Sunset at Mupe Bay

Last night I decided to do the opposite of what I've been doing previously and instead of going to a location before dawn I would go after sunset.
The weather reports looked like clear skies, albeit with a bit of cloud.
This time I decided to revisit Mupe Bay as the firing ranges would be open and I decided it'd likely be sufficiently shrouded from local light pollution.

In preparation for the trip I did buy some hand-warmers and a torch and found I only needed the torch really, you work up quite a heat whilst hiking over those cliffs when approaching Mupe Bay and I left before the temperature really dropped for the night. The only downside to the evening was it was quite a bit cloudier than I would've hoped.

I got some nice shots early on but eventually left, not due to cold or wind as I thought would be the cause, but simply because the stars ended up covered by cloud. That said I now know what's involved in the trip and am much more confident for planning many more trips in the weeks to come. (firing range open times permitting of course)

That's not a sunset sadly, that's light pollution from Swanage which is about 12 miles away

I caught this by accident, I didn't notice it until I reviewed the photo that initially caught it, then I quickly adjusted my settings so I could grab it's full trajectory until it went out of sight.
It is not a shooting star, though i would love it to be, I'm also certain it's not a plane as I'm sure it wiggled from side to side a bit when observing it by eye. My best guess is that it was one of those floating lanterns you can buy.

For this one I just wanted to get a shot with many stars in to make sure I was understanding the rule of 600 better.
Previously I was calculating based on the focal range of the lens rather than the effective focal range that the cameras sensor gives you.(D90's aren't full frame cameras after all)

I also had my first experiment in time-lapsing some photographs together.

It's only a few frames and just over a second but I think I can see enough to know I've got the hang of it. When on location it's hard to commit to a timelapse because it takes sooooo much time that you're eagerly wanting to spend photographing other things.

Photograph of the week #057

"When not scribbling away in a sketch book or dabbling on a Wacom tablet i'm invariably fiddling around with exposure settings on my Nikon D90 trying to capture moments in aesthetically pleasing ways.
So here we have "Photograph of the week" a (mostly) weekly feature showcasing my favourite photo of the week."

I took the new wide angle lens out round Holes Bay to play a bit.

Photograph of the week #056

"When not scribbling away in a sketch book or dabbling on a Wacom tablet i'm invariably fiddling around with exposure settings on my Nikon D90 trying to capture moments in aesthetically pleasing ways.
So here we have "Photograph of the week" a (mostly) weekly feature showcasing my favourite photo of the week."


After my dawn run to Kimmeridge I managed to get some shots from the local area in frosty conditions. Driving through the Lulworth firing ranges I noticed some ruined tanks on the range and grabbed a shot from the road side.

Dawn at Kimmeridge 02

Another Dawn trip down to the Bay. This time with my new wide angle lens.

Things did not go quite to plan however. According to the met office this morning would be the last day of decentish weather for the next week and the firing ranges were opened for the Easter holidays which should've given me the opportunity to explore a litte further along the coast to get some slightly different shots. However I failed to check the tide times so halfway through the morning it became clear (on reviewing the photos i'd taken so far) that  the rockpools I was intending to shoot were fairly quickly disapearing and, if i wanted any guarantee of making it back to my car without getting my feet wet before I go to work, i'd best leave immediately.

For my first test run with a new lens I'm quite happy. I got a suprising amount of stars and am hoping to do the same again soon. It's slightly disapointing that my exposures were just a little too long to avoid minor star-trailing but I've done my research now and should be able to avoid it in future.
There's also a disapointingly large volume of noise in the images which i'm currently researching how to compensate for.

I haven't yet worked out what colour temperature to apply to the images so you'll likely notice some slightly different colour tints.
All of these photos are taken at night, nothing but the full moon for illumination.

The next few photos were taken whilst I explored the purbecks after leaving the bay

Dawn at Kimmeridge

For the past couple of weeks the weather in the UK has been particularly good. I couldn't help but take advantage of this and after doing a test run one weekend I worked out I could get to some pretty good photographic locations at dawn, set up, take some shots, pack up again and still make it on time for work.

This has meant I've ended up spending most mornings over the past few days sat on a rock at Kimmeridge Bay, watching the sunrise behind Clavell Tower in the Isle of Purbecks and... once every few minutes, adjusting my camera settings.

It's been great to see this part of the country at this time fo the day. I'm not really even sure what inspired me to start making the trips but i'm very glad for doing it and, weather permitting and whether the MOD allow acces to the firing ranges I will continue to do so.