Camping 1: Stars

So, we went camping with the Rusho parents a few weekends ago, and there were ample opportunities for some really neat shots. Some of my favorites were these star pictures. I was really happy I brought my tripod along for this.

I typically don't spend a whole lot of time using a tripod, just because I prefer to be more flexible and dynamic while shooting, but once in a while there's no substitute for a good, stable foundation.

These shots were done with exposures between 15-30 seconds. What was really surprising to me is that even the 15 second exposure showed fairly obvious trailing when viewed close - which means the stars moved noticeably in that small amount of time. That's actually pretty cool to think about, because when you just lay there looking at them they seem to sit in place, but in reality we're spinning pretty fast down here and you can see it with those long shutter speeds. For some reason I just feel different when I remember that we're another little, shiny object cruising through space. Things seem so solid and consistent, but really our entire planet is moving at an obscene rate, around a sun that's also moving, in a galaxy that's moving on an even more monumental scale.

Anyways, enough with the random tangents. On to the details:

All of these were shot with my Pentax K20 and the FA35/2.0, which is a really killer setup for just about anything. The evening couldn't have been clearer, so all in all it was a really good time.

I've got lots of other pictures from this trip too - some hummingbirds, some shots in downtown Salida, and some abstract fire stuff. I'll get those up in the next few days hopefully.