Gutiérrez's woods

Second field trip of the nature photography course at the Club Andino, this time having the flora as the main subject. The day didn't help us (a typical Autumn day, drizzle included), but we could take some pictures protected by the woods at the shore of the Gutiérrez Lake. The goal: to go from the big picture to the detail...

Unfortunately due to schedule problems I couldn't go to the other two field days (fauna and macro), but you can see a selection of the best pictures from the whole course here.

"I attempted to rise, but was not able to stir: for, as I happened to lie on my back, I found my arms and legs were strongly fastened on each side to the ground; and my hair, which was long and thick, tied down in the same manner."

Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift

From the same course:

1 - Postcards from Ñirihuau

2 - Gutiérrez's woods

(esta entrada en español)

The night at the Casa de Piedra

Third installment of the night photography course at Comunidad Cíclope, this time from the bridge of the Casa de Piedra river. Adding the movement of the water to the long duration night exposures gives another dimension to the pictures...

The observant reader will notice that the course ended at the end of last year, and that there are more than six months between this post and the two previous of the Moreno Lake and the Cathedral. I'm trying to speed up the upload of pending pictures... ;)

"The Martians stared back at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water..."

The Martian Chronicles, Ray Bradbury

From the same course:

1 - Let there be light

2 - Light stripes and religious illumination

3 - The night at the Casa de Piedra

4 - Serenity

(esta entrada en español)

Postcards from Ñirihuau

Having not uploaded the last pictures of the previous photography course, last week I started another one about Nature Photography at the Club Andino Bariloche. Very interesting first class on Friday (landscape photography, its history and relationship with painting) and immediately the first field trip on Saturday.

Taking advantage of a nice day we went to the Ñirihuau bridge, just leaving Bariloche and going (very little) into the steppe. Although the light was too flat/cold for my taste, the place helps to take nice pictures. And it was also a good moment to test the new HDR tool on Canon's DPP program...

"Montag went ahead. He looked at the river and the sky and the rusting track going back down to where the farms lay, where the barns stood full of hay, where a lot of people had walked by in the night on their way from the city."

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

From the same course:

1 - Postcards from Ñirihuau

2 - Gutiérrez's woods

(esta entrada en español)

To infinity... and beyond!

One of the reasons why a couple of months ago I bought a "prime" lens for the camera (50mm f/1.4) was to do some astrophotography, and this weekend I could finally do a first test. Taking into account that it is a fixed camera, without sky tracking and from my backyard, it came out more than acceptable...

The picture is from the region between the constellations Crux (the Southern Cross) and Carina, as can be seen on the annotated version to the right. In principle, I had no particular reason to photograph that area of the sky more than it being the part of the galactic plane best positioned at that time (1AM of the 24/03). But after processing the images I was pleasantly surprised to find that, between other things, I had pretty visible in the center of the picture the Carina Nebula!

This is a crop from the central part of the image. Top right we have the eta-Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), to the left a globular cluster (NGC 3532), and the portrait is completed below by the Southern Pleiades (IC 2602).

Now I just need a simple and cheap way to do sky tracking and extend the exposure times...

PS for those interested in the technique: the picture is a stack of 75 exposures of 4 seconds (5 minutes total), f/2.0, ISO 800, plus 75 dark frames and 70 bias frames, processed in DeepSkyStacker. The camera is a Canon EOS 5D Mk II with a lens Canon EF 50mm f/1.4, mounted on a simple fixed tripod without tracking.

"Lucy in the sky with diamonds..."

The Beatles

(esta entrada en español)