…encroaches.
Autumn
Blog
Pelican Lake, September 14, 2024
There are worse places to spend 3½ hours on a Saturday afternoon.
I was there as part of the Kinsmen Club of Brandon’s Ride for the Breath of Life, a motorcycle poker-derby–style ride fundraiser for cystic fibrosis research.
Writing Retreat 2024: The End
I went for a bike ride today, and got a couple of panoramas: one of the hillside to the north (above) and an interesting tree along the trail (below).
Then I cleaned up the cabin, packed, and headed home.
So how’d I do?
I deliberately didn’t set myself any goals this year. I took my bike, my laptop, my cameras, and a bunch of books; this, I decided, would be a vacation vacation, not—as it’s kind of turned into over the years—a working vacation.
I read Rules for a Knight by Ethan Hawke, a book I didn’t know existed until Corey Redekop posted about finding it at a used book store; I read Annihilator by Grant Morrison and Frazer Irving; and I read about ⅔ of Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard[1]And once this is posted, I’m probably going read some more.. I wrote about 3000 new words, I think, in my “derelict starship” story. Since the cabin owner have Disney+, I watched a season of The Mandalorian. I took a lot of photos.
It occurred to me, earlier today, that this “writing” retreat was really about 65% photography by weight, and I’m OK with that. Should I call it a “photography retreat”? An “art retreat”? Maybe, but I’m not going to. I’m the one writing these posts, after all, and I’ll title them as I see fit.
Good night, and good luck.
Footnotes
| ↑1 | And once this is posted, I’m probably going read some more. |
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Writing Retreat 2024: 7
Last night I was settled in, ready to just watch a bit of TV and then go to bed, when my darling wife texted me:
If the skies are as clear there as they are here, you need to go outside.
So I stepped out onto the patio and yes, yes it was pretty clear here. I gathered up my cameras and tripods and hit the road.
I set up on a gravel road not too far from town—if I want to, I could probably bike there—and snapped a few sets of Milky Way photos. With the 11–16mm lens, I was shooting ten-minute batches of 30 second frames, 11mm, f/2.8, with the ISO changing each ten minutes: 400, 800, and 1600. I wanted to see what I could get from the different ISO settings.
Unfortunately the dew crept onto my lens—or, more precisely, the UV filter I have screwed on over the lens. If I was smart, I’d have removed the filter and re-done my shooting; I think now it was the filter holding in a bit of heat that caused my dew problems.[1]Apparently the simple hack for dew is to wrap a couple hand warmers around the lens; you can hold them in place with tape or a beer cozy. Filed away for later experimentation.
I managed to get two stacks from the ISO 1600 run, and they look pretty good, I think. One is 8 images deep, and the other is 10.
I also got a stack of 18 images from the ISO 400 run, and… Well, you can judge for yourself, but I think ISO 1600 is the sweet spot between “detail” and “noise” (at least for me). Maybe ISO 800 would work, if I can keep the lens from misting over…
Footnotes
| ↑1 | Apparently the simple hack for dew is to wrap a couple hand warmers around the lens; you can hold them in place with tape or a beer cozy. Filed away for later experimentation. |
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Writing Retreat 2024: 6
Another day, another bike ride. This was about 16km, and started at the coffee shop, where I noticed I was that weirdo who wears a Slaughterhouse-Five T‑shirt but reads Bluebeard.[1]A Vonnegut book is a Vonnegut book, though.
Then I noodled around town for a bit, and out into the countryside, where I took photos of a tree…
…and some hydro lines.
Then back into town, where I saw—
Look, I know some of you can’t wait for Pumpkin Spice Cable-Knit Sweater time, but I’m not ready to let go of summer yet. So this little cluster of yellow leaves felt particularly cruel, at least to me.
Ah well. So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut[2]Full circle. would say.
Writing Retreat (5b — Aurora Borealis)
Writing Retreat (5a — Milky Way)
There was quite the aurora show last night, and I’m going through my photos from that, but first I decided to process the 24 shots I took of the Milky Way. Two hours’ processing gets you the above photo.
The Process
I took some notes as I processed the images, because I want to do more of this and get better at it. The image, as eye-catching as it is, is pretty noisy, and I’m pretty sure there are better ways to do some of the things I did. But, for the nerd crowd (I know you’re out there, I can hear you breathing), here’s how I made this particular image:
- snapped 24[1]One frame was wonky, so the final stack is 23 images deep. photos (aka “light frames”), 15 seconds, 24mm, f/2.8, ISO 3200
- snapped 3 dark frames, ie, left the settings the same and put the lens cap on
- did dark frame subtraction on every frame (opened each light frame and a dark frame in Gnu IMP as layers, dark frame on top, and set the Layer Mode to “Subtract”)[2]This gets rid of the camera’s “hot pixels”—the first time I tried stacking the images, I got smeary blue and red lines from the hot pixels.
- align images with
align_image_stack -a aligned_ *.JPG[3]Part of Hugin. - convert aligned images to JPG using
mogrify -format jpg *.tif[4]part of Image Magick. (mostly so I don’t overload my poor laptop) - open aligned images as layers in Gnu IMP
- set each layer mode as “Dodge”
- exported the whole shebang as a JPG
- re-opened the exported JPG
- Used Gnu IMP’s Filter → Enhance → Noise Reduction and cranked that baby up to 11 [5]16, actually.
- profit
Things to try next time:
- shoot RAW
- try a lower ISO value
Writing Retreat 2024 (4)
Yesterday’s big thing was a 20-km bike ride. I took my camera along and snapped a couple photos; the bison up above and the signposts below, which reminded me of the Watson Lake signposts we saw on our trip, decades ago, to Yukon.
I also finished reading “The Metamorphosis”, and it was, well, Kafkaesque[1]As you’d expect..
Today’s plan: writing some sections of one of my stories; reading some Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (I’m about 5 chapters in and he’s got some interesting things to say about art; I also wonder if Michael Swanwick lifted a few names[2]Like “Mintouchian” and “Gregorian”. from the book for characters in his novel Stations of the Tide), and probably another bike ride, since the weather seems similar to yesterday. I need to inflate my bike’s rear tire, though, before I go.
And if it’s clear tonight, as the forecast suggests it should be, I think I’ll gather up my cameras and tripods and go find a big, open sky with a Milky Way or other nighttime delights.
Writing Retreat 2024 (3)
It was clear last night, so off I went to Riding Mountain to get some Milky Way photos. I shot a couple of panoramas, one just off the highway on the golf course / Wishing Well turnoff, the other at Spruces (thanks again, Tim!).
As I was leaving, thin clouds had started to roll in, and the moon—still half-full—was rising in the east.
Writing Retreat 2024 (2)
This morning, I went out to Squirrel Hills—about 10 minutes’ drive from the cabin; I could probably bike it—to watch a friend start off in a 40km race. After he was off, I took a few photos, since I’d never been to the Squirrel Hills before. It seems like a nice little place.
This evening, after supper, I pulled my weird little Lensbaby lens out of its bag and snapped a few photos in the last hour or so of daylight.
In between, I worked on the outline of the story I’m working on this week, cleaning it up and refreshing my memory on the large-scale structure I’m hoping for. I think I even have an ending for it now, which is nice[1]The ending isn’t necessarily nice, but it’s nice to have an ending, a target I can aim at..
And now, since the sky is clear and the forecast doesn’t look promising for the rest of the week, I’m about to stay up late and try for some Milky Way photos. Don’t wait up!
Footnotes
| ↑1 | The ending isn’t necessarily nice, but it’s nice to have an ending, a target I can aim at. |
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