FenlandPaul

Lovely little thing! Yes, I’d say definitely a Perseid with that gorgeous green hue.

Hope you’ve recovered from sifting through all those frames!!

1 hour ago, jjohnson3803 said:

One thing I've wondered about on various outdoor vids - when you do a drone shot of paddling or hiking or whatever, are you controlling the drone while you paddle or do you have a helper?  Seems like it would be difficult to paddle and use joysticks at the same time, but I have no knowledge of drones.

 

Well all I can do is tell you what I do! I don’t have a helper, alas (although I’m hoping to rope my wife into some of these trips soon!). So I launch the drone from the kayak, get it in position and then leave it flying while I paddle into / out of the shot. Catching the drone while on the water is another matter - it turns out drifting along the water with the current, and trying to land the drone is quite difficult, so I had to wedge myself in some reeds to keep the boat as still as possible.

For some of the shots of the car etc, there are amazing automations in modern drones that will recognise a person / vehicle etc and lock on to it, and then carry out some pre-programmed flight routines. They’re amazing bits of kit that give really useful footage with relative ease for a complete novice like me!!

3 hours ago, saac said:

Paul I've often thought that what comes across very strongly in your work is that you clearly have a great affinity for the fenlands. You have a real skill in showing the natural beauty of an often overlooked area. Your love for the fens really shines out and this is another outstanding piece of work. 

Jim 

Thank you, Jim, that’s very kind of you to say. I have found charm in the Fens during the nearly 18 years that we’ve been here. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy getting out to the mountains or coast as well - you have to work quite hard to find appealing subject matter in the Fens!!

Paul

4 hours ago, Scooot said:

That’s a lovely video, thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you.

Thank you - glad you enjoyed it!

Very nice indeed, Paul. Very naturally done. 👍

I do like those converging and then diverging trails you get facing south - nice stuff. 👍

9 minutes ago, davew said:

My goodness ! A video that needs to be watched at least twice. Once for the beauty of the night and the ASMR feel and another to be blown away by how much time and effort went into it.

Just wow !

Dave.

Thank you, Dave - that’s really kind of you. It was a lot of fun to make. Thanks for the support. 😊

One of the things I love most about being out in the landscape under the stars is the sense of solitude. It's a time in which life's only demands are those I choose to create; the rest of the world and its problems are a million miles away.

When night falls, here in the Fens the air becomes heavy with dew.  Gathering mists betray the shallowest of depressions in the fields. The honks of the ubiquitous geese, the excited whinny of little grebes, the shriek of muntjacs, the bark of foxes, the clumsy shuffling of a badger, all provide a reminder that under the enveloping darkness, the Fens teems with life.  Added to the starry dome above my head, the whole experience is visceral and I find myself at my most alive.

A couple of weeks ago, when much of the rest of the country was watching the football final, I felt I needed to get away from it all. There's a tranquil spot on the banks of the River Great Ouse that's only really accessible from the water - at night, I could be truly alone and just enjoy the company of the wildlife, the cool air off the river and the couple of hours of that deep, inky twilight we get at this time of year.  So I loaded up the kayak with my camera gear and took the 15 minute paddle down to my little spot, without much of a plan other than to enjoy the night.

Arriving as dusk deepened, I collected some firewood from the branches that had washed up during the lengthy floods we had earlier this year, and set a small campfire.  A small and short-lived noctilucent cloud display was a treat as the twilight dimmed and the moon set, and then I decided to simply capture the essence of the night in a single image.

Not long after starting the tracked shots for the sky, a thick dewy mist started to roll in, saturating everything (and making it very hard to keep the bulbous front element of the 14mm lens clear) and cutting short the evening.  So I packed up the kayak, extinguished the fire and headed back out onto the water.  The mist made my headtorch blinding, so I switched it off and enjoyed a gloriously peaceful paddle through the night back to the car - a perfect end to an evening that replenished me.

You can watch a film I made of the evening over on my Nightscape Journals channel, linked below. Hope you enjoy the image - by no means a competition winner, but one that takes me back to a very special time. 😊

✨SOLITUDE✨

📷 Canon 6D (astro-modified), Samyang 14mm f/2.8 lens and MoveShootMove Nomad tracker

🔧 Foreground: 1x 5s exposure at ISO3200 and f/4. Sky: 17x 60s tracked exposures at ISO800 and f/2.8 

🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Blended and edited in PhotoShop

That’s a beautiful display, Callum. A couple of super bright displays at the back end of this season!

8 hours ago, scotty1 said:

Very atmospheric , mist and NLCs is a good combo. 

Those lights at 1.30 are they a laser ? 

Thanks @scotty1. The green light is actually a drone (my brother mucking about with his).

And if you don't want to watch the whole film, here's a highlight reel of the timelapses from the night (might need a click to start the video!). 🎥
 

🎥 NEEDS A CLICK TO START THE VIDEO!! 🎥

Compilation of timelapses from the night of 8/9 July from Ruthven Barracks in the Scottish Highlands.  All shot with Canon 6Ds at various focal lengths, generally with 0.5s exposures and 2s intervals. 😊

NLCs above Ruthven Barracks in the Scottish Highlands, on 8/9 July 2024. You can read the full story here.

📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 135mm f/2 lens

🔧 Sky: 1x 0.5s exposure at ISO800 and f/2.8  Foreground: 1x 5s exposure at ISO800 and f/4

🎞️ Edited and blended in Photoshop

A couple of weeks ago I visited my brother up in middle of the Cairngorms in Scotland for a week of scenery-change, walking and, I hoped, some clear skies and noctilucent clouds.  12 months earlier I'd been thwarted in the same part of the world when we took home nothing but "normal" cloud timelapses, and so far this season I'd drawn a complete blank.  So my hopes were high (even though my expectations were low!).

The night of 8/9 July was set to be clear after about 10pm, which was promising as in the Highlands it doesn't get even slightly dark until after 11 at this time of year.  Our selected location was Ruthven Barracks, an impressive castle-like structure built atop a motte on the instruction of George I after the Jacobite uprising in 1715.  Today, the barracks is a shell of a building but nonetheless imposing perched above the River Spey near the village of Kingussie.  

As we arrived, I noticed mist starting to roll around in the valley, and soon the first hints of noctilucent clouds began to become visible in north north east, eventually spreading across to the north west.  The display became very bright, although it never reached the altitude of some of the displays I've seen down south.  But this was the first all-night display I've encountered, with no let-up all the way through until we called it a night around 2pm, as the sky was getting visibly lighter.

I made a Nightscape Journal film of the evening, linked below, which contains some of the timelapses of the evening and I've included below two of my favourite images from the night.  Hope you enjoy! 😊

📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 135mm f/2 lens

🔧 Sky: 1x 0.5s exposure at ISO800 and f/2.8  Foreground: 1x 5s exposure at ISO800 and f/4

🎞️ Edited and blended in Photoshop

📷 Canon 6D with Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 lens

🔧 1x 0.5s exposure at ISO800 and f/2.8  

🎞️ Edited in Photoshop

Very sad indeed. His maps were things of beauty.

Ooooh, lots of lovely detail in that, Lee. What a difference tracking makes! I definitely think you’d be able to push it all to 3 minutes when darkness returns. Nicely done.

Nicely done, Lee! Great to get that aurora as well - bonus. Obviously we’ve all been spoiled now though! 🤣

Awesome - beautifully done, Lee. Glad you managed to capture it. 🙌

Simple and beautiful - great capture of a huge display. 👍

Wow, thank you so much - what a lovely surprise. I like to think that this is just a proxy for all of the aurora images from everyone - it was so exciting to see so many bucket-list shots from people on that special night. 

Congratulations to @Gerr and @emyliano2000 too - two nightscape imagers that I really look up to and inspire me. 😊

39 minutes ago, AstroNebulee said:

Thus was one of your best journals Paul just for the comedy element 😂. 

There is something so special about hearing the sea and waves at night, so much peace and grounding. 

I continue to learn so much from you, lots I try to put into practice if I can or if I remember at the time. 

Just so many amazing images created on this night. Thank you, a real sense of joy I have watching your journals. 

I've just received my new manfrotto 190go alloy tripod from mpb.com for a good price, not the carbon fibre (maybe in the future) and a star adventurer photo pack as I've always regretted selling my star adventurer a few years ago. 

I look forward to your next adventure and lessons in Widefield astrophotography. 

Clear skies 

 

Lee 

Thanks so much, Lee - I really appreciate that.  Glad you enjoyed it.  Completely agree about the sound of the waves and the stars above your head - can't beat it.

The Manfrotto and StarAdventurer combo should be excellent - hope you enjoy using it.  The only downside of the SA in my opinion is its considerable weight - I could do with losing a few kg from my pack (and myself, to be honest! 🤣) but on a windy night in the field, nothing beats it.

50 minutes ago, clarkpm4242 said:

It's interesting to see how the different ratios/image crops work so well!

Really enjoyed the virtual trip out @FenlandPaul Covid finally found me after 4 years, has been a torrid week.

Thank you,  Paul.

Thanks, Paul - had a bit of a play with different crops (although I've decided the Portrait-XL doesn't really work on a landscape monitor - more for the iphone generation!).

Hope you're on the mend and sorry it's been a rough week.

Nearly a couple of weeks before the Summer Solstice, I headed out to the Norfolk coast to Happisburgh, home of one of Britain's most beautiful lighthouses.  I'd shot the lighthouse a couple of years ago so this time I was headed to the beach, where I hoped dilapidated wooden sea defences and a curious sculpture known as the Time and Tide Bell would make interesting foregrounds.  With such little darkness at this time of year, I was able to arrive early, get a good look around and simply enjoy the evening, although the temperature had dipped to around 6C by the time I packed up and went home.

I'd planned the night around tide times, so the tide was starting to go out as I arrived and that hopefully, by around 1am, each of my foreground targets would be well positioned and accessible.  I hadn't quite banked on the shifting shingle creating a lagoon around the Tide Bell, however, so to get the composition I wanted ultimately required a paddle - nothing like the bracing North Sea to wake you up before the two hour drive home!  I'd hoped to catch some noctilucent clouds over the evening but sadly nothing showed up, although I was visited by a nice tight chain of Starlink satellites at one point, which cruised down the Milky Way nicely.

What was particularly lovely about the night - and a first for me - was as I returned to the car I bumped into another photographer who watched by YouTube channel and had been out having a go at shooting the Milky Way over the lighthouse - so encouraging to see his results and it was awesome to hear about someone giving it all a go. Although I rather suspect as I was no longer wearing trousers at that point, he may have subsequently unsubscribed!

As usual, I made a film about the night, which you can find linked at the bottom - one to sit with a coffee and enjoy.

Grateful for any observations, comments and tips as ever.  Thanks, Paul.  😊

✨TIDAL WAY✨

📷 Canon 6D (astro-modded) with Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 lens and SkyWatcher StarAdventurer tracker
🔧 Foreground: 1x 2.5s exposure at f/5.6 and ISO800 in blue hour. Sky: 11x 120s tracked exposures at f/3.5 and ISO800.
🎞️ Sky stacked in Sequator. Edited and blended in PhotoShop and Starnet++

✨TIDE BELL ON A SUMMER NIGHT✨

📷 Canon 6D (astro-modified) with Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 lens and Skywatcher StarAdventurer tracker
🔧 Sky: 10x 80s tracked exposures at f/4 and ISO 800.  Foreground: 1x30s exposure at ISO6400 and f/5.6
🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Edited and blended in Photoshop

✨BEACH VIEW✨

📷Canon 6D (astro-modified) with Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 lens

🔧 14x 13s exposures at f/4 and ISO6400

🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Edited in Photoshop

✨TIDE BELL VERTORAMA✨

📷 Canon 6D with Samyang 14mm f/2.8

🔧 Sky: 30x 20s exposures at f/4 and ISO3200.  Foreground: 1x 30s exposure at f/4 and ISO2500

🎞️ Stacked in Sequator.  Edited and blended in Photoshop.

✨THE DEFENCE RESTS✨

📷 Canon 6D (astro-modified) with Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 lens and Skywatcher StarAdventurer tracker
🔧 Sky: 10x 80s tracked exposures at f/4 and ISO 800.  Foreground: 2x15s exposure at ISO1250 and f/10 (lightpainted)
🎞️ Stacked in Sequator. Edited and blended in Photoshop

Very nice. Looks like a decent display! 

Really beautifully done. I absolutely love the Rho Ophiuchi region; getting the opportunity from further south to capture it is always a pleasure. These are awesome images. 👍