Since I grew up loving astronomy (subscribed to Astronomy Magazine) I couldn't wait to get out and practice some star photography. After practicing for 60-70 shots I managed this one. I managed to get about 4-5 shooting stars in this one. I will be doing a lot of this during the Summer months. I also plan to write up a nice post on how to shoot these.
Starry Night in New Zealand
I've started going through some of my first day images from my New Zealand trip. I decided to play around some tight versus wide crops. This is a fun tight crop across Lake Wakatipu in the heart of Queenstown. Thanks to the Nikor 28-300 lens I was able to get in nice and tight on this copse of trees.
This is an HDR shot but instead of using the 5 images I shot I decided to only use 4. The +2 exposure shot was too blown out. I did a multiply layer and then masked back in some of the darker trees that I saw that misty morning.
It's fun to see some of my first day images versus the images I was starting to shoot by the end of the week. It's amazing what some intensive learning can do to a person.
Lone Tree on Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand
I'm offline, off the grid, and deep in the mountains of New Zealand. The good news is that I'm busy taking hundreds and thousands of photos as part of Trey Ratcliff's NZ photo adventure.
I'm a few days in and we're having a blast. We've been super busy waking up at 5:30AM and shooting until breakfast. Then a few hours doing some valuable post processing time, lunch, and then off into the sunset for more shooting. Rinse and repeat.
I'm learning a boat load and can't wait to start sharing more tips and tricks I've learned along the 'unexpected journey'. Meanwhile, here's a sunrise shot I took this morning at a super secret location called The Hills. This is an HDR using seven exposures with my Nikon D800.
The Hills in New Zealand at sunrise.