Shot with PENTAX K10D, processed using K10D Ver 1.30

In this year’s first issue of Tähdet+Avaruus, there was a question sent by a reader about the distance that a lightning can be seen at. The answer referred to lightning seen in the upper parts of a cloud, which is silent when seen from farther than 15km away. The instant I read the answer, I realized I had shot such a phenomenon about a year ago. The Finnish wikipedia reveals that the phenomenon is called “crop lightning”, the proper english term seems to be “sheet lightning”. The phenomenon can be seen mainly in August, when the nights are already dark, but there are still thunders, and thus the finnish moniker “crop lightning” stems from an old belief that these silent lightnings have an effect in ripening the crop.

Unfortunately at the time of taking the picture, I didn’t realize the thunder sound was missing because of the distance, and therefore didn’t have the insight to look up the distance to the thunder cloud. Someone smarter and more knowledgeable in relation to thunderstorms might be able to calculate the distance to the cloud (of which you can only see the top) based on the average height of the cloud and the curvature of the earth. The picture was taken at 26.7.2008. The exposure was 4.0s at f/2.8, ISO100.

Shot with PENTAX K10D, processed using K10D Ver 1.30

When arriving home at around midnight on thursday, I found before this scene brightly lit by a moon accompanied by a planet I later learned was Jupiter. Being tired from the ride home, I settled for a quick snap from our balcony. The exposure time is 15 seconds (at f/5.0, ISO100), and you can already see the Moon and Jupiter starting to elongate. At the back you can see Lake Vuojärvi and the lights of some houses on the opposite shore.

Shot with , processed using Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Macintosh

I’ve felt for a long time that I should be able to identify more of the constellations. I mean, I can instantly locate the Big Dipper (or Plough) that is part of Ursa Major (as can probably every kid over 5 years in Finland), and I even knew that I could locate Polaris based on the big dipper, just didn’t know the exact details. Hitting the books to learn constellations is just so boring compared to watching the real formations on the sky, but you’re not bloody likely to have an astronomy book when you’re outside watching, are you?
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Shot with PENTAX K10D, processed using

I shot four shots of the Tornio River in Jatuni in Finnish Lapland in February of 2008. I finally got around to downloading the open source Hugin panorama tools on my Mac to see what would come out of them.

The first problem was that I had not locked the exposure when shooting the photos. I don’t know how well Hugin would’ve handled differently exposed photos, but I discovered a great feature in Lightroom that solved the problem for me: there’s an option called “Match Total Exposures” in the Settings menu that matched the exposures of the four shots.

I had previously tried to create a panorama when shooting interiors, but it seemed to me that despite trying to keep the exposure the same, there would be these horrible lines where the photographs joined. Partly this was due to misaligned images, partly due to the non-matching exposures. When creating the panorama in Hugin, it seemed to be the case this time as well. I was determined to try and mask away such misalignments in Photoshop Elements and exported the image out of Hugin, and much to my surprise, it looked perfect. Apparently, the Hugin shows the lines where the photographs join in the preview window, but mercifully leaves them out of the final product.

The result you can see above. A panorama of the Tornio River, or Väylä as the locals call it.

Shot with PENTAX K10D, processed using K10D Ver 1.30
ISO100, 1/800s, f/4.0 at 60.00mm (aperture priority (semi-auto))

The picture shows the benefits of shooting on a bright summer day. It is quite accidental in that I was just shooting the flower when the flying thingy decided to pay a visit to the flower, and the shutter speed was fast enough to capture the thingy because of the ample sunlight.

Ladybird
Another bug I photographed the same day was this Ladybird. Both photographs were shot without any planning, I just happened to have a camera with me and shot what I saw.

Shot with PENTAX K10D, processed using K10D Ver 1.30
ISO400, 1/50s, f/2.8 at 60.00mm (aperture priority (semi-auto))

Despite the chilling weather, I visited our family cottage this evening. The rainy weather, blooming tulips and the rusty bike forced me to dig my K10D from the camera bag. I mostly experimented with the out-of-focus rendering of my Sigma 24-60/2.8. Here’s what I caught on my sensor tonight.

The glow of the fire

Apple tree in flower

Shot with PENTAX K10D, processed using K10D Ver 1.30
ISO200, 1/160s, f/7.1 at 155.00mm (aperture priority (semi-auto))

Kaikessa muuttoon liittyvässä hässäkässä valokuvaus ja kuvankäsittely ovat olleet pitkään täysin laiminlyötyinä. Useasti eri tilanteissa on tullut mieleen: “Olisipa nyt kamera mukana”. Jos kamera on ollut mukana, niin on muka ollut liian kiire pysähtyä ottamaan kuvaa. Mitä hölmöilyä. 

Ikeasta tuli ostettua muutama 50×70cm kehys, joista yksi on menossa joululahjaksi. MInun piti siis kahlata läpi kaikki kuvani ja yrittää valikoida niistä omalle ja vieraalle seinälle sopivia. Alle vuoden kuvailullakin valtava urakka, joka söi yöunia aika reippaalla kädellä. Tuloksena oli 167 kuvan joukko, josta ruveta karsimaan edelleen. Kyllä sieltä ehkä joku löytyy, jonka kelpuuttaisin omalle seinälle. Harvempi, jota kehtaa vieraalle (tai edes omalle veljelle) tuputtaa.

Silmiin pisti tämä kuva, joka on sellaisenaankin erittäin lähellä nykyään melko yleistä valikoivan saturoinnin tyyliä. Yleisesti käytetty nimitys “Valikoiva desaturaatio” (selective desaturation) on huono nimitys, jos suuri osa kuvaa on desaturoitu ja joku yksityiskohta on väreillä. Nimitän tätä mielessäni “Ikea-desaturoinniksi”, koska Ikeassa myydään isoja sisustustauluja, joissa tekniikkaa on käytetty. Päätin siis kokeilla uuden (minulle, LR2 on ollut saatavilla jo pitkän tovin) Lightroomin maskaus-toimintoja ja koska mistään valokuvaukseen liittyvästä näpertämisestä on jo pitkä aika, niin päätin kirjoittaa siitä myös blogipostin.

Aluksi vedin raakasti kuvan yli isolla harjalla jossa Flow oli 100 ja auto-mask poissa päältä. Sitten kumitin sen oranssin muovipussin osalta (joka tosiaan on tuon värinen alunperinkin) ja tein sille oman maskin, jolla terävoitin sitä hieman enemmän kuin muuta osaa.

En tiedä miksi, mutta en halua laittaa raakakuvia näytille kuvista, joita olen käsitellyt. Pelkoa siitä, että joku tuomitsee käsittelyn vain huonontaneen kuvaa? Kuka tietää. No, näillä näkymin tämän blogin kuvia tulee arvioida itsenäisinä olioina. Omasta mielestäni tulos ei ole yhtään hullumpi, koska tekniikan käyttö tukee aihetta. Jos nyt johonkin olisi voinut panostaa, niin mustavalkokäännökseen.

Bird tower in Porvoo

Yesterday’s trip took us to photograph the fall nature in Porvoo. We visited two of Porvoo’s bird towers (that were empty of bird spotters at this time of the year), and managed to only catch a few distant crows and ducks on the sensor. On our way to another bird tower, we spotted a family of mute swans, of which we didn’t get any great photographs, either.

Still, the whole trip resulted in some quite good pictures of the dying fall nature. Something in the subject of dying nature emphasises my tendency of making contrasty, dark and brooding pictures. Let’s just hope someone finds my handling of the theme fitting.

All in all we saw:

• A couple of bird towers
• Castle hill with it’s motes
• Crows, ducks and swans
• Reeds, swamp and forest
• A spreading bellflower

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Shot with , processed using

I ran into this picture while going through the image database I had accumulated in about a year of shooting. The photograph gave me conflicting feelings, because out of the camera, it was not much of a photograph, but I felt there was something inside the picture that wanted out. Something cold, dark, violent. When I accepted that the image would not end up as a pretty landscape picture, the picture took it’s final form in a very short time.

Shot with , processed using

After a thorough cleaning, I decided to take a little stab at shooting interior decoration. The photograph is from our bedroom and I used the bedside table lamps to create a warm atmosphere. The ambient interior lighting was combined with the sunny autumn scene outside. I shot two exposures on a tripod, for the interior lighting 0.4 seconds at f/9.0 andr for the outside lighting 1/40 seconds at f/9.0. I didn’t want an artificial HDR look, and didn’t want to stitch the exposures manually in Photoshop either, so I tried (for the first time) the enfuse tool which is part of the PanoTools package.

For a quick test, I have to say, the output is very much to my liking. The only serious flaw in the image is the two narrow field of view, shot at 18mm using the Tamron 18-250/3.5-6.3. A sigma 10-20/4-5.6 or Pentax 12-24/4 would have served a lot better.