A Little Internet Birdie told me that there was going to be some Aurora Activity tonight, so I bundled up, and ventured out onto the frozen Nelson river to try and capture it. Unfortunately, between the almost full moon and the fact that the aurora was really faint, I didn't really get anything worth writing home about. So, Instead, I set the WB to Tungsten (Tungsten or incandescent white balance gives you some beautiful blue skies at night or dusk) opened the aperture on my 35mm f/2.0 all the way up, cranked the shutter speed, (These were all taken at a range between 30 seconds and a minute+) and captured some stars and a little bit of night scenery just to justify the multitude of layers I have to bundle into in order to venture out into the frozen December nights.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays Etcetera!

This picture is a HDR created from eight different exposures. I bundled up against the cold winter night, and trekked out into the forest with two strings of Christmas lights and the UPS battery backup from my computer. After setting up the lights, I took a variety of exposures at f/4.0 ranging from 1/8 of a second up to a full 30 seconds. I then combined them using FDR Tools, cloned out the lights leading to the UPS (hidden behind that stump next to the tree) and then did a little contrast/color correction in Lightroom.  I'm pretty pleased with how well it turned out - hope you enjoy it!

    

For the first time in what feels like months, the clouds finally broke and we had some blue skies and sunshine. I decided to capitalize on this nice, clear (and cold!) day by grabbing my camera and giving my new 24-120 VR a workout.

After bundling up, I ventured out into the forest near my house and wandered around getting some shots of the winter onslaught.

By the time I made it home, my jeans were soaked halfway up to the knee, my cheeks were rosy red and I had lost my glasses in a snowdrift (temporarily) but every time I grab my camera and go for a walk I have a good time.

Oh, and picture #4 is actually an HRD composite of four separate images at varying degrees of exposure. One of these days I might actually invest in Photomatix so I can do decent HDR images.

 

I pulled over on the side of the road today on my way home to grab a couple frames of the world being covered in snow. I think winter's here to stay now.