Last night I had the great pleasure of talking at the Grandfather Mountain Nature Photography Weekend near Blowing Rock, NC.  What an engaging group of folks we had.  It was really fun to show a few of my images and talk about the process to capture them and even a little bit about processing.  We covered all the basics including:

  1. Digital Cameras and Sensor TechnologyDSC_0618-Edit
  2. Noise and ISO
  3. Lenses
  4. Rule of 500
  5. Tripod
  6. Cable Release
  7. Focusing in the Dark
  8. White Balance
  9. Framing and Composition
  10. Light Pollution
  11. Planning and the Weather
  12. Initial Settings
  13. Post Processing
  14. Luminosity Masks
  15. Star Trails

Looking back through this list it’s really amazing we were able to cover so much in so short a time and based on the questions and feedback that I received I’ve linked to more resources above for folks to learn more.

I was thrilled to be able to show Michael Shainblum‘s Into the Atmosphere Timelapse which is so inspiring and was extremely well received.  Thank you Michael for that.  Here it is again if you want to watch it again and again.  I know I do. 🙂

I got several questions from folks about the Rule of 500. This is the number of seconds for each focal length that you can safely leave the shutter open for before getting excessive star trails.
Screen Shot 2015-05-31 at 7.16.54 AM

Speaking of Star Trails they always get a lot of ooohs and ahhhhs and here is the final image from last night.  A star trail display over the water.  Thanks again to all who attended and if you want to learn more in person come join us at http://mountainstoseaworkshops.com.  As always shoot me a note and let know if I can help you with anything.

astrophotography