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Aurora Borealis in Czech Republic, May 2024

May 12, 2024 by Zbynek Burival

I supposed that my November post about the barely visible northern lights will be a rare result for a long while. Well, there was very strong aurora later in winter, unfortunately it was raining here all night long. Current strong solar activity met with a perfect weather. Honestly, I never expected to see such strong aurora over here!

I started early, when it got at least little dark. This time I knew I need to do some test shots to notice weak aurora, its often invisible for eyes. And voila, there it was! Very weak pink glow, slowly getting stronger. I made couple photos, but it was not a really good spot, so I jumped into a car and moved on the nearby hill with a good view.

Zoned purple-green aurora, Czech Republic, May 2024

I was honestly shocked when I left the car about 10 minutes later, the sky turned completely red. I made couple still shots and set the camera to time lapse. The show diminished about 20 minutes later, so I decided to move to other place. Original plan was to go home, but meanwhile the red colors changed to zoned aurora with purple-pink upper layer and green bottom. So I had to do a wide panorama, of course.

Then I moved back home, but meanwhile the activity got even stronger then before. I made couple shots around the house and moved back to the fields with no lights in sight, where I made another stills and two time lapse sessions.

Zoned northern lights with the tree in the foreground, Czech Republic, May 2024

In the end, it was almost 4 hours chase, then I really had to stop and get some sleep. I have a stockpile of photos, which needs to be properly processed, stitch panoramas, export time lapse videos. This article is just a preview, more to come, with technical details how I did it.

Contrasting Sunset Light

February 20, 2024 by Zbynek Burival

Contrasting light of red lit forest with green fields and dark sky

Sometimes the sunset light provides dramatic colors for just a few minutes. The cloudy day blocks the sunshine most of the time. Only during a sunset (or sunrise) – when the sun travels through a thin gap between the clouds and the horizon – the landscape gets lit with a dramatic light.

Some angles produce well lit landscape with dark shady sky. Some produce saturated red skies with dramatic clouds above the dark land. And some do produce a narrow beam of red light, like in this case. The foreground with bright green fields and background with dark clouds provide a nice contrast.

I almost missed the opportunity, which lasted just a few minutes. I grabbed the camera with tripod and managed to do just a two shots before the colors went dull again.

Red Clouds Day

January 12, 2024 by Zbynek Burival

Sometimes, you simply get lucky and both light conditions and timing are perfect. I somehow managed to catch both lovely dawn with colorful clouds and pretty nice sunset at the same day, all that completely unplanned.

Both wide angle (24 mm) and detail (200 mm) of the red sunset sky provided pretty nice results. The colors were unusually bright due to the rare weather conditions, resulting in very little humidity and dust in the air. The windy conditions with moving clouds would be great for timelapse. Well, next time.

Sunset with medieval castle and pink clouds

Autumn Larch Tree

November 25, 2023November 25, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

The late autumn often presents bright colored foliage and Larch trees, while quickly changing weather provides interesting light conditions. The bad part is cold, strong wind and frequent showers or sleet. I particularly like bright yellow Larch trees, which provide numerous opportunities for colorful and high contrast photos.

This time I got lucky with a short period of bright sunshine between the showers of heavy rain. Dark clouds provided a nice background and add dramatic atmosphere.

Autumnal bright yellow Larch tree in the snowy landscape

The first snow started to fall just a few days later. I made a similar photo with the snowy landscape, you can notice quickly disappearing foliage on the Birch trees in the background and also less dense needles on the Larch trees. Such photos often require some portion of luck to align timing of snowfall and best colors, which often last for just a week or even less.

Northern Lights

November 24, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

I did not expect to see northern lights in my home country, as they seldom appear that much to the south. However, in the evening on 5. November was quite strong aurora reported even from Croatia! Such strong auroral activity was not seen here in decades.

Unfortunately for me, the main event exactly overlapped with rain in my area. I managed to catch a little purple color between two showers, when there was only partly cloudy for a few minutes. The rain ceased quite late when remnants of purple haze were barely visible by naked eye. I used fully open aperture at f4, high ISO at 3200, and 30 seconds exposure time.

Anyway, it was fun to try. There are weak auroras occurring few times per year, mostly visible only on long exposures and invisible for naked eye. If you want to try, there is a nice aurora prediction tool by NOAA.

Autumn Sunrise

October 24, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

Sometimes you get lucky and the weather cooperates. There were just few minutes of perfect color of the red clouds above the hilly landscape. Such photos are tricky because of the high contrast. I had to use higher ISO and pushed the exposure to the limits on the sky. Otherwise, there will be horrible noise in the dark parts.

You should always push exposure to the upper limits and restore the highlights. Do not try to restore details in the shadows, this produces huge amount of noise. Of course, shooting from tripod and merging multiple exposures is always better approach.

First Autumn Fog

October 24, 2023October 17, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

Today was the first high quality fog of this autumn. The weather abruptly got colder and the clear night sky resulted in a slightly freezing morning. Conditions perfect, not so timing. I had only about 10 minutes to briefly check one favorite location at the pond, where the fog usually lasts quite long.

I have several older photos from this place, so I tried a bit different angle today. The composition is somehow strange, yet I like it. The foggy shore in the distance is centered, while the leaves are in a third and trunk in golden cut. The image is not cropped, just slight move to any side and it will be destroyed it by some annoying element.

Autumnal Forest with Fern

October 24, 2023October 7, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

Autumnal forests are among my favorite photography topics. Colorful leaves and foggy weather provide lot of opportunities, unlike the summer with dull colors and intensive daylight. On the other hand, it is often cold, wet and a bit too dark. And do not forget the CPL filter, it is a true game changer for wet foliage.

Despite this compositions might look quite simple, getting such conditions is a different story. The Beech leaves have the right yellow colors only few days before they turn brown. And of course dense fog is not available every day.

Early Autumnal Forest

October 24, 2023October 4, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

The cultivated spruce forests are not a great place for landscape photos. And especially not in the middle of sunny day, when its really hard to get some decent composition. I was lucky this time, when the backlit dry grass provided a nice contrast. I was quite limited by the focal length and lot of disturbing elements, but the result is pretty ok.

It is a handheld shot, other approach might be tripod and use a focus stack to achieve bigger DOF. I’m not sure if that will be better, but I had no tripod to test it.

Dwarf Birch (Betula nana)

October 24, 2023October 3, 2023 by Zbynek Burival

The tiny shrubs of Dwarf Birch (Betula nana) are quite typical in tundra and Arctic regions, some are still growing as glacial relicts much more to the south in higher elevations. It looks like minuscule Birch without the typical white bark. The lovely feature is very bright color of leaves in the early autumn, when they turn bright yellow and bright red.

Following photos were shot in various places in Norway during the hikes. The vivid colors of autumnal Dwarf Birch provide nice contrast in the rainy Scandinavian landscapes, which could otherwise be quite dull. I especially like the colors in the combination with pale lichens. The presence of red colored autumnal Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea) is even better, but these photos were made too early in the August.