It has been a long time since I went out in the dark to shoot the night sky. Skies here in Nova Scotia are more often than not covered by a layer of “something”. Lately, that has been smoke from forest fires, before it was the usual clouds.
Add to that that shooting the night sky from the same beaches over and over again is somewhat boring, and you end up with me not going to shoot in the night. So, a few days ago we decided to spend a night at a campground.
With the province-wide fire ban in place, half of the campground was closed off, it being located in the woods, while the other half was much drier than I expected. Also, it was mostly empty. People don’t want to go out if they already know that they are not allowed to do what they want. And who wants to go camping if they are not even allowed to make a campfire?
Big Dipper
While I usually tend to agree with “freedom fighters”, in this instance, I agree with the government. We all know what happens if you let loose a bunch of people in a tinderbox. Even more so if there is no water or firefighting material readily available, it’s “always” an accident or “we didn’t know” etc., and the result is always a damaged area for decades to come.
Non-descript sky
So I stayed in the campground, trying to find a suitable spot to shoot the galactic core. The above shot was the first in a series of shots. Pretty non-descript unless you’re an astronomer, I guess. The peculiarity of the shots in this post lies in the camera settings.
View of Lunenburg, NS
Since it was pitch black, I had turned my camera into a setting that didn’t allow for changing settings. So I started pushing buttons and rotating dials like a mad scientist, only to find that nothing worked. When I finally found the right dial, I started shooting.
Obvious
At one point, I was wondering what that little “S” meant in my viewfinder. Then it dawned on me. “S” is for small JPG files, so I changed it iimmediately to “Large” without thinking any further about it. That was also a mistake, as those Small/Medium/Large/Fine etc, were all settings for JPG shots, not for my usual RAW format.
Nice reflection
But I only found that out the next morning… In the meantime, I was wondering what I could shoot with a more interesting foreground. The picture of the Galactic Core is nice, but not very presentable anywhere. The midnight moonrise over the Atlantic was nice, but also not very inspiring.
Vertical panorama
So I tried to get the Milky Way together with the moonrise. While the lens distortion becomes pretty apparent in the above vertical panorama, it does look nice. But, like my preschool teachers noted in my report card for “Writing skills”, “Can do better”.
Camping
So I turned around and got a view of the campground, with only one tent in my viewfinder. Not my tent, even. Using the same technique of a vertical panorama, I tried to get the tent together with the Milky Way. But the last shot was “ruined” by someone getting out of the tent with a flashlight. Apparently, in search of a washroom. Oh well, dealing with moving targets like that can be somewhat… how shall I say it?… Annoying…?
Moonrise
All in all, I had a good time, bad camera settings not even on my radar at that time. I guess I will have to redo this another night somewhere else, this time a bit better prepared.
Until next time…