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I guess Desoto Bend does this from time to time, but this is the first time I went on over. I wasn't there to fish though. I was there for star trails and hopefully some storms over the lake(didn't happen). Pretty much my whole family was over there by now, in different areas, doing different things. Bob Matzen, fellow chaser/photographer from Blair was over there as well. I saw him just before sunset on the sw side of the lake. We tried this spot on the west side of the lake. The above is a 1600 ISO shot(F/3.5 for 3 seconds) trying to capture the scene like it looked to the eye. It's pretty close. Omaha lights can be seen, as well as the wind blown motions on the water. It just looked pretty cool, with the lights from boats and fisherman along the shores, helping to light up the water.
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I suppose I'd better look at the settings on each of these before someone e-mails asking. All were at F3.5 and close to 10mm. The above was 400 ISO for 30 seconds. With digital, it seems silly to bother mentioning any of this...as it's so simple to just go play around and see how it works.
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800 ISO, 77 seconds. So much for trying this in that direction! First off, the sky was never real crisp to begin with. Also, the light here was much harsher than I was thinking it would be. I'd never thought about Missouri Valley Iowa being at the end of the shot, while looking ne up the lake. Take that away and have a drier, crisper night, and things would have probably been good. As it was, things weren't terrible. At least it wasn't cloudy, as it was just south of here and just north of here. |
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That would be Bob in his car heading home for the night. There was also a car coming towards the camera, or one drove by behind him, I'm not sure. Something made the headlight marks along the side of his car, and it obviously wasn't from him. This one is now looking northeast. You can see Missouri Valley Iowa lights in the center above the water. In a sense it added to some of the shots. 800 ISO, 78 seconds. The stars will look blurry if you go much beyond 90 seconds. Best to either really blur them with longer trails, or don't blur them at all.
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Car coming towards the camera. 100 ISO, 591 seconds(about 10 minutes).
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Now this is where I had planned to try to shoot from, right along the beach on the sw side. I guess I didn't want to walk there if I could find another spot along the west side. Well, after Bob left he called back and said it looked pretty cool from there right now, with all the boats and people fishing. So, pretty much done with where I was anyway, I headed for the beach. I drive around the bend, looking for a spot to park off the road if I could. Nothing looked wide enough for me to pull all the way off, so I kept driving around. There was a crazed raccoon walking around the road, not wanting to move for nothing. It registered as odd at the time. I kept going, and turned around since there were about 10 fishing poles on that side of the beach, with zero on the other half. I park in a pull off, about 1-2 blocks from my destination of the middle of the beach. I grab my camera, fold out chair, tripod, and big flashligh. I didn't care to be noticed so the flashlight was only for emergency use(whatever that would be). There's a bunch of vegitation on this beach, some of it about a foot tall. It's a no swimming area. I opt to use the grass and walk around the back. I'm half way there, stumbling in the darkness, waiting to smack right into something, when I remember the raccoon I just saw near here. Why I couldn't remember that before the walk started, or after it was over is beyond me. I was like, oh yeah, great, that's all I need, stumble into Rocky the rabid raccoon in freaking sandals and shorts, in this complete darkness. What fun the mind can be in the dark. The thought barely left my mind for the next 2 hours while sitting in this spot. The orange and blue lights above are lanterns on the shore, the red would be tail lights on cars. Missouri Valley looking like a sun there in the middle. 800 ISO, 99 seconds.
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100 ISO, 984 seconds(16.4 minutes). Just not quite crisp enough out this night. The sky was fairly washed out with a 16 minute shot, but not near as bad as the next one.
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100 ISO, 5160 seconds. That's a lot of seconds. 1 hour 26 minutes. I tell you what, that's a lot of time to wonder where crazy Rocky was roaming. I knew it wasn't likely to turn out too great with the haze, but wanted to see how it might look at 10mm, for when I do it in a more ideal location(like Murray Hill again, on a good night). |
