Carpe Noctem! - Seize the Night!
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Welcome to the
Carpe Noctem
! newsletter
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Hello Everyone!
A beery toast to the second edition of my newsletter! It has been a busy year for me and my photography. Lots of good news and presenting at the
NECCC conference
was one of the highlights so far. Welcome to the 150 new members of this distribution list who signed up, I hope you enjoy the news I have to share.
Everyone is starting to plan for trips and workshops next year, so don't miss out on our Iceland Photo Tour in March of 2020, see below for details.
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One other highlight I have to share is that I provided one of my images from a trip to Easter Island to become the label of a new craft beer.
Four Quarters Brewery
in Vermont asked me to create a label for a new beer that used a hops named "Southern Cross". I dug into my Easter Island photos and created a composition using the
Ahu Nau Nau
Moai statues that I photographed on Anakena Beach. In order for the Southern Cross constellation to appear as a cross and fit on the beer can, I had to rotate the Milky Way, added diffraction spikes to the constellation stars and you can see the end result above and below. It is a tasty IPA!
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Photo Tour: Iceland March 2020
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We will be
repeating our Iceland photography tour March 22-29, 2020.
Experience beautiful Iceland with its plethora of waterfalls, geysers, glacier lagoons, black sand beaches, volcanic landscapes, ponies and the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. The program covers all and provides a rich and interesting photo tour, spanning countrysides and the cities of Iceland.
This is a unique photo experience in a very small group, six attendees and two experienced operators, a 3-to-1 ratio. Jürgen Lobert and Lisa Ryan will provide a well planned itinerary, while remaining flexible to accommodate weather and available photo opportunities.
Please click the red link for a detailed overview and to
register online
. Pay in full now and receive a discount through October 01, 2019.
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Image Stacking for Reduced Noise
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For Astro-Landscape photography, a common technique to enhance the Milky Way dynamic range is to stack multiple short, high ISO photos together and average the information using software. it is counter-intuitive trying to create a low noise image from very high ISO photos, but it works really well and is widely described and used.
I recently started to use that technique also for the foreground of astro-landscape photos, which always suffer from blotchy shadows and excessive noise, because we are limited in exposure time to prevent star trails. Foreground areas are usually dark and have a very low dynamic range to begin with, the high ISO adds to the problem.
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Photo stacking takes that noise out, creates smooth images that can be processed better to create more dynamic looking foregrounds, such as the one in the Iceland aurora photo above. You can actually see the basalt rock pattern and the black sand beach is smooth, much more pleasant to look at. Likewise, the very dark night at Beaver Pond in the White Mountains left excessive noise in the foreground, but stacking 7 images together created a smooth pond and reflection of Jupiter in the water. It still looks like a dark night, but it is pleasant to look at and explore the foreground, which is no longer a neglected afterthought. After all, a good astro-landscape should include both intriguing sky and foreground portions.
This technique and many other useful tips and tricks can be found on
my Patreon page
. Weekly posts, monthly image deconstructs, photo critiques, early bird announcements, the opportunity to collect my prints and much more can be had for the cost of a coffee or two. You wanted to cut down on caffeine, anyway, no? :)
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Until next time: keep seizing the night, create wonderful memories
and images and enjoy the rest of the summer!
Yours truly
Jürgen
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