Why to shoot with flash when the subject is far away?

Tonight, in a rainy day, I shot a picture of the Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) also known as Monument to Milite Ignoto (Unknown Soldier), placed in the centre of Rome.

The only usefulness to make a photo with flash is to give more emphasis to the raindrops. In fact, the light of flash is reflected back to the camera lens and you can see the raindrops as points (for the farther ones) or as long wakes (for the closer ones). The exposure is of 1/60 seconds.

In computer graphics elaboration, I regulate contrast, the horizontal line and I add a little magenta dominance to give a more lyric appearance to this picture.

How do the passage between day and night conditions the life of the people? And how do it conditions the atmosphere and the light of a picture?

All the answers are reassumed above in an only image, result of a superimposition of 4 photograms shot through the twilight, between 5 pm and half past 6 pm.

Are these eyes full of fear? Or do they give an inquiring look to the fogs of time? A weak light reveals the gentle shapes of a face, while the glance is more intense, thanks to the dark.

[Attention: if you can’t see anything above it depends on brightness of your monitor. Please grow it near maximum]

She is my friend and she is the girl with which I have studied astronomy until yesterday. Her name is Silvia and she has taken 30/30 like me. But it wasn’t sure that we would have obtained a such good result. Then, before the exam, her eyes were full of doubts like mine.

This afternoon I’ve taken 30/30 in Astronomy’s exam. To celebrate this I publish a portion of the blackboard of an University room when, exactly 2 weeks ago, I lectured on tensorial formalism in relativistic electrodynamics…
Note the gauge transformation and the power of electromagnetic tensor that show how electric and magnetic fields are a single physical object.

These occasional lectures of mine are intended as a complement to Prof. Remo Ruffini’s class on theoretical physics (he is a scientist that is like a mentor to me).

Technically this photo is taken in a room but without flash with an exposure of 1/3 seconds and ISO-50. After shooting I’ve erased all blue dominance (probably due to sky’s light coming from the window) by turning on black-white the color method since the only relevant colors are black (the blackboard) and white (the chalk).

Even if the sky is cloudy, it can be source of beautiful pictures. And if some computer graphics techniques are applied, the result can seem… ultramundane!

Technically this picture is realized taking an image of the sun covered by clouds with an exposure of 1/2000 seconds, a focal lenght of 17mm, f/8.3, ISO-50. That short exposure is available only in automatic mode in my digital camera. The limit is 1/1000 seconds in manual mode.

After shooting I regulate contrast with the “curves” function and I have applied a color variation towards… red. Incredible, isn’t it?

Sometimes a light wake reveals the motion of bodies.

Consequently to my astronomy studies, often I have to go by train to the home of a friend. What better opportunity to create an intentionally moved image?

Extimating a wake lenght of 2 meters, from an exposure of 1/8 seconds one can obtain a train instantly speed of 16 m/s equal to about 60 Km/h during the braking of train.

Rome isn’t a good place to see the sky by night because of the light pollution, but anyway with a digital camera one can realize satisfactory photos… like this!

That’s a portion of sky showing the Ursa Maior constellation, commonly called Great Bear. This is a constellation of the northern hemisphere; in central europe this constellation never touches the horizon.

Technical details: data 7/2/2005 22.30; focal lenght 6mm; F/2,8; exposure 15 sec; IS0-400. After shooting: light-darkness balance.

The following is the drowing of the UMa constellation. In reality, this is only the most famous asterism (subset of a constellation) called Big Dipper (others asterisms).

Finally, the following figure is a blowup of the Mizar-Alcor system. Note the presence of a blue coma and a lengthened shape due to the exposure of 15 seconds: between the opening and closing stars are moved on the celestial sphere. Different technical details for this picture: focal distance 17mm; F/4,9.

Now, some astronomical and astrophisical details:

from Munich Astro Archive

Have you ever seen a whole drops family? There are the fat father, the mother followed by the little sons. Note the reflection of the tap on the drops surfaces.

[update: this photo had participated at Photo Friday in 03-25-05 ‘Tiny’ challenge as link n.549]
[update: this photo is participating at Photo Friday in 03-25-05 ‘Imperfection’ challenge as link n.550]

This picture was taken with an exposure of 1/1000 sec, a focal lenght of 17 mm (Macro), F/8,3, white balance tungsten (I was in a bathroom with a simple light bulb of about 3000 K).

Physically the picture show the motion of a group of water drops into a space-time deformed because of earth presence. Their trajectory is a geodesic.