What do you do when you unexpectedly wake up at 3am on a cold and snowy January morning?
Moan, turn over and go back to sleep?
A serious temptation, but having seen the forecast the night before I knew I was in with a chance of photographing a time lapse of the stars in a relatively clear sky over a snow covered landscape - not a combination of events that happens that often in North Wales.
So I hauled my carcass out of bed and donned a few layers of outdoor survival gear before heading to the car.
Local knowledge helps a lot in situations like this, you don't want to be wondering where to go under conditions like these, so I already knew I was heading for the limestone escarpment at the Loggerheads Country Park as I set off.
The escarpment faces west, and gives a great view out over snow covered fields to the peaks of the Clwydian Range of mountains (hills really) that define the horizon.
For foreground interest I knew I could use a knarly old hawthorne tree that's been growing on the top of the escarpment seemingly forever, together with an old style iron bench of similar vintage by its side.
So I hauled my out of condition body, plus full camera kit, up through the mud to the overlook to check out the view.
Well I wasn't disappointed, with a snow covered landscape glowing faintly below me while stars wheeled overhead in a relatively clear sky.
So I fired up the Canon 6D, set to my default nighttime exposure setting of 15 seconds at f2.8 and ISO6400 and took a test shot.
The dark sky exposure was fine, but the snowy landscape and underlit drifting clouds were way too bright, so I stopped the lens down a click to f4 which brought the bright areas back in range of the camera's exposure range.
In the end I spent two hours stomping around in the cold, watching the stars and clouds swirl overhead, braving the odd sleet shower in the process.
My session was finally brought to an end when some serious weather arrived, with snow, sleet and hail hammering down simultaneously.
I didn't mind though, as I'd had enough by then, so I somewhat gingerly descended the mud covered slope at the back of the escarpement and headed home, just in time to go to work!
Seeing the end result of my efforts the following evening, in the form of this video, I'm glad I didn't just roll over and go back to sleep.
Filename - loggerheads timelapse 01.mp4
Camera - Canon EOS 6D
Lens - 14mm prime
Exposure - 15 secs @ f4, ISO6400
Capture interval - 15 secs
Location - Loggerheads Country Park, Wales
This clip - HD 720p
Clip duration - 19 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.