samamara

You're welcome @Infaz it was a pleasure. And what a great shot you got! No one would believe it was your first nighttime shoot 😉.

You're more than welcome @JC_E my pleasure anytime 😃. What a lovely shot you got - fantastic 👏🏻! Definitely agree that we need to do this more often!

It was crazy! And the last 60km or so into RAK was the same! Hope everyone is safe and well-rested now 😉! Wonderful shots @Frederic! Thanks so much again for the invite - it was lovely seeing and meeting everyone, and it was a lot of fun! Looking forward to the next one 😉

"Bring a walkie talkie and let's use CH10: 446.231Mhz." @Frederic - I may need some help with this 😅🤔🫣...it's been a long time since I've used it...

Oof that was soooo long ago! We need to do this more often 😂. I don't use that crop lens anymore - though I still have it if anyone needs to borrow it 🤔 it's a great Tokina 11-14mm (for Canon). Let me know if I should toss it in the bag.

Thanks so much for the invite @Frederic 🙏🏻😍 - I believe I am in and am looking forward to it 🤩! I'll have a few camera bodies (all Canon, one modified)), two star trackers and a few lenses (14mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.8 and 135mm f/2). And whatever else fits in the car 😂. Thanks again!

Many thanks to @Frederic for letting me share my pic here even though I was unable to join (I'd mixed up the days, thinking we were going to meet on Saturday and already had camping and shooting plans for Friday night). I'm glad we all got to see the beauty though; best time of year to look up 🤩😍! Sam

We likely won't see it at the same angle as this as I took this photo in the fall and the angle changes throughout the year, but we should definitely get something nice 😊 . As @Frederic says, the core should be visible from 2-4-ish but will only rise about 32º above the horizon so will be low. Can make for a lovely shot still with the dunes 😍🤩. I'm attaching below a sketch of the sort of the angle we'll see for the next few months (image from PhotoPills). No worries...the core will be visible now until late October so there'll be plenty of time to get lots of shots with lots of angles...it's a great time to look up to the skies ❤️ . Sam

Me too, @Mario Cornejo - let's keep asking for that Part 2!

Good morning, all! I am absolutely gutted that I didn't know about this ride and shoot 😭 😭 😭 . I must have missed the announcement. I would just love to join but I'll be out most of the night Thursday doing some astro shooting and then going camping Friday night for more astro. Can we please try this again in future? Please 🙏🏼 ? If I were going to give any advice I'd say to try to go with an aperture of f/11 or f/13 to start, with a shutter speed of at least 1/250th if you want to freeze some of the spraying sand. If you want really freeze the spraying sand a faster shutter speed will be better, but you'll need to make other adjustments to allow for the reduced light that a faster shutter brings. I would not go less than f/8 on the aperture, though, as you risk getting more of the foreground and background out of focus, which isn't what you want if you want to freeze the spraying sand. I'd rather bump up the ISO than open the f-stop, but how high you can go without getting noise will depend on your camera. As the sun rises rapidly though, that will be less of an issue. Also, be sure to keep your camera on high-speed shooting; the more frames you click of this fast driving action, the better the chances of getting something you love. A cool thing to try would be panning; it's a little tricky but the results can be really cool. The car itself will be in focus and everything else will be blurred. This isn't the same as just having a wide open aperture (f/2.8 or wider), which would just 'unfocus' the background; this is like an action shot and with sand blurring from its own movement and your movement of the camera. This is a handheld action where you use a slow shutter (1/60 or 1/30) and a smaller aperture (f/16 or f/20-ish) and 'pan' your body with the moving object (the car) which blurs the background (the spraying sand). The smaller aperture will cut the light you'll get from having the shutter open longer. Usually that results in clearer backgrounds, but in this case it won't' since you'll be panning the camera. The ISO can easily be adjusted, but again with the early rise of the harsh sunlight, it won't be as much of an issue. Here's a nice article from Canon on how to do it, and I really think this could be a fun thing to try out in the sands. Again, please please 🙏🏼 can we try to schedule this again soon? I'm just so sad to be missing it 💔. Best of luck everyone; looking forward to seeing the shots! Sam

I think they look great @Humayun Ghias and with the amazing winter skies to come we'll have lots of chances to practice more together 😊

Nice GIF @Frederic 😂 ❤️

Dammit 😂 I shouldn't have said! Oh well, next time 😉. Thank you - it's not the timelapse I wanted to make but I also didn't want the hundreds of frames to go to waste.

Hello all 😊 I finally got around to checking the images I took for timelapse the night of the meteor shower meet up. Sadly it's so short and not very good; there's not a single meteor, though there are lots of plane trails that I'll squint at and call meteors so the hours of shooting aren't a total bust 😂! At least the clouds added some drama to the evening skies ❤️. I can't upload it here as the file type is not allowed but you can click here to have a look. Looking forward to the next outing 😍! Sam

Sounds like a great time was had by all @Joseph Sebastian - I hope I get to meet you and more of the others next time, and I look forward to your shots too @Humayun Ghias - not at all, it was my pleasure! I hope you got some great shots; I can't wait to see. See you again on the next adventure!