Toronto Photography Meetup Group

Parking lot to set up is 50 meters , very close.

No camp fires , no flash , and no bright flashlights. That's why we go there.
It is a dark sky reserve , for now.

If you are up for the hike you can walk about 1 km to a rock outcrop in the woods. Also very nice for shooting. Just not a nice walk if you are leaving in the dark.

Tim

Hey Tim,
What's your plan from 3pm to sunset?
Are you going to be shooting just at Torrance Barrens, or shooting around the area (aka car tripping)?

I plan on shooting around the area within walking distance of the lot until supper time. Then have supper and relax and shoot some more till sunset.
Also at that time I can help out those that need it before dark

Tim

Guys,

any ride from anywhere in Downtown or from any Subway station.

Thanks in advance.

hotwire posted his results from stacking multiple exposures from the other night (on the post about northern lights I think) and they looked good, so using your regular remote release and using burst mode should be good enough.

don't underestimate how much they move! at 100mm, I can see notable movement if facing south with exposures as little as 10 seconds. If facing north I can often get away with longer exposures of up to 20 seconds before starting to get lines (stars close to the north star don't have as much aparent motion).
With a wide angle lens (10-20mm), you can do 30 secs without seeing lines.

I'd also recommend if stacking, to take continuous photos with no gaps.

if you are taking 30 second exposures, then make sure that you take them every 30 seconds otherwise you will get gaps when you stack them which will make all your shots look like airplanes going across the sky with their lights flashing on and off again...
I have shots where I'm locking the shutter at 30 seconds, but the 1-2 seconds between shots when the default noise reduction is kicking in has created notible gaps in the stacks, so make sure that you disable both darkframe noise reduction and long exposure noise reduction and do it in post-production instead.

you can see the dots between frames in this following shot when viewed large, which is from that 1-2 second lag between shots when I had the NR turned up:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fizbot/1316377718/" title="Startrails1 by pbruch, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1278/1316377718_c48566b98b_o.jpg" width="1635" height="2435" alt="Startrails1"></a>


Even on this photo shot at 10mm for 30 seconds, you can just start to see the stars drawing into short lines when viewed large:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fizbot/2602829018/" title="Bass Lake Sunset by pbruch, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3107/2602829018_ef80f2a2e3_o.jpg" width="3767" height="2512" alt="Bass Lake Sunset"></a>

wow.. nice shot..

its definately confirmed now -- I won't be making this one. I will be up north already.

I have changed from a maybe to a 3:00 PM list now. I hope the weather continues to hold, it looks good right now! I think I might head up to Algonquin afterward for a sun rise as well, if the weather holds and depending on when we all bail from the barrens.

Everyone driving up be aware there is construction on HWY 400 in the Barrie area at the north end before the split with 11. This construction could be active on Saturday with lane closures.

There is also construction along the length of 11 from roughly 93 to the airport area around Guthrie. The lanes should be open on Saturday as supposedly this work is only going on during the week.

And finally there is construction at the bridge at Southwood Road, the turn off for the Barrens. Last weekend I passed through here the lanes were open, but they could be restricted again since they seemed to be trying to avoid any road work over the long weekend.

Last year the 400 from Vaughan to almost Barrie was very busy and backed up at times. So allow enough time.

DG

I may come with my son but would be back home earlier than ather members if my son feel boring...

according to google map, we can take alternative route all the way hwy 400 exit east to hwy 38 then south on hwy 169.... just 6 km & 5 minutes more from TO.... did anyone try this route before???

MTO travel site http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/trip/map.shtml?ll=43.696424,-79.459648&z=10[/code]

I took this route when we went up there a few years ago. It was an expensive trip for me. Driving back a bit half asleep, forgot that the second set of train tracks on the way to Torrence - drive slowly over it! Well going back the other way, that didn't register in my brain that it's now the first set of tracks... bottomed out the suspension on all four corners and bent three rims that couldn't be repaired. That woke me up along with hotwire cursing at me from the back seats!

Yeah 38 is a fun road to drive - watch out for bikers.

At least come out for the afternoon and sunset and bring supper
to picnic with us

@Simon - you can go this way if you want. When I leave I either go this way or 169 to 11 as Southwood Road is very winding and difficult to drive at night.

The roads in that area are all rough and train crossings are something to look out for.

Tim

Thanks Tim~~!! let me bring something to eat~!
I will start around at noon from home. see you there~!

Hi Mike,

They'll move 360 degrees in 24 hours (i.e., all the way around, once per day).*

That's 15 degrees in one hour.

If you know the field of view of your lens, you can estimate how long the trails will appear in an exposure of a given length. Ultimately, it comes down to aesthetics: There is no "right" length for a star trail, so it just depends how long you would like them to be. (Unless digital noise or mosquitoes prevent you from exposing for longer times. But as far as celestial mechanics is concerned, those are the facts.

----

* Actually, once around per siderial day (rather than solar day), which is "approximately 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4.091 seconds" according to Wikipedia (I usually round it off to 23h56m), but, hey, you can just call it 24h for our purposes out in Torrance Barrens.

Addendum:

That calculation assumes your camera is aimed at the celestial equator (see diagram):

http://www.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http ... s%3Disch:1

As mentioned, if you're aimed northward, i.e. toward the North Star (i.e., Polaris, near the North Celestial Pole) you can still use those numbers, but remember that the number of degrees describes the angular size of the arc that the star will appear to move; the diameter of the arc gets smaller as you get closer to Polaris. (As mentioned, if you're facing north, everything appears to revolve around Polaris.) Hope that helps!

So I hope everyone is ready for tomorrow. Don't forget to charge your batteries, pack your lunch and bug spray and also bring some warm clothes for the evening. It could drop to 8 over night.

Tim

Thanks for the info Dan...there's a lot more to it if you want to research it, eh!
I'm not going to be that precise...think I'll just aim at the north star, shoot a whole lotta 30 second exposures and hope for some circular swirly startrails

Looks like I'll actually make it out to this one...first one since Halloween..awesome...see ya'll there!

+1

WOW! More TPMG members than MOSQUITOS . No need to bring bug spray .

Got room in my car for those interested
heading out from pickering

looks like me and a buddy with a telescope will come down and be there closer to sunset time.

I might bring my telescope, too -- depends on how much gear I can lug on the TTC to meet my ride.

Hey, did you hear about that some local mosquitos have been found carrying West Nile? That sucks. Bring that bug spray!

Hi Tim:

Great event, thanks for organizing it again this year. Good time.

You may want to talk with your staff through. Mr. Beaver was late and off course, and the Loons came to the shore when there was too little light. And of course Mr Snake was AWOL.

Other wise a great success even if the clouds rolled in towards the end.

DG

Thank you so much for putting this together and thanks for the ride ....
cheers
Yeshwanth

yeah, thanks for a great event, had an awesome time

Home! Thanks for a good event! It was nice to meet more new faces.

I just heard from Susan - apparently she and Anne found a tripod (Manfrotto??) and a pair of sunglasses (Tortoiseshell??) left behind in the area near the water. If you're missing either one of these, let me know and we'll figure something out to get it back.

Fun event! Too bad about the clouds... d'oh!

Thanks for organizing this, Tim. While I don't think I got any decent shots, the laughs were well worth the trip.

Thanks Tim. The trip was a lot of fun. I got some very nice landscapes on our hike around the lake and some great reflections and silhouettes.

Terry.