This is an article written by Amanda Smith, professional photographer in Wyoming. The article is about photographing night skies in Wyoming, using your bulb setting, or using a longer exposure on your camera.

Here is a fabulous image of a Thunder Boomer over Wyoming that I captured just after dusk a week or so ago during a thunderstorm.  We discussed “discussing” this in my previous post, yesterday.  So here we go!

The beauty of this image, is that the skies were fairly clear, except for one lone and very large thunder boomer in the distant Wyoming sky.

Thunder Boomer and Stars over a Wyoming Sky.

Photographer Amanda Smith of Wyoming ©

I originally set out to capture the stars, which were in abundance already, even at dusk.  When I saw this boomer in the distance, and the lightning show that was happening within it, I quickly went from shooting stars, to shooting clouds.

I set my Nikon camera setting to a 20 second exposure, set my 70-200mm zoom lens f2.8 and an ISO of 200, and loaded her up onto a steady and sturdy tripod.   Making sure that there wasn’t even a hint of wind, I was ready to shoot.  (You don’t want windy situations when taking long exposure shots, the clouds move enough that the long exposure will capture the movement, and the wind will actually cause some shake in the camera.)

Lightning was striking within this huge cloud about five to ten seconds, its was surreal to say the least, so in knowing this was happening every five to ten seconds, and there was no wind (so not much of a chance of much cloud movement) I set my exposure to 20 seconds.  BAM! two lighting shows later, I had a beautiful shot of the stillness of this majestic and powerful cloud.  To my delight, above and around the clouds, in the deep blue dusk colored sky, were a plethora of stars, that at such an early time, and only a 20 second exposure, looked pretty close to “still” for this photograph.

It has won National attention already, happily touting my name Amanda Smith as the photographer, and it went viral when I posted it on my facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/AmandaSmithPhotographs

I couldn’t be happier with a night sky image, as I am with this one, and I encourage each of you to “keep your eye on the skies” and right around dusk, get ready to take some breathtaking shots.

Play around a bit with you exposure length of time, especially if there is any wind at all.  Stay as close to f2.8 as you can (depending on the fastness of your lens) and use a tripod.  Use a zoom lens no less than up to 200mm if you really want something fantastic, a shorter distance lens just might not give you the pizazz you are looking for in most cases like this scenario.

Have fun shooting and please feel free to email me if you have any questions on your next photo venture!  Be sure and check out my website for new photos uploaded weekly at: www.amandasmithphotography.com

and if you haven’t already, and if you feel so inclined, please feel free to visit my Facebook page and give me a LIKE.    https://www.facebook.com/AmandaSmithPhotographs.

Happy shooting!

Amanda Smith

Professional Photographer, Wyoming

Professional Photography Instructor

info@amandasmithphotography.com

Shooting for Christ, Focusing on God.

Photographing Wyoming’s Blue Moon, last night, August 20, 2013.

By Photographer Amanda Smith, Editor of The Glenrock Bird newspaper, Owner of Amanda Smith Photography (formerly Shooting Stars Photography.)

I have to say that photographing this “Blue Moon” was a little more difficult than I thought it would be, last night.

This was not your ordinary bulb setting or long exposure situation. Those ways simply won’t work with the moon.

I started out by setting my Nikon D700 on my tripod, and attached an f2.8 200 zoom.   I then set my camera up on a tripod at around 10pm when the blue moon was extremely bright, realizing quickly that it was too bright to photograph on a bulb setting, a well known way to shoot night skies.

I initially set my camera at f8 with the lowest ISO setting my Nikon camera would allow and set the timing of my light at 1/80 of a second.  This actually allowed too much light in because of the brightness of the blue moon, although the exposure was for correct exposure for the clouds, this exceptionally bright moon was completely blown out. In other words, the clouds and sky looked amazing, but the moon was completely blown out, there was no sharpness to the moon, at all.

I changed my settings to f22 for a sharper image, hoping to capture the unique markings of the moon, and set my timing of light to 1/160 of a second, and the moon looked great and the clouds, though a bit darker, were certainly still illuminated well enough (by the blue moon) for an excellent and very clear shot.

Amanda Smith Photography Wyoming. Blue Moon on August 20, 2013

Photographing the moon can be difficult, and sometimes people forget that exposure is perfection. If you want to see the “man in the moon” you’ve got to get your exposure dead on, and never settle for a moon so bright, that you can’t see the green cheese.  

Have an awesome and very blessed day, folks! We’ll see you tomorrow!

God Bless!

Amanda Smith

Professional Photographer and Western Photographic Artist, Wyoming

www.amandasmithphotography.com

Shooting for Christ, Focusing on God (©)

P.s.

While we are talking about night shots, check out this little morsel I created lat week using a bulb setting.  More on this shot below, tomorrow!

Jimmy Smith of Arizona painted this still image, photographed by professional photographer Amanda Smith of Wyoming. It is absolutely beautiful.  See the link below:

http://www.imagekind.com/Amandas-Saddle-art?IMID=ca1a1bbc-d9c6-44b3-82b4-386bb3891a3fJimmy has been painting a multitude of western art in oils and acrylics and his work is absolutely stunning.  Currently wrongfully imprisoned, he makes it through his days by creating these master pieces, and uses the money he makes from his sales, to assist him in his fight for freedom.  I encourage everyone to check out the above link.  His work is truly unique, amazing and will take your breath away, and so will his story.  The link above will show the beautiful rendition of an award winning piece that I created, and the artwork below is of Robert Duval as his character in Lonesome Dove. It is one of the first paintings Jimmy created.

I hope you’ll go to Jimmy’s bio and read up on his story about his fight for freedom, and the judicial system in Arizona and how he believes that he was wrongfully imprisoned.  Its a story worth reading, and its a story worth praying about.

Amanda Smith

Professional Photographer and Western Photographic Artist

Wyoming.