Return to Porteau Cove

Back to Porteau Cove for more Astro-photography!

So a couple days ago, photography partner Josie Baik and I decided to go back to Porteau Cove in North Vancouver to star gaze and do some Astro-photography (And let me just say it was frikin awesome!). As some of you might know, I went to Porteau Cove just a couple of days before that but wasn't too happy with the shots I got because of the conditions (got cloudy real fast) and the fact that there were soo mannyyy people there as well. Hence we decided to try our luck and I'm glad to say it paid off.

We had a good time taking some shots and I also took the chance to capture some panoramas of the starry starry night sky. It was truly beautiful and something everyone should experience (though if you really can't make the trip then I hope that my photos allow you to imagine how beautiful it actually was)

So without further ado, here are the panoramas I took of the breathtaking night sky: 

Sadly the clouds did end up coming in 2 hours into our shoot (marking the end of our adventure)

Ooh we also attempted to do some light painting tho Josie wasn't really good at this as you can tell by the images.. LOL! But heck it was good fun :) 

And thats how you spell Josie

Apparently thats what a heart is supposed to look like 

I think this turned out quite decently loL

Here are some other shots I managed to capture while there, hope you like them :)

Here are some of my tips for Astro-Photography (tho I have to say first I am no pro in this area)

• Shoot in the right conditions: That means away from any light pollution/the city and a clear sky with no clouds nor moon. 
• Get like a really solid tripod (none of that cheap plastic stuff you get thrown in for free when you buy your camera kit)
• Use a shutter release cable/remote or use the timer function to minimise vibrations 
• Use a wide lens to get all that starry goodness in frame (this was all shot at 24mm)
• Open up that aperture (this was all shot at f/2.8)
• Use the 500 rule to calculate your shutter speed (take 500 divided by however wide your lens zoom is. So for me that was 500/24=20.833333333. So I was shooting 20sec exposures)
• Adjust your ISO to get your desired brightness 
• Oh and if you have a friend, bring one of those... cuz shooting stars by yourself is gonna get boring and its kinda sad (thank goodness Josie was there with me. Go check her site out: http://baiktobasics.com/blog/archive/)
• Be patient and keep shooting!

Keep Shooting and have fun!!