The moon’s orbit around the Earth has a bit of a wobble. The moon moves both higher and lower in the sky, rising and setting both north and south of due east and west. It also varies in how close or far away it may be during it’s roughly four week orbit around the Earth. When the moon is at its nearest point in the orbit, called the perigee, the moon is actually slightly larger in the sky and is called a super moon.

During the most recent full moon (3/5/15), the moon was at its orbital apogee, or furthest point away during its orbit, and was some 30,000 miles further than when it is at its closest. So this month’s full moon was a ‘mini’ moon and was some 14% smaller, and reflected about 30% less light to the Earth than when it is a ‘super’ moon. It’s still just as pretty though, especially when setting over the Adirondack High Peaks in the morning sky.

The post The Full ‘Mini-Moon’ appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

As the sun sets in the west, the blue hour settles in. Lights come on in the towns and cities, and the first stars show up in the darkening sky.

Most of the Adirondacks has excellent dark sky conditions. If you’re in some of the larger towns, you just need to get a few miles away to find completely dark skies, tons of stars, the Milky Way, and perhaps even a nebula or comet.

Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 has been moving slowly across northern skies for the past month. While it’s barely visible to the naked eye, binoculars have helped it’s green fuzzy nucleus stand out better. A camera can help record the soft brightness of the tail. I used a special stacking process to help eliminate background noise in each photo I combined to help bring through the more subtle details of Comet Lovejoy.

There is also a nebula in the sword of Orion that records easily on camera, and can also be seen with binoculars.

This coming year, a number of my one day photo tours are scheduled to include both evening and night photography – and we always take time out during my multi-day workshops to take advantage of ‘night light’ to photograph stars, or the night landscape in the soft glow of moonlight. I do these all across the Adirondacks – from our home office in Brant Lake, to the Adirondack Folk School in Lake Luzerne, View in Old Forge, the Elk Lake Lodge, and The Wild Center in Tupper Lake.

The post Adirondack Nights appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

Every now and then winter weather creates conditions so sublime, it’s simply beyond words. Storms most often drop snow that melts off quickly, or is easily blown off in the wind. But every so often the snowfall in a ‘perfect’ storm sticks to every branch, needle, and blade of grass, transforming the landscape into a winter wonderland.

After most storms, by the time I’ve finished running the snow blower up and down the driveway, the snow has already begun melting – or is being blown off the trees. The storm we had this mid-December (2014) though, just hung on for several days and the landscape was spectacular everywhere one looked.

The day after the storm, I took a morning and photographed around the Brant Lake area, not travelling too far from home. I spent several hours out with the camera, and barely scratched the surface of all the locations I would have liked to get to.

I also headed out a couple of days later to do some additional photography up north. I headed up to the Essex area for some sunrise light views across the Champlain Valley to the peaks off in the distance.

From there I headed into the High Peaks themselves and did some climbing in the Chapel Pond/ Giant Mountain area. The peaks are especially nice in the winter when trees are covered with snow from the valleys right up to the summits.

This winter wonderland stays around much longer at higher elevations since rime ice builds up on trees and rocks as super cooled moisture filled clouds blow over the summits, building a feathery frost on anything the moisture touches.

So, this winter head out when you have a chance as soon as it’s safe to travel after a storm. Take along a camera, or just head out to enjoy the magical light and snow. If photographing, overexposing the image slightly will brighten up those pictures where the snow looks dark and grey. Pay attention to the histogram so the graph reaches the right (white) side – but doesn’t spike along that ‘white’ edge.

The post A Winter Wonderland appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

We get to see some amazing sunrises and sunsets over the
Adirondacks. It takes the right combination of clouds, and moisture in the air
to get the really dramatic reds and yellows though. I was climbing Giant
Mountain just before Thanksgiving to photograph some early morning light over
the High Peaks when the first subtle tones of red appeared on the horizon. This
earliest light will glow about a half hour or more before sunrise, and then
fade some, before the sun rises enough to start lighting up the clouds with a
more intense, direct light.

I always shoot raw, so I have best control for enhancing the
images in post processing. For the tighter detail shot of the clouds, I wanted
to accentuate all the layers of clouds I saw that morning, while for the
panorama I wanted to give the feel of seeing the expanse of clouds spread out
across the beautiful High Peaks landscape. The second panorama was taken during
a brief period after the sun rose, before it went back behind the clouds again.

The post Sunrise from Giant Mountain appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

I never did see actually see the comet while I was there, and didn’t notice it then in the photos I shot either. I figured it was too low, or in the clouds, or not in the general area I thought it would be in. It wasn’t until I got back home, checked the internet to verify where the comet should have been in the sky relative to the moon, and checked my photos again, that I noticed a soft, fuzzy, bright point in my photo just above the clouds, that was in line with the moon. I zoomed into the photo with the zoom button on the camera, and there it was!

This was my second time out. The first was on Friday March 8. I watched a beautiful sunset, and took photos the whole time, but never did see the comet. The pictures I’d been seeing posted on the web made me think it should be readily visible, but the reality is – at least for our latitude here in the Adirondacks, the comet is still so close to the sun that it’s quite difficult to see with the naked eye. As it gets further away from the sun each night this month, it will become a much easier target in the evening sky. It will also be fading ever so slightly each night, but at least it will be higher above the glow of twilight, and easier to see.

For now, it’s best to pick a nice clear evening, find a high location with a clear view to the western horizon. Enjoy the beauty of the evening as day fades to dark. Then about 40 minutes after the actual time the sun sets (roughly 7 PM right now – but this gets slightly later each night this month), start scanning the sky just above where the sun set with binoculars and look for a soft, fuzzy point of light within the glow of twilight.

Looking to get photos? The photo of the crescent moon, comet, and clouds was shot with my D300S camera, at 800 ISO, using a 60 mm focal length on my Nikkor 18-300 zoom, for 2 seconds at f /5.6. If I knew that focal length would have worked fine, and also knew that I was actually taking a photo of the comet, I would have used my 50 mm f1.4 lens, with a faster shutter speed, larger aperture, and lower ISO. It’s best to use at least an f 2.8 lens. With slower lenses you’ll just need to bump up the ISO to as high as 800 so you can set a fast enough shutter speed so there is minimal motion blur on the stars and comet because of the motion issues from the rotating Earth. Try to keep shutter speeds no longer than 2 seconds at that focal length. Be sure to use a good sturdy tripod with a cable or remote release to avoid moving the camera while taking a shot. Happy comet hunting!

The post Comet PanStarrs appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

The thaw cycles create more water for the next set of icicles as the water seeps under the snow cover on the ground to the overhangs and outcroppings. As the ice builds up in the cold temperatures, fresh snow decorates the details and creates many different options for photography.

When photographing snow and ice it’s important to consider how the camera is reading the light values for each exposure, especially when a photo is composed mostly of these brighter details. The camera’s light meter wants to balance the tonal values of a photo to a mid-tone 18% gray value. That’s just right for green grass and leaves and deep blue sky. Subjects like fog, snow, and ice though are brighter than 18% gray, and the camera needs to be adjusted so the brighter snow and ice will appear closer to a white value.

The easiest way to make the adjustment is to use a camera’s exposure compensation feature while working in Aperture or Shutter Priority, or Program modes. A snow scene should be overexposed by about 1 to 2 stops depending on the proportion of light snow to darker details in the image. The bottom line is, if you take an image and the overall details are too dark – add more overexposure. If image details are too light, dial in some underexposure.

This shooting process and more tips and techniques for exposure and working with histograms are explained in greater detail in my books – ‘Contemporary Landscape Photography’ (Amphoto), and ‘The Landscape Photography Field Guide’ (Focal Press). We also go through these shooting techniques and many others in my photography workshops. Happy shooting!

The post Snow and Ice – Winter 2012-13 appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

Open water and zero (F) or below air temperatures create unique photo opportunities with a combination of ice, mist, snow, and light. The extremes in air temperature cause mist to form, and sometimes freeze on all the branches along the shore. Wind blown lakes in these temperatures creates icicles and a buildup of ice all along the shoreline. Once the lake water temperature is cold enough, ice crystals form, as well as ice pans that blow into bays and gently bob up and down on the waves rolling in. As the surrounding air becomes saturated with enough moisture, fog and clouds may form along the length of the open water in the lake.

The general rules for exposure apply. When working in Aperture or Shutter Priority, if the scene is mostly white, add some overexposure compensation to brighten up the snow in the photos. Most important, bracket the exposure (shooting additional over and under exposures) to be sure you get a good enough exposure of the composition you have set up, and have enough highlight and shadow details in the exposures to do any needed HDR (high dynamic range) compositing work. I shoot in RAW with the white balance on Auto so I have the greatest amount of image information to work with – and can easily make any slight white balance adjustments needed in post processing. If shooting jpeg, it’s best to get white balance right while you’re shooting.

Dress warm! In sub-zero temperatures I wear synthetic long johns and a Primaloft insulated jacket and pants under my wind / waterproof parka and pants, as well as extra layers of fleece if needed. Nice warm Outdoor Research Primaloft mitts keep my hands toasty once the camera is set up, and I use windstopper fleece gloves as needed when making detailed camera adjustments. If you’re interested in learning more about how to take these types of shots, sign up for one of the many one day to several day photography workshops I do each year (full list on my website), or check out my landscape photography techniques books. ‘The Landscape Photography Field Guide’ is packed full of information and tips in a book that easily fits in most camera packs.

The post Cold Air and Open Water appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

By the time I reached the fire tower, there was already a beautiful warm glow on the horizon, and a deep red glow to the clouds in the northeast. I wasted no time in taking off my snowshoes, and climbed the tower stairs for the broad open view from the cabin above the snow covered spruce and balsam. Stars were disappearing quickly as I set up my tripod and Nikon D300S camera. Since I was going for the broad view of the clouds and landscape, I exchanged my 18-200 for the 11-16 mm zoom, mounted the camera on the offset center head, attached the cable release and started shooting.

As the light began changing quickly, I also pulled out my Nikon Coolpix P7700 and shot a variety of handheld images of the dawn light, checking as many as needed after I shot them to be sure they were as sharp and detailed as I expected them to be. There wasn’t much wind until about the time the sun started to rise above the horizon. It’s always a balance in the winter between having a thick enough glove to keep the hands warm, and having enough dexterity with gloves on to work with the camera. My hands are usually pretty chilly by the time I put the cameras away. The glow of a beautiful sunrise generally keeps me thinking more about the photography than how cold the fingers are.

A spectacular sunrise always passes by far too quickly. The warm red and yellow tones of dawn soon brighten to white, blue, green and gray not long after the sun rises fully above the horizon. But there are still plenty of great angles to shoot in the low angle ‘magic hour’ light, and it was another hour or more before I snowshoed back down to the car and headed home to the office to check through the images from the morning shoot.

The post Goodnow Mountain in Winter appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

I’ve been following advances in point and shoot technology for some years, looking for certain shooting and image quality features. With the recent jump in sensor technology, I started looking pretty seriously this year at a number of point and shoot cameras and finally settled on Nikon’s Coolpix P7700. With a 28-200 mm full frame equiv., it’s a little short on the focal length range I’d like – and it doesn’t have a Bulb setting, multiple exposure, and image overlay creative effects, but otherwise the camera has all the features I’m used to using with my Nikon D300S. The camera will do a 60 second exposure and 12 megapixel RAW files (slow writing to memory), plus 1080p video, panoramic mode, and HDR.

I’ve had a few days to play around with the features, and really enjoy how easy it is to access settings through buttons and dials on the camera, as well as with a customizable My Menu feature accessed via one of the knobs. And, as fun as it is to be able to have full control, or play with the special effects, it’s also nice when the grandkids are running around to set it to fully automatic and get some great photos that are at least as good as I shoot with the D300S, without thinking about the settings. And the whole unit is a fraction of the size and weight of my D300S w/ 18-200 mm zoom!

The accompanying photos were all shot with the Coolpix P7700. All shot RAW, with the Christmas lights converted to jpeg from RAW in the camera, and the moon photos with Photoshop. Of the two of Christmas lights, one was a pan on led lights, and the other an in camera zoom effect.

The post Just Point and Shoot! appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.

This first photo was taken on 10/13/12 at about 3:30 AM – looking north over the western end of Brant Lake.

This second one was taken last night (11/14/12) at about 2:30 AM. You need to be someplace out of city lights, with dark skies to the north to see them. Hopefully before too long, we’ll even have some overhead here again! These were both 30 second exposures at f /2.8, 800 ISO – shot with a Nikon D300S camera.

The post Northern Lights appeared first on The Adirondack Viewfinder: Adirondack Photography By Carl Heilman.