"Slow music for fast times" - Highly Recommended

I have been a fan of Hearts of Space for a number of years, when you actually listened to the radio on a RADIO. For the past couple of years I have been a subscriber to the HOS streaming music option on their website which is linked in the title above. The music featured on the program is exactly as their tag-line indicates "slow music for fast times." The Hearts of Space programs provide a very inspirational soundtrack for me when I am at the computer working on images in Light Room and Photoshop. I don't know what I would do without it as each show is fresh and unique. The streaming option provides a depth of music that would be unachievable through a personal music library. The newest episode is of particular interest to photographers as it features selections from the soundtrack for Ansel Adams biography film. I highly recommend the Hearts of Space streaming option as it has provided me countless hours of beautiful music to enhance my digital darkroom experience. Take care and please check it out if you get a chance.

I love photography!

Winding down vacation and all I can say is that I waited way too long to get the camera out and go photographing. I did finally spend some time the last two days photographing at Brookgreen Gardens and in the morning surf at the beach. It has been far too long since I engaged in some landscape photography. Man did I have fun! Simply being in the moment, exploring beautiful Brookgreen Gardens and looking for compositions...it was marvelous. The thrill of the hunt, looking for that great moment of wonderful light and composition, and I think I may have found a couple of images to share with you. I can't wait to get home and work on some of the compositions in the digital darkroom. But even if I hadn't found a single composition, it was an amazing experience to simply be on the hunt again. Brookgreen is an amazing combination of gardens and sculpture. Being in the midst of wonderful fine art created even more momentum for my photographic pursuits.

I am trying to balance astrophotography and landscape photography and it may prove to be too challenging. But I am going to really take a stab at achieving the balance since I enjoy both so much and I believe the pursuit of one helps the artistic expression of the other. If it has been a while since you went out on the hunt for a great photograph, I encourage you to grab the camera and isolate yourself from the cares of the world and begin to look for those great moments of light and composition. I really hope to return to this area and explore Brookgreen more extensively. Stay tuned for images and more information and Happy Independence Day!!!

Recommended-Brooks Jensen Podcasts

On vacation in Myrtle Beach with golfing, beach, and photography. My photography location will be Brookgreen Gardens just south of Murrell's Inlet. I hope to visit there tomorrow. But I had a chance to catch up on my favorite podcast from Brooks Jensen and I wanted to invite you to visit his podcasts as well. Brooks provides valuable insight into photography today from all angles including technical advancements and artistic presentations. I always glean something of value from his podcasts and if you are a student of photography like me, I think you will, too. Please follow the link above for his website and links to his podcasts.

First light...sorta

Last night was my first night to setup the Mach1 and Tak FSQ 85 for an imaging run. The clear sky clock looked wonderful and the skies were pristine during the evening. I setup in the backyard since I was hoping to have two straight nights of imaging and wanted to work out the kinks in the new gear. Setup went very smoothly and the equipment worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, a persistent puffy partly cloudy sky never relinquished. So no images were taken, but the gear checked out nicely. I was able to do a lot; monitored the drives performance via the autoguider, perform calibration for autoguiding, refined technique for using the laptop for focus with and without an h-alpha filter in place in the camera, and tested all of the new USB cords and hubs in use. So it was a successful night and I am ready to tonight! Clear skies!

Horsehead: A refinement in processing

With some time to process, I have dug into the Horsehead and astronomical workflow to find the best approach. My main efforts are built around noise reduction and determining at what point to apply noise reduction software. The choices are to apply in RAW conversion in LR or to wait and use a PS plugin or 3rd party independent software. I have previously used Noise Ninja after the image is nearly complete, but was recently introduced to Noiseware. I am using the Pro version of Noiseware as a PS plugin. The main advantage to Noiseware is that I can use it in my normal workflow within PS and can use color profiles effectively. Noise Ninja did not work well with color profiles as an independent app. Noiseware has numerous controls, too numerous to mention here, for controlling how and where the noise reduction is to be applied. My thoughts are that it might be best to add some noise reduction in the RAW file in LR and then utilize Noiseware late in the processing stage. This particular image had no noise reduction applied in LR. I am going to rework the Horsehead image with that approach and will report back with results. One thing I love about astronomical photographs is that they are so difficult to work with that it makes landscape optimization so much easier. Take care and check out Noiseware if you get a chance on some really noisy images.

One other change in workflow with this image involved applying a flat field from the RAW camera files to the image in PS. This worked very well and is now a part of my workflow. I found no advantage to applying dark frames to the image. I believe dark frames are largely a waste with the Canon 450D and that simply increasing the amount of signal is the best way to maximize the signal to noise ratio.

Link to larger image.