testmeat photoblog

last weekend i went on a camping weekend with friends on the south coast of england. we'd been to the same place exactly one year prior, and at that time i'd lamented not bringing a tripod when i saw how bright the stars were at night. so this time i thought i'd be prepared and brought all the gear i'd need, including a new wide angle lens which i would use for pretty much the first time. however as i started to set up i realised that there was an issue with the lens, it wouldn't focus to infinity, with the focus ring coming to a hard stop at only a few metres... quite a fundemental issue when you want to take pictures of stars which are many more metres further away. i had also brought my 35mm prime lens with me, which is very good in low light, but doesn't really show off the expanse of the night sky. so my solution to all this was to take a panoramic series of six photos with the 35mm, which i would then stitch together, and it turned out far, far better than i could have hoped. the stitching was really simple with so many stars to use as reference points, and the resolution was considerably higher compared to a single photo. plus the abscence of light pollution also meant that it only took a 13 second exposure for the stars to really pop out of the night sky, in a way i can't recall seeing in this country before. it certainly beats the night skies you get in the city.

here's the (stitched) original