This past weekend I was in Tippecanoe, Indiana at Camp Tecumseh. I took advantage of the dark skies and brought along my camera.
Just like previous years, I was at a Peer Education retreat, and went out later at night for some shots away from the light pollution in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, this year it was extremely humid and I had to wipe the lens every 30 seconds, re-focus, and try to get a quick photo before condensation would creep in again. All of this on top of the heat which adds to the image noise.
Nevertheless, it was worth a try, and I got a much better photo than I can
achieve from my own back yard. I came away with ONE decent image out of the whole lot, but hey I can say I tried!
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| Milky Way from Camp Tecumseh, Indiana, single frame, Canon T5i at ISO 6400, 24mm, f/4, 13 seconds, heavily adjusted in Photoshop |
I had my
EyeFi memory card with me, and was able to Instagram the photo before I even got home! I transferred it from my camera to my iPhone, and edited it in Instagram - which actually wasn't too bad. EyeFi lets you transfer files over a short range WiFi connection that the card puts - no internet provider needed. It's not like you can surf the net on it though, haha, but you can get your photos to post them immediately. Note: RAW files don't transfer to switch to JPEG or do what I did and use the JPEG + RAW shooting to save both to the card at the same time.
Below is a comparison of the original file, my Photoshop edits, and the in-app edits in Instagram. I think Photoshop is still a lot better, but Instagram is definitely getting better especially for convenience of doing it all from a cabin in the woods.
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| Side by side comparison with original file from camera (ISO 6400, 24mm, f/4, 13 seconds) edited in Photoshop vs. in-app edits in Instagram transferred to phone with EyeFi. |
Here are a few more photos from the night. I was only out for 15 minutes or so. You can tell the humidity was just unbearable.
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| Cool lens flare, but not what I was going for... |
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| Big dipper and hazy humid parking lot |
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| Weird color balance aiming the camera straight up |
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| Larger version of the original photo |
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| I had this whole room to myself at the training retreat! |
