Meteor Shower Time Lapse Fail

So yesterday I decided to try and time lapse the Geminid Meteor Shower. I’ve only time lapsed stars once before so I really wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Here in the Windsor, Ontario area, light pollution is an issue but I was able to find a place where it wasn’t so bad. This place was the Vollmer Complex behind Sandwich Secondary School. When I got there to setup the moon was still setting to the west. The western sky is also where I noticed most of the shooting stars however due to the moon setting, I wasn’t able to point my camera in that direction or none of the shots would have turned out. So I gambled and set up my shot facing southeast. There were plenty of stars in that part of the sky so I was assuming there would also be shooting stars…I was wrong. After reviewing the 630 still images from the shoot, I didn’t see a single shooting star in any of them. This really isn’t a big problem because there were still lots of stars in each photo and that still makes a cool time lapse. However there was another problem - my focus was soft. And here’s why. It was very windy out with gusts up to 50km/hr so I wanted to keep my exposure as short as possible to prevent camera shake due to the wind. To keep my exposure short, I chose 5 seconds, that required me to set my aperture at f/4 at ISO 800. The f/4 is what killed me. You’ll see in the photo below that I was trying to get the soccer nets in focus as well as the stars and f/4 just isn’t enough for that. And I knew this ahead of time so I tried to set my focus on the stars because they’re the main subject, the soccer nets were just secondary. Turns out my focus wasn’t sharp on either. Tonight I’ll be correcting all of these mistakes. The wind isn’t supposed to be as strong so I’ll be able to get away with a longer exposure and a greater f/stop…I’m hoping for f/14 to f/16ish. I’ll also work on the focus issue.
So to sum it up, my time lapse I shot last night will still look pretty cool, however it will not include shooting stars. Hopefully tonight it works out better. Oh, and here’s a still from the shoot last night.

Stars, Moon, and Loons

Just some shots from the long weekend up in the Kirkland Lake, Ontario area....enjoy

Canon 17-85mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM for sale

I just upgraded all my gear and I'm selling my Canon 17-85mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM Lens.

I'll also throw in the lens hood (EW-73B) and a Tiffen Circular Polarizer.

Asking $450 o.b.o.

if interested or have any questions, email me at brandon@brandonbroderick.com

Salmon Glacier Pano

Salmon Glacier Pano...... near Stewart, BC

Crystal Lake Pano

Yellowstone National Park

I'm going to begin this blog by saying that Yellowstone National Park is one of the most amazing places I've ever been and if you ever get a chance to go, please do.

Now I guess I should explain the circumstances that lead me to Yellowstone...

On January 24th, I got a call from my Grandpa. My father had passed away. I flew back home to Windsor, Ontario on monday the 25th and began planning the funeral and all that other stuff associated with a death...not fun. Being that I'm the executor of my fathers estate, I've had a lot of responsibilities thrown my way. In order to deal with all this stuff properly, I have to be in Windsor.

I now had to figure out a way to move home, and already being home made that kind of tricky. Flying back to Vancouver would be expensive and I would have to either rent a U-Haul truck or ship my stuff home, which is also very expensive. It turned out the cheapest way for me to get back to Vancouver and get my stuff home was to drive. My stepdad was generous enough to let me use his truck and that was it...now time to plan my route.

It would have been nice to check out all the provinces since I have never made that drive before but I decided to drive through the U.S.A. instead. It's a more direct route and the gas is cheaper. As I was mapping out my journey, I noticed my route would take me fairly close to Yellowstone National Park. If the Discovery Channel has taught me anything, it's that Yellowstone is a place you just can't pass up.

So that's how I ended up in Yellowstone. Ready to hear what it was like???

Ready or not, here it goes...

If the Discovery Channel has taught me anything about Yellowstone, I was in for a day of watching Bison grazing in roadside meadows, Bighorn Sheep head-butting on rocky slopes, and packs of wolves hunting down weak Elk. Now I may not have seen the above mentioned animals doing what the DC depicts them doing, but I did see all of those species, and then some. In the winter there's only one road open to wheeled vehicles. It's the road at the north end of the park that goes from Mammoth to Cooke City. There's no loop so you basically drive to Cooke City and back. That drive took about 6hrs in total including stopping to take photos...in that 6 hrs, I saw the following animals:

Elk

American Bison

Pronghorn Antelope

River Otters

Bald Eagles

Wolves(2)

Coyotes(3)

Bighorn Sheep(1)

I guess it's time for the photos.....so here ya go

Coyote with a mouse

1/3000 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

American Bison

1/2000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

1/1500 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm

1/4000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 100mm, -0.5ev

Elk

1/350 @ f/8, ISO 400, 350mm, +0.5ev

Bald Eagle

1/1000 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm, -0.5ev

Bighorn Sheep

1/3000 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

River Otters

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

1/1500 @ f/8, ISO 400, 400mm

Wolf....from really far away. Not a great photo by any means but it was the first one I've ever seen so I had to capture it.

1/8000 @ f/5.6, ISO 400, 400mm

Thanks for reading!

www.brandonbroderick.com

Lighthouse Park

This afternoon I went out to Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver to get a Pano shot of the Lighthouse. If you remember a few posts back, I posted a pano photo of Cypress Creek. This one was done the same way using HDR. This one also contains 45 photos. While I was there, I came across some birds along the shore feeding on snails. I believe they're a specie of Sandpiper...so I got a few shots of them, as well as a Cormorant fishing. I finished off the trip to LHP with an HDR shot of an Arbutus tree with my fisheye lens....photos below

HDR Pano - 5 shots stitched together, each photo shot at;

-2.0ev, -1.5ev, -1.0ev, -0.5ev, 0, +0.5ev, +1.0ev, +1.5ev, +2.0ev

1/350 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500, +1.0ev

These next 3 photos are of a Cormorant diving

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500, +1.0ev

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500, +1.0ev

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500, +1.0ev

HDR -2.0, -1.5, -1.0, -0.5, 0, +0.5, +1.0, +1.5, +2.0

www.brandonbroderick.com

Science World @ Night

I've been wanting some night shots of the Telus World of Science for a while now. Tonight I finally found some motivation to make the drive down there and get some shots. I kept it simple with a Vertical, Horizontal, and a Pano and here they are....

5 shots stitched together

10.os @ f/9.5, 17mm, ISO 400

10.os @ f/9.5, 17mm, ISO 400

www.brandonbroderick.com

Woodpecker, Yellowlegs, and a Heron

With the convenience of the sun showing up on a weekend, I took full advantage of it and got out to take some photos. Before I get too into this blog, here is a shot of the sunrise in Ladner, BC.

1/350 @ f/4.5, 100mm, ISO 250

My goal of the morning was to get some decently lit waterfowl flight shots. It was dead calm today and the birds just weren't flying so I took some typical "behavioral" shots. Here are a few.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

1/500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 260mm, ISO 640

1/750 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 640

1/1500 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 800

After about 2 hours of not having much luck with flight shots, I decided to pack it in. As I was putting my camera in my bag, I noticed 3 other photographers all pointing their cameras in a similar direction. So I took out my camera again and pointed it towards where they were to see what they were shooting. They were photographing a Pileated Woodpecker and since I don't have any photos of them, I figured I may as well grab a few while the opportunity was there. Here's the catch though, the woodpecker was located across the pond I was at so I needed the bird to hang around for at least 5 minutes to give me enough time to walk around to it. 5 minutes doesn't seem like a long time, but think about how long a bird typically sits in one place... 5-10 seconds maybe? The odds were against me but sure enough the woodpecker was in the same place. Here are a couple shots of it.

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

Since I was already in Ladner, Tsawwassen wasn't too far out of the way so I headed there next. I've wanted some photos of a Heron fishing for a while now and Boundary Bay has a pretty healthy population of them. They like to feed on small fish in the shallows at high tide so that's where I headed. After a bit of a hike along the beach, I found the Heron I was looking for. Unfortunately it was in no rush to eat. I waited 30 minutes for this bird to finally start moving and it was another 15 minutes after that when it finally took a stab at getting a meal. It only made one attempt at eating while I was watching it and thankfully I got it on camera...

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 360mm, ISO 400

1/2000 @ f/5.6, 250mm, ISO 400

Luckily there were other birds to photograph to help pass the time while waiting for the Heron to fish. Here are a few shots of some Greater Yellowlegs.

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/4000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 500

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 400

1/3000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 400

I'll close off this blog entry with one last photo of a Red-tailed Hawk I spotted near the parking lot.

1/1000 @ f/5.6, 400mm, ISO 320

Thanks for reading!

www.brandonbroderick.com