Category Archives: Gear notes

Venus – Jupiter convergence preview

Decided to try out my new telephoto setup last night on the planets. I was in a hurry, so I shot without tripod just to see what would happen. I saw in the camera preview that Venus was a semicircle, so I declared the test a success.

Once I loaded it into Lightroom, however, I realized that the Jovian moons were visible. I’ll give it another shot tonight with a tripod and better settings.

Venus, Jupiter, and Jovian moons. 7D Mk II, 1.4x Extender III, 100-400 IS II. 896mm, 1/60 sec, f/8.0, ISO 16000.

Lightning and Patience

One of my most popular photographs is the one you see above. (High resolution at the end of the article)

Back in August of 2013, I got a text message from a friend:

“Go look at the sky.”

I laughed, and walked out my front door. Absolutely clear skies.

“Um, what am I supposed to be seeing?”

“Look north.”

I took two steps off the front sidewalk and looked to my left.

There, spread across the sky in the distance was a rolling thunderstorm. I could not hear it, but lightning was flashing through the clouds every few seconds.

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