On the Drive Home - Radials, Trees and Bird!

Radials!!
Tonight wasn't especially wonderful. The skys had been almost completely clear all day long. But, as I headed home, I noticed that there were a few clouds in the West. I knew that the sun would be setting at about the same time that I arrived home. So, I did pull over and take a few shots. The first picture below, shows an effect that I frequently get when the sun is directly present in the frame -- radials. Usually these would be caused by the leaves of the iris in the leanse - one radial per leaf. As I count them in this shot, I see ten of them. But, I don't know how many leaves the iris of the Fujifilm camera has. Ten, maybe? A common way of also getting this effect is to use a 'star' filter in front of the lense. But, I am not doing that.



Look for something to use!!!
In this next shot, you would find me keeping my eyes open as I drive along, looking for a tree, a cactus, a building, or anything else to put into the foreground. I just happen to really love old dead-looking trees. I think they make great silouhettes. In this next picture, the sunset may not be all that great, but I do like the tree. And, by the way, since I drive the same routes to and from work, over and over again, I take note of and remember most of the trees, etc., along the way, so I can plan ahead a little bit, and tell my self, that just around the next bend is that nice tree. That way, I can safely pull over without scaring any other drivers!



Bird!!!!
Finally, tonight I noticed that I had company. Or, maybe it was that I was causing this bird to have company. Anyway, he was watching me watch the sun set. I'm sure that he couldn't begin to figure out what I was doing, running around the trees, stooping down and aiming whatever that thing that I was holding at the trees and sun. Anyway, I enjoyed his company.

Superstition Mountains and Orange Sunsets

Just about every day I drive by the Superstition Mountains on my way into work, and then again on my way home. I can also see them from my neighborhood, even though I probably live 30 miles away from them. To just about everybody that lives here in central Arizona, the Superstition Mountains are just another common site, like living in New York City and not giving a second thought to the Statue of Liberty! But, I know that to a lot of people around the world, the Superstition Mountains are quite a fascination. To me, they are quite beautiful. I've done a fair amount of hiking back into the range, and am always stunned by the beauty, ruggedness, and amazing fields of cactus. And, no, I haven't stumbled upon the Lost Dutchman's Goldmine. But, this was before I started taking digital photographs.

So, now I almost always pay attention to them, especially when the sun is going up or down, and when there is some kind of cloud cover. I haven't gone a long way out of my way, but there are a few places I will pull over and take pictures of them when I think there might be something special. Above is a sample picture I took this afternoon on the way home that I really like. I especially like the little yellow flowers in the foreground, even though I don't know what they are called.

Through out the day we had beautiful, mostly cloudy skys - the kind that get me real excited! But, by the time I got home around 6pm, they were mostly gone. I went out anyway, and took a few of the 'orange' kind of shots that we get here so often. Here is a sample of tonight's sunset. And, since this is about as bad a sunset as we get here, it's not really too bad. I like to shoot these at about -1 EV, which helps the sun to not be too over exposed, and helps the higher parts of the sky look nice and purple.

Night Sky Photographs

Last evening, the sunset was just another one of those big-orange things. I kept checking the sky throughout the day, and there was not a cloud to be seen - just blue sky. OK, and some pollution in the air, which is what helps the orange look so great. So, I decided to not go out to shoot photos. Today, we had too many clouds. Instead of having a sunset, we just had increasing (decreasing?) grayness. So I didn't go out to shoot any pictures tonight, either.

Instead, I thought I'd post a picture from a couple of nights ago. Awhile back I had the desire to try and take some pictures of the stars in the sky with a cactus silhouetted in the foreground. My very first attempts yielded better results than I was expecting. But, one thing that makes these kind of pictures difficult, is that they happen so late at night. You know, after the sun has gone down!!!

This particular shot was taken at about 7:25 pm. I used ISO 400, f3.5, and an exposure time of 30 seconds. Several of my other 'star' shots, I took at ISO 200 and f6.3. But, I used the higher ISO for this shot so that I wouldn't have to take such a long exposure. I took some similar photos about 6 weeks ago where I wanted to show the rotation of the stars around the North Star. Some of those exposures were 15 minutes long. This means that I sat on the desert floor in the middle of January, for about an hour and a half, and went home with only about 6 shots.

Also, the White Balance setting makes a big difference. On the Canon camera, I like to use the Shade setting when shooting the sunset to bring out the red and orange colors. When shooting the night sky with the stars, the Shade setting makes the sky look quite red also. This is not an unpleasing effect. However, setting the white balance for Day or Cloudy makes the sky look more blue. Both ways look nice. It's just a matter of personal preference.

When these exposures are complete, and the Canon camera shows them on its LCD display, they look nice and bright. But, when I get back home and look at them on the computer, they are still very dark. So, to make them look nice, I have to increase the brightness of the highlights. I guess that is somewhat artificial, but it makes for nice looking pictures.

The picture above looks kind of dark on this page, but if you go to my Desert Night Sky PicasaWeb album and look at those shots in slideshow mode (which makes them fill more of the screen), they look quite nice.

In this shot, can you identify the North Star and the Big Dipper?

See the link to my Desert Night Sky web album.

Another nice night ...

We had some great looking clouds last night. It's what I like to refer to as 'potential.' Of course, you never really know if it's going to be any good or not until it actually happens. So, if there is 'potential,' then I head out. You may recognize this particular cactus from lots of my other shots -- that's because this is just a short walk away from my neighborhood. It's easy to go out there. When I'm really feeling rambunctious, and time allows, I like to drive further away, and hike further into the desert, to find new and interesting places. However, last night, I just went for the short walk again.

As you can see in this first photo, there were partly-clear skys up a little bit higher, and a cloud bank near the horizon. I couldn't tell at this point whether the sun was just going to disappear behind the could bank, or whether it might break through below the bank. There were some interesting streaks in the clouds, at the very least.


After a little while, this next picture shows that the sun did break through below the cloud bank. So, at this point my hopes and expectations rose a great deal.

This next shot shows some of the great orange colors that the Arizona skys produce. I hid the sun right behind the cactus, which really helps the colors stand out. Otherwise, when the sun is directly in the shot, the exposure time has to be much shorter so as to keep the sun from looking like a big-ol' wahsed-out bright-white circle. And with the shorter exposures, the rest of the colors are much more subdued. I really like the brighter colors. I also like it when there are great colors in the coulds, but yet you can see some blue sky too.

Finally, as the sun is now long below the horizon, we still had some great colors in the clouds.

I want to say a great big thanks to CatsRfunNZ, who left the following comment last night on one of the photos in one of my PicasaWeb albums:
"So what is the secrete to Arizona to always having such beautiful sunsets/sunrises??

Do they happen all the time?
Do you use a tripod?"

Here are the answers as best as I can make them up:

There really isn't any secrete - just be willing to get up early enough, or be willing to go out every night. Which, by the way, is why I happen to prefer sunsets over sunrises - they don't happen so early in the day!!! I know that God makes some really beautiful stuff happen in the sky no matter where you are, but I think that the 'dusty' sky here in Arizona help to really make the reds and oranges show up. I've seen really great photos of sunsets from around the world, but maybe they happen here a little more often.

However, they don't happen all the time. Sometimes the cloud cover is too extensive, and the sun never actually rises or sets -- we just get increasing or decreasing grayness. But, as you can see in my albums, when you can actually see the sun set, the worst we get is really awsome orange!!! Which is not too bad for as 'bad as it gets.'

And, no and yes. At first, I run around just holding my cameras and taking shots to experiment with framing the various stuff (cactus, trees, etc.) in the forground, and mountains and such in the background. When it is still bright enough, the exposure time is short enough that the tripod is not necessary. But, I pay attention to the exposure time, and when it gets below about 1/60 of a second, I start thinking 'tripod.' Actually, depending upon the urgency (you know, sometimes things are happening too fast to set up the tripod), I'll actually take a hand-held shot down to about 1/15 second. But, I do my darndest to hold as still as I can. And below this, I definately do set up and use the tripod. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post (or maybe the equipment list - I don't remember exactly), about this time I shoot mostly with the Canon EOS Rebel xsi DSLR because I can vary the aperature and exposure a great deal.

NOT too cloudy!!! Just Right!!!

Wow! I've been waiting a while for another of those 'magical' nights to happen; well, tonight was it!! At first I thought that it was going to be too cloudy again, but there was an opening at the horizon beneath the major part of the clouds. And when the sun went low enough - Wowie!!! See the first two samples above ...

Before it gets too dark, I shoot a lot with the Fijufilm camera set in its automatic 'sunset' mode. This makes it real easy to run around taking lots of shots, trying different compositions, etc. And, I really like the way this camera, in this mode, enhances the colors and contrasts. So, I mostly get nice results. But, once it starts getting darker, I pay attention the the shutter speed that it is going to shoot at, and when it gets too slow, or I notice that the images are starting to get a little grainy, I switch mostly to the Canon. Of course, before I got the Canon, I would just put the Fujifilm into manual mode, and force it to take longer exposures. This eliminates the graininess, and yields much better results.

But, now, when it gets dark, I mostly switch to the Canon. Of course, I shoot with the Canon even before the sun goes down. But one cautionary note - when shooting with a DSLR, you are looking through the view finder directly at the sun!!! The entire lens of the camera is focusing the sun directly on your retina. Yikes! I do it anyway, but I do squint a lot. But, then again, I spend an awful lot of time staring at the sun anyway. With my other cameras, all you can look at is the LCD screen on the back of the camera, so even if you are taking pics of the sun, it won't be too bright for you to look at. But, when taking pictures of something very bright (like the sun), it gets very difficult to see any details on the LCD screen on the camera's back, because you are still basically looking directly at the sun. However, the Fijifilm camera has both, a large LCD screen on the camera's back, and a small LCD screen within the viewfinder. When using the viewfinder on this camera, instead of the big LCD screen, your are only looking an LCD screen, and not actually looking directly at the sun. I like that!!! Let's hear it for saving the eyes!!!

Anyway, tonight I shot 124 pictures. Mind you, not all of them are keepers, but most of the are. At least, I can't bring myself to delete very many of them. I consider a very mediocre night to be 6-10 shots, and a really good night be over 100.

I always take my cell phone with me when I go out into the desert -- my wife insists! Tonight, my grandson, Caleb, called when I was busy shooting. With the phone on speaker-phone, and it in my shirt pocket, I kept on a clicking whilst we was a talking.

I don't want to forget to tell you about this morning: There was also a nice sunrise. I had to leave home early this morning (6am) in order to get into town by 7am for our Church's monthly Men's breakfast. It was dark when I left home, and by the time I was nearly into Chandler, the sunrise was underway. So, I stopped a couple of times and took a few shots. The third picture above is one of my favorites from this morning - Houston, we have ignition!!

A cloudy day -- too cloudy

Well, today I was hopeful that the sunset would be one of those real great ones. But, I'm afraid that today was not the day. We had lots of clouds all day. But, it was too cloudy this evening. In fact, we almost didn't even have a sunset -- just increasing (decreasing???) grayness. Sometimes, the sun breaks underneath the clouds and lights them up from the bottom side. Wow!!! However, tonight, there was only a little color right at the horizon. So, I got a few shots of my nearby cactus. As I was coming back home, I stopped to take a couple of shots of my street with the clouds still showing in the background (above-ground??). The exposures of the street scenes were 25 seconds at F13 ISO 400. This allows the street lights to add a real eerie glow to the streets and houses, but also allows the clouds to show up real nice.

I have a running debate with a real good friend of mine (Tom O) who lives in Michigan. I claim that sometimes we do not have sunsets or sunrises. I contend (jokingly) that if the sky is so cloudy that you can't tell when the sun sets or rises -- that it didn't actually happen. My friend insists that whether I can see the sun set or rise, technically it did. OK - technically he's right. But, when you go out to take pictures of a sunset, and you can't see it happen -- I still say that it didn't happen.

I hope to create an entry, or a page, or something, in which I can explain the cameras and equipment that I have been using to take my sunset pictures. I'm going to look into that when I am done with this posting.

Also, if anyone has any questions about what I'm doing, I'd be happy to try my best to answer.

Here are the basic principals that I have been working by so far: 1) God makes the beautiful sunset or sunrise, 2) I put the camera into its 'sunset' mode, and 3) I aim and press the shutter button. That's all. (OK, maybe there's a little more, but not much!)

Wow! My first Follower!!

Hi Barb. I really want to say thanks for stopping by, and for your very kind comments! It was my intention when I thought about starting this blog, that I'd keep it up to date with how new photos were coming along, etc. I guess that now I'd better get busy at doing that! In case you hadn't noticed, I haven't updated this since my first posting.

As a young kid, I traveled a lot with my parents. We managed to see a lot of the continental United States. As far S.E. as Tennessee and some of the Virginia's; N.E. as D.C.; N.W. as Wyoming; and S.W. as California. When I was only 5 years old, we took a long vacation far down into Mexico. But, unfortunately, I don't remember very much of any of these places - only separate images remain in my head.

Any way, when I first moved to Arizona (1967), I didn't really like or appreciate the desert. My parents loved it, however. As I've aged (!!!), I now see a real beauty in the desert. For as long as I can remember, I appreciated sunsets. Since moving from the Phoenix area to the Florence area about two years ago, we are now surrounded by the desert, and the sunsets are more fantastic than ever. What can I say, in just a little over a year now, I've taken over 10,000 (!!!) sunset photos. Whew! And, I can't stop. Every night, I at least look outside to see if anything 'good' is happening in the sky. If there is, I'm out there, hoping for a spectacle. Not every night yields magic, but some do. And I don't want to miss those.

And, that gets me to tonight. My best friend of many years and I went out for our boy's night out, to see a movie (Slumdog Millionaire) and get a bite to eat. The theater is in town (Mesa), and when we came out at about 7pm, I could tell that I had missed what was probably, a real good sky-show. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Well, I'd probably better wrap this up tonight. Again, Barb, thanks for coming by. I'll try to keep this up to date and informative.