aurora borealis

gooberman

gooberman

walked out my back door tonight and to my surprise the northern light were out. Usually you can't see them this well here in anchorage but according to the internet "A sunspot spot wider than the planet Jupiter just blasted out the largest solar flare seen in four years". Generally you have to head out of town and get away from all the city light to see them.

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Wow...

I spent a while hunting for them in Northern Finland with zero success. It must be amazing to see them in your backyard... it would be all the more amazing for me, given that I'm in London :D

But those are very pretty pictures. And look at all that snow. In March. Crazy. ;)
 
That brings back memories, Goob. It's usually -35 (-63 C) for the good shows! Summer is around the corner, though. I remember a summer in Alaska where it only rained twice. Once for 43 days and once for 28. :)
 
I've seen the northern lights a couple times in my life. Not in Chicago, of course, but in the suburbs. And nothing as beautiful as those pictures. In fact, most people completely missed it because if you didn't know what you were looking at, you would have thought it was just a patch of wispy clouds over the stars.

Wish I could have seen that one in person, goob. I'm betting those photos don't even do it justice :)
 
NickClapper said:
Wow...

I spent a while hunting for them in Northern Finland with zero success. It must be amazing to see them in your backyard... it would be all the more amazing for me, given that I'm in London :D

But those are very pretty pictures. And look at all that snow. In March. Crazy. ;)
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The snow takes forever to go away. I think we have about 7-8 months of winter and 4-5 months of summer.

PaulGriffith said:
That's awesome. That's something I really want to see in real life.
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JakeSully said:
Watching the/an (?) aurora borealis is on my bucket list.
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It's truely an amazing site

CamVader said:
That brings back memories, Goob. It's usually -35 (-63 C) for the good shows! Summer is around the corner, though. I remember a summer in Alaska where it only rained twice. Once for 43 days and once for 28. :)
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Unfortunately im at the tail end of the winds. up north is where the real magic happens. I think im going to make a trip to palmer or wasilla where i can see them better. maybe sarah palin will let me stay at her house LOL. Last summer it rain pretty much all summer.

Dreadylocks said:
I've seen the northern lights a couple times in my life. Not in Chicago, of course, but in the suburbs. And nothing as beautiful as those pictures. In fact, most people completely missed it because if you didn't know what you were looking at, you would have thought it was just a patch of wispy clouds over the stars.

Wish I could have seen that one in person, goob. I'm betting those photos don't even do it justice :)
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My dad is a trucker and goes to chicago everyday. He has seen them but he said its impossible in the city because of the street lights. The pictures do plenty of justice. i could barely see the with my naked eyes but once i got my camera in tune to the night, they blew up in my photos. I was amazed the T2i is a pretty amazing camera.
Uranium City said:
Did you get any video, Goob?
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I switched it to video mode once and all I saw was a pitch black screen. All my pics were taken with the shutter open for 10-30 seconds. Is there setting on the T2i that will lighten up the night?
 
gooberman said:
I switched it to video mode once and all I saw was a pitch black screen. All my pics were taken with the shutter open for 10-30 seconds. Is there setting on the T2i that will lighten up the night?
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do time lapse of 20 second exposures for an hour or so...
basically set your camera up for multiple shots with a 2 second delay between them so it has time to do some processing and take 10 to 20 second shots

what we were talking about doing on that other thread

i would love to see a time lapse of an AB... that would be bad ass bro... seriously

it would make me happy ... do it for me hahahahahahahahahahaha
 
licenseless said:
do time lapse of 20 second exposures for an hour or so...
basically set your camera up for multiple shots with a 2 second delay between them so it has time to do some processing and take 10 to 20 second shots

what we were talking about doing on that other thread

i would love to see a time lapse of an AB... that would be bad ass bro... seriously

it would make me happy ... do it for me hahahahahahahahahahaha
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I thought of trying that and i may tonight if they are out again. What are good f/, ISO and shutter speeds to use. i just played around with the setting last night becasue i honestly dont know what im doing. I noticed you can achieve the same results with a low ISO and long exposure time as you can the opposite. I think. I think one was more grainy than the other. basically I dont know how ISO applies because one of the pictures i shot was with and ISO of 400 and a long exposure and it turned out looking ok.

Anyways will temperatures of 0-20 degrees for a long period of time hurt my t2i?

Which program would be best to make a time lapse? I have Adobe Master Collection CS3
 
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This brought back a memory that Iv been trying to put my finger on for a while..

My best high school friend and I were walking a VERY dark road very late at night, seems like it was spring, still chilly at night.. sometimes in the 80's.. anyway the sky did some amazing things.. much more than a wispy cloud, red fire filled half the sky it was awe inspiring.. I found this site figure it must have been the 1981 event..

http://www.solarstorms.org/SRefStorms.html
 
about temp, my guess is its not the cold thats the problem, its the condensation when you come back to where its warm. I snarfed this from another forum...

condensation problems occur when you go from cold to warm: the humidity in the air will condensate on cold parts of your gear - but there is a good and working trick:
put your cam and your lenses in zip-bags, close the bags [outside in the cold], go inside, expose your "zip-locked gear" to the warmth and wait for about 10-15 minutes in the warm place, after that you can open the zip-lock-bags and your cam and your lenses won't be affected by condensing water anymore

sounds reasonable..
 
This happens in Florida, Wheat, just going from air conditioning at 78 degrees to sub-tropical Africa high humidity outdoors in the 80's or 90's.

You have to do the opposite and let the camera acclimate to the outdoor temp and then crack the bag slightly to let the humidity in.

Then, coming back inside you let everything dry exposed to the air - moving air if you can.

I think Indiebudget has a similar ritual in Houston
 
This is what I got. The solar winds blew for about 10 min and then disappeared. Also i was using my 6 dollar tripod so its a little shakey. More to come if the winds pick up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEt7vjIhN0
 
gooberman said:
This is what I got. The solar winds blew for about 10 min and then disappeared. Also i was using my 6 dollar tripod so its a little shakey. More to come if the winds pick up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQEt7vjIhN0
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sorry i didnt give ya some heads up on what f stop and all of that jazz earlier... i have been dealing with some work shit in support of mainland... kind of swamped with shit... and exhausted... :(

basically your on the right track... the lower the iso... the longer the exposure... but dont raise the iso to much because it will become grainy... because the sensors use more receptors (for a lack of better words) to produce the same shot per pixel... if that doesnt make since... ignore it... its easier for to explain it on a white board than in words hahahahahahahha


now... you can also open your apature... or lower the apature number to gain more light into the sensor so that you can take a shorter shot... but your depth of field can change so you need to have the camera focused to what you are wanting... i put it on infinity for time lapse shots... usually


now... basically what i do is set my camera up on the tripod i want... then put the camera on AV... or apature priority mode... then set my iso...and my apature to what i want... usually low on both... and take a shot... and the camera will tell me what the suggested f stop will be... and i do a few tests shots... to see how i like it and see if it is all in focus... i have my camera hooked up so i can view the shots and see how well they came in focus the way i want...

then i either memorize all the settings... or write them down... depending on if i am drinking or tired hahahahahahah

then i swap the camera to manual mode.... so that during the shooting the AV mode doesnt change my settings so that everything stays the same...

and i set it up the way i want it... adding or subtracting time on the fstop for a darker or lighter image for my taste...

then i start the timelapse... AND... have lots of damn patients... which is usually why i am having a beer because i will be there for a few hours at a time... so ... might as well get comfy hahahahah
 
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