you do that thing where the water cascading over the rocks looks like that , is it some sort of time lapse thing ?

[Tango]

5 hours ago, Cupid Stunt said:

The Milky Way core over Three Cliffs Bay

 

Love these Milky Way pics. What gear do you use to capture them? Obviously my phone camera or 10 year old Lumix would not be up to the job!

[Cupid Stunt]

3 hours ago, boboneleg said:

Terry, how do you do that thing where the water cascading over the rocks looks like that , is it some sort of time lapse thing ?

Hi Bob, just a long shutter setting, to get the longest possible standard shutter setting without over exposing you need to select the lowest ISO value your camera can go to and the smallest aperture (the higher the number the smaller the aperture)
If it's still too bright out to get a 1/2 to 10 sec exposure (what you need caries according to the speed of the water and the effect you want) then you may need to use a ND filter (neutral density filter) of maybe 10 stops

There is a way to do it without an ND filter and that's to take multiple shots each with a shorter exposure with the total exposure time adding up to the 1/2 to 10 sec then blend them in a photo editing program like Gimp/Photoshop/Affinity Photo using a median blend, this will give the same smooth water effect but if it's breezy you might get blurry foliage but you can mask off all but one of the exposures foliage so those parts of the image aren't blending multiple shots together

[Cupid Stunt]

56 minutes ago, Tango said:

Love these Milky Way pics. What gear do you use to capture them? Obviously my phone camera or 10 year old Lumix would not be up to the job!

In this case I want pin sharp stars so used a more complicated method than is required
All you need is any DSLR and a wide angle lens such as a Samyang 12mm f/2.8/Tokina 11-16mm etc a fast aperture is preferable as you need to gather as much light as you can in a fairly short period, the focal length determines the maximum exposure time you can get without having visible trailing stars, the 500 rule is most commonly used and that is that you divide 500 by the focal length of the lens (assuming it's a full frame camera) that will give the max duration the shutter should be open
So for example on a Sony A7RII full frame camera with a 20mm lens the longest shutter speed would be 25 seconds, if you're using a crop sensor camera (APS-C/DX or Micro 4/3rds) you need to calculate the equivalent focal length first, i.e. a 20mm lens on an APS-C camera is actually 30mm equivalent as APS-C has a 1.5x crop factor, Micro 4/3rds has a 2x crop factor

An ISO of 3200 is usually best but you can adjust this according to light gathering requirements, higher levels will introduce more noise and generally speaking smaller sensors are noisier than larger one's
If noise is a major issue then you cane take multiple high ISO exposures and stack them in post production using a median blend mode (as the noise is random it will be smoothed out but leaving constants like the stars intact)

But back to this shot
It was taken with my Fujifilm X-T2 mounted on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer (star tracker) one 2 minute exposure for the stars and another of 8 minutes (with long exposure noise reduction switched on in camera) for the foreground, the two then composited together

Typical settings for an APS-C camera would be ISO-3200, 25 sec, f/2.8 with a 12mm lens for a single shot

[Tango]

11 minutes ago, Cupid Stunt said:

In this case I want pin sharp stars so used a more complicated method than is required
All you need is any DSLR and a wide angle lens such as a Samyang 12mm f/2.8/Tokina 11-16mm etc a fast aperture is preferable as you need to gather as much light as you can in a fairly short period, the focal length determines the maximum exposure time you can get without having visible trailing stars, the 500 rule is most commonly used and that is that you divide 500 by the focal length of the lens (assuming it's a full frame camera) that will give the max duration the shutter should be open
So for example on a Sony A7RII full frame camera with a 20mm lens the longest shutter speed would be 25 seconds, if you're using a crop sensor camera (APS-C/DX or Micro 4/3rds) you need to calculate the equivalent focal length first, i.e. a 20mm lens on an APS-C camera is actually 30mm equivalent as APS-C has a 1.5x crop factor, Micro 4/3rds has a 2x crop factor

An ISO of 3200 is usually best but you can adjust this according to light gathering requirements, higher levels will introduce more noise and generally speaking smaller sensors are noisier than larger one's
If noise is a major issue then you cane take multiple high ISO exposures and stack them in post production using a median blend mode (as the noise is random it will be smoothed out but leaving constants like the stars intact)

But back to this shot
It was taken with my Fujifilm X-T2 mounted on a Skywatcher Star Adventurer (star tracker) one 2 minute exposure for the stars and another of 8 minutes (with long exposure noise reduction switched on in camera) for the foreground, the two then composited together

Typical settings for an APS-C camera would be ISO-3200, 25 sec, f/2.8 with a 12mm lens for a single shot

So, my phone camera won't hack it then!

But, seriously, thanks for your comprehensive answer. I used to see posts on Facebook from a group that concentrate on photography of the Milky Way and some of their photos of the Pillars of Creation and the various Nebulae were amazing, but it took some really serious kit to get those photos. Unfortunately I don't see their posts in my feed anymore, but I'm loving your shots of the Milky Way.

[Cupid Stunt]

42 minutes ago, Tango said:

So, my phone camera won't hack it then!

But, seriously, thanks for your comprehensive answer. I used to see posts on Facebook from a group that concentrate on photography of the Milky Way and some of their photos of the Pillars of Creation and the various Nebulae were amazing, but it took some really serious kit to get those photos. Unfortunately I don't see their posts in my feed anymore, but I'm loving your shots of the Milky Way.

The Great Nebula in Orion and Running Man Nebula, very common targets

[Tango]

3 minutes ago, Cupid Stunt said:

The Great Nebula in Orion and Running Man Nebula, very common targets

Awesome.

[Cupid Stunt]

Moon

[Cupid Stunt]

Porthcawl storm

[Sir Fallsalot]

4 hours ago, Cupid Stunt said:

Hi Bob, just a long shutter setting, to get the longest possible standard shutter setting without over exposing you need to select the lowest ISO value your camera can go to and the smallest aperture (the higher the number the smaller the aperture)
If it's still too bright out to get a 1/2 to 10 sec exposure (what you need caries according to the speed of the water and the effect you want) then you may need to use a ND filter (neutral density filter) of maybe 10 stops

There is a way to do it without an ND filter and that's to take multiple shots each with a shorter exposure with the total exposure time adding up to the 1/2 to 10 sec then blend them in a photo editing program like Gimp/Photoshop/Affinity Photo using a median blend, this will give the same smooth water effect but if it's breezy you might get blurry foliage but you can mask off all but one of the exposures foliage so those parts of the image aren't blending multiple shots together

[Grasshopper]

Summer days gone by...

[Cupid Stunt]

Stealth Scoot

[Tango]

Palenque, Mexico

[Specs]

On 01/09/2021 at 23:02, Pedro said:

Love those names with almost no vowels 

Cfgmhjswds 

In Welsh aeiouwy are all vowels!

 

[Cupid Stunt]

Llwyn On
 

 

[XTreme]

7 hours ago, Cupid Stunt said:

Llwyn On
 

 

Superb Terry!

[Catteeclan]

Bloody marvellous.

There's a vid from a drone doing my coast line. I used to watch it often when I was on bookface.

[Grasshopper]

18 hours ago, Cupid Stunt said:

Llwyn On
 

 

Beautiful landscape, love the atmosphere. 

What are you flying?

[Tym]

NYC side of the GW. 

 

[Specs]

[boboneleg]

7 hours ago, Specs said:

Where’s that one Alan ?

[Specs]

51 minutes ago, boboneleg said:

Where’s that one Alan ?

St Lythan's. Just down the lane from Duffryn Gardens, St Hillary.