Location Scouting for Astrophotography

A couple of weeks ago, one of my photography pals texted me asking me if I wanted to join him on a Milky Way hunt some time since his summer plans had been scratched due to Corona (Matthias, you really need to set up a website so I can link to your photos!). He mentioned a couple of possible locations, which got me thinking; where would _I_ shoot the Milky Way from. I came up with an idea (that I won't share here yet, I haven't seen any other astro shots from here and I'd like to have a crack at it before someone else gets in first, so if you recognise any of the spots in this post, plesase keep them to yourself for now - hopefully in a month or so we'll be able to pull this off). I knew that I wanted to include some 'civilisation glow' in the shot if possible - the night glow from a human habitation and I opened up Google Earth to look for a possible mountainside that would give me the angle that I wanted.

Watching the Sun Go Down || Olympus f/16, 1/60, ISO 1250

It's not as easy as I'd thought to find a deforested slope facing the right direction in the lower alps. Despite my local knowledge, it took quite a bit of playing around before I found a peak that would work, and even then it was only on paper. At the end of May I headed down there for an evening to catch the sunset and the blue hour to see whether the angles matched up. Even a couple of days beforehand I wasn't too sure about the trip, no-one wanted to join me and I was a little wary of being on my own in the mountains at night - even in familiar territory there are plenty of things that can go wrong. And the forecast wasn't playing ball. Until Friday morning that is. All of a sudden the evening forecast was opening up - a green light.

It's a Sign! || Olympus f/8, 1/80 s, ISO 200

With sunset projected to be 21.05, I set off from home just after 18.00 to allow myself enough time to get down there, get up onto the ridge and find a couple of spots whilst the light was still good. Climbing up from the car park the light was gorgeous. A few high clouds might have been nice to complete the scene, but I wasn't going to complain. The few people still on the hills but coming down gave me some strange looks and I had a quick chat with one bloke who was interested to know what I was doing going up at that time of day before he got pulled to heal by his wife. And then I was on the ridge.

At the Ridge || Olympus f/8, 1/500 s, ISO 200

The views were beautiful, clear air with some mountain cloud hanging around the peaks. It was all I had hoped for from my virtual tour planning and more. There is some lovely rock around, and the peaks still have significant patches of snow on them despite the non-winter of 2019/20. From the ridge its a broad path leading to one of the peaks that had looked promising and so after taking a couple of smartphone shots I headed out, warm setting sun on my left, valley on my right. The light was catching the fir trees along the ridge, especially the skeletal branches of dead trees that had long since lost their bark to the elements. The orange light picked out the highlights nicely.

Catching the Last Rays || Olympus f/8, 1/80 s, ISO 250

Just before the potential spot that I'd looked out there's a broad shoulder that looked promising, the spot itself had a lot more trees and was a lot narrower than it had looked on the computer, pretty much ruling it out. By this time, the sky was beginning to turn orange in the west and I was desperate to find an open piece of hillside facing westwards. East wasn't a problem, I could get to a treeless spot there any time, but the other side was light forest. In the end I had to settle for a gap between the trees. I say settle, I think the silhouettes work quite nicely, but it wasn't the picture I had first envisioned. Dropping the aperture to f/16 helped with the sunburst.

And Down She Goes || Olympus f/16, 1/100 s, ISO 200

In the immediate aftermath of the sunset I headed back along the ridge to where I had first hit it to wait for the first stars. The path back offered a couple of nice shots too, and I particularly like this one with the roots on the path. This is a composite of two exposures, one for the foreground and one for the background. After mixed experience with ON1 Photo Raw's HDR assembling, I've gone over to using layers to assemble these shots, it gives me a deal more flexibility when I can control precisely which elements of the photo I use from each exposure. I'll write a separate blog entry on this some time.

The Path Goes On || Olympus f/6.3, 1/50 s, ISO 1600

Up until this point I'd had my go-to lens on the camera, the Zuiko f4 12-100 mm, getting back to the top of the ridge it was time to get the wide-angle zoom out, the Leica f2.8 8-18 mm. The wider aperture and wider field of view make this a great astro-landscape lens, although I wouldn't complain if there was a convenient lens with an even wider aperture for night shots. The optical quality is second to none though, provided I can focus it properly. During the daytime this isn't an issue, I just leave it on autofocus normally, but focusing on pin-pricks of light at night to get the infinity focus right is tricky, even with glasses.

Golden to Blue || Olympus f/4, 1/60 s, ISO 500

I set up the tripod with my Benro Geared Head to allow me good control over the level and direction and started shooting the blue hour. When hiking, I rarely wear more than t-shirt and shorts, but even setting out from the car I was wearing long sleeves and trousers. Despite my soft-shell jacket it was beginning to get quite cool in the late evening breeze. Wooly hat and gloves time, though putting the gloves on and off was a pain. I was glad of the tripod net that I'd bought for the occasion to store bits of camera in the low light, it made keeping kit under control in the dark a lot easier. 

Waiting for the Stars || Olympus f/2.8, 1/6 s, ISO 200

And so I sat and waited for the first stars to appear, the half-moon high in the sky away to my right, the dew beginning to fall. Taking a shot every five minutes or so, exposure bracketing just to be on the safe side. I was watching the clock too, I didn't want to be out too late on my own - there was still a trek down to the car in the dark. Even with the half-moon and my head-torch, stumbling around in the dark in the mountains shouldn't be taken lightly. And then there was the 90 min drive home.

Gibbous Moon over the Allgäu || Olympus f/3.3, 10 sec, ISO 200

The descent proved easier than I had feared and I was soon back on the tarmac. Definitely worth the evening's trek. Oh, and remember the SD card that went through the washing machine? It seems to have finally given up the ghost. Fortunately after I transferred the photos to the PC and not before. Sometimes you've gotta have a bit of luck!

End of the Day || Olympus f/4, 0.8 s, ISO 800

The Power of the Cube

I've not done a tech review before, but there's a first time for everything. A couple of weeks ago I found a YouTube review of a neat looking external light source cleverly called the Lume Cube. I forget who's video I saw first - like any good photographer with a mild case of GAS*, before buying I binge-watched a whole load of video reviews, but the first one I saw was probably Hudson Henry's - you can check it here if you're interested. What the reviews had to say was all very interesting, and I could immediately see the potential of this device in a number of settings, particularly as an additional light source in low-light settings for mixed-light photography, using the cube as a fixed (or even mobile) fill-in light.

*Gear Acquisition Syndrome - the tendency of (not just) photographers to acquire unnecessary gear in the often mistaken belief that it will improve your images without actually investing time or effort in your talents.

Lilly of the Valley || Olympus f5.6, 1/200, ISO 200

There are three versions of the cube, the first version was a solid 4.5 x 4.5 cm cube with a screw-cap Micro USB charge port, the second - Lume Cube Air - is a lighter version intended, as I understand it, for the drone market, and the third returned to the initial format with improved battery duration, light quality and spread as well as 'controllability'. All of them have a standard 3/8" tripod attachment thread and so can be mounted in a number of different ways.

All of them can be controlled using buttons on the device itself or using a dedicated smartphone App, allowing basic on/off controls, a light intensity bar allowing you to set the luminosity any where from 1-100%, strobe control and optical slave mode if you want to couple it with a separate flash device.

Having looked at all the reviews, particularly with an eye on battery life and light quality, I decided I'd go for version 2 and get a few of the useful-looking accessories while I was at it. In Europe the Cubes aren't all that easy to come by and not every camera shop stocks them. Amazon couldn't deliver the Portable Lighting Kit I was after so I Googled around and found it in a German online camera store and ordered one. Or thought I did. When it arrived I was dismayed to realise that I'd mistakenly ordered an original cube. Rather than send it back, I thought I'd give it a run for its money and see how I got on with it. The original Cube does actually have one advantage over the newer model; the charge point has a screw-cap rather than a rubber cover and is rated to 30 m underwater rather than the 10 m of version 2. If I want to, I can take the cube underwater as a light source for shooting whilst diving. 

What's in the Box?

Like I said, there were a couple of things in the Lighting Kit that piqued my curiosity, it has a range of attachments and filters as well as a doodah for mounting it on the camera's flash hot-shoe. Some of gear is clearly intended for portrait photographers and videographers.

The Cube

Obviously the Cube itself is the star of the show. Shot here in ambient daylight at about 5% maximum brightness. You're never going to need more light with this thing, it's an absolute monster. In a good way of course.

Box Contents

As well as the cube itself, a mini user manual and a micro USB charging cable, the Portable Lighting Kit+ comes with a filter attachment adaptor, a dome diffuser - probably my most-used filter, strong and light flat diffusion filters, two hexagonal plates, red, green, blue and yellow gels, two Lee CTO filters, a barn door, a snoot, the (dumb) hot-shoe connector and a sturdy zip case (not shown).

How to Use It

I'm not going to go into the user manual here, but I want to discuss the potential of the Cube from a landscape photographer's point of view. As well as off-camera fill-in light for flowers and other small objects, the Cube provides plenty of light for illuminating the foreground of night- and astro-photographs or for illuminating people. One of the things I'm looking forward to trying is using it in water to illuminate a wet-scape.

Lighting up the Aquilegia

There's something attractive about off-camera light. Light straight from the camera (flash) is fairly boring, resulting in an essentially equal exposure over the whole image, whilst at the same time creating harsh shadows if anything is partially obscured. Light something from the side and you'll start getting landscape photographers interested. Most landscapers look forward to the golden hours - the time just after sunrise and just before sunset due to the gentle light from the side rather than above. With the Cube, I can take this a step further, illuminating from wherever I please within reason. Lighting from below, for example, yields some lovely results on bell flowers, making it look as if they're lit up from within. A while ago I was struck by some photos of mushrooms by a British photographer who goes by the Instagramm handle @fatmanskinnycamera and was interested to see whether I could recreate the feeling he generated with a mix of artificial and natural light. I set up my test lab in the back garden. Please excuse the greenfly, I only noticed them after I'd finished processing the images! Here's my comparison of native light, on-camera flash and Lume Cube illumination, with the Cube set to approximately 20% luminosity.

Native Light || Olympus f16, 8" ISO 200

On-Camera Flash || Olympus f16, 1/60 s, ISO 200

Lume Cube Underlit || Olympus f16, 6" ISO 200

I think the results speak for themselves, the native light image is ok, but there's little separation from the background (well, I was shooting at f16), and the sky is distracting. The on-camera flash causes harsh shadows on the flowers (look at the flower on the right) and completely darkens the sky. Yes, I know it's possible to reduce the intensity of the flash to better balance the light, but I'm not particularly keen on investing the time in this skill. The Lume Cube, however, casts a gentle ethereal light and gives me the flexibility of being able to place the light source wherever you want is fantastic.

So that's how it looks close-up, what if you need more light. Here's a quick-and-dirty grab of my garden yew tree with and without the Cube, which was on the floor below the tripod.

Don't forget that there's an acute danger of under-exposing photos at dusk and at night due to the brightness of the camera screen; to ensure good exposure, I strongly recommend you rely on your camera histogram, assuming you have one. 

What I Do and Don't Like

There really is so much to like about this cute little cube:

Ease of use The constant source makes setting up photos practically idiot-proof. There's no need to muck about with flash, no trial and error. It's pretty much WYSIWYG and it's easy to move the light around and change direction and beam whilst monitoring the effect in real time through the camera. 

Light Quality Although one of the complaints against V1 was the light quality, I think this comes from portrait photographers who were concerned about light on skin. By light quality I mean that they reported it giving a slightly off-white colour cast. I certainly had no complaints illuminating flowers at dusk in the garden. 

Control The amount of light is also easily controlled in 1% increments via the dedicated Lume-X app, even if I did keep losing the connection. For shorter periods this was simply a question of clicking a button in the app.

Attachment It's easy to attach the Cube to any number of supports using the 3/8" thread, whether the hot-shoe connector or an Arca Swiss plate for tripod mounting. Mostly I use it on my old Ultra-pod II tabletop tripod using the supplied hot-shoe connector. This gives me infinite directional control. If I don't use the connector, the Ultra-pod screw tends to push off the filter-holder.

Filters The fact that the filters attach to the filter holder magnetically is brilliant, though I'm not sure I'd trust this 100% underwater. I think I'd be afraid of loosing the filter holder by catching on something.

Portability Lastly, the Cube is incredibly portable. At 100 g, and approximately 20 ml volume, no-one is going to notice it at the bottom of a rucksack or camera bag.

Lilac by Moonlight	Lilly of the Valley
Aquilegia Lit by Snoot	Dandelion Head

There are a couple of things I don't like with my version 1 cube that have apparently been overcome with version 2:

Battery The battery seems to run down very quickly, though not faster than indicated by the manufacturer. I tried a continuous test at 100% luminosity to see whether it would last the full 30 min, but the device quickly became so hot that it shut down. At 50% luminosity I only got 40 min continuous running before running the battery down - disappointing considering the blurb says it should be good for 2 h at this level.

Connection Another bugbear is that I frequently lose contact with the app and have to re-initiate the connection on the cube end.

Light Quality Lastly, the light quality feels quite harsh for what I want to do with the Cube, but the diffusers easily compensate for this. 

Bottom Line Despite these shortcomings, all-in-all I really like what I can do with the Cube, even if I wish I'd got V2 to start with. If I find myself using it a lot, I might grab myself a basic Cube V2 for underway.

Aquilegia Aglow || Olympus f16, 13", ISO 200