How to Get Started in Astrophotography with Justin Anderson

#487 In this episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast, I chat with Justin Anderson,  astrophotographer who captures the night sky with breathtaking mastery. Justin shares his journey of photographing Comet NEOWISE and other celestial wonders, emphasizing the importance of preparation, persistence, and creativity. Today you'll learn how to set up your camera for night photography, choose the right equipment, and find the perfect locations to shoot. You'll also learn the art of scouting dark skies, experimenting with different lenses, and appreciating the beauty of your surroundings. 

THE BIG IDEAS

• Persist Through Challenges: Consistently work on improving your skills, even when conditions don't align. Persistence is key in mastering night photography.
• Embrace the Learning Curve: Night photography comes with a steep learning curve. Accept mistakes as part of the journey towards stunning captures.
• Plan and Prepare: Success in astrophotography requires meticulous planning, from checking the weather to selecting remote locations away from light pollution.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

• Scout Dark Locations: Use dark sky maps to identify potential shooting spots away from city lights. Visit these locations during the day to plan your composition and safety measures.
• Optimize Camera Settings: Set your camera to manual mode, adjusting ISO, aperture, and shutter speed according to the lighting conditions. Practice taking long exposures to capture more light and detail in the night sky.
• Experiment with Lenses: Try using wide-angle lenses (e.g., 24mm) to capture expansive landscapes along with the night sky. Test prime lenses with apertures wider than F2.8 for better light capture and reduced noise.
• Use Proper Accessories: Equip your camera with a remote shutter and intervalometer to avoid camera shake and take multiple long exposures. Bring a sturdy tripod to keep your camera stable during long exposure shots.

RESOURCES
Follow Justin on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/aurorajanderson/
Check out Justins Website - https://highhopesaurora.com/

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!

• Join the free Beginner Photography Podcast Community at https://beginnerphotopod.com/group
• Get your Photo Questions Answered on the show - https://beginnerphotopod.com/qa
• Grab your free camera setting cheatsheet - https://perfectcamerasettings.com/

Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Transcript

Justin Anderson: 0:00

The final product is just icing on the cake. I love being able to share my final photos and say look what I captured but getting out is the best part if I didn't enjoy getting out, I wouldn't be doing this. Especially setting up your camera and being able to just set it up and enjoy the night. That's why I focus on that so much is because I get to enjoy my night sky and I get to see it for myself. When i'm involved with a lot of people on nights that the northern lights are out or whether or not there's not fluorescent clouds whatever might be out. My goal is to enjoy it for myself.

Raymond Hatfield: 0:32

Hey, welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and in today's Rewind interview, we are chatting with admirer of the night sky and astrophotographer, Justin Anderson, about capturing all of the cosmic activity that happens when most of us are asleep. But first, the Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by Cloudspot. Sell your photos through prints, products, and of course, digitals. With Cloudspot, you can set up a storefront in minutes and start earning more with every shoot you deliver. Grab your free forever account over at DeliverPhotos. com and only upgrade when you are ready. Justin is called Manitoba's Aurora Guy, spinning many nights outside with his camera pointed at the sky. The aurora is something that I have not shot nor seen for that matter, honestly, but his images make me feel like I'm there. They're truly incredible shots of things that, you know, I can only picture in my head that I would love to see in real life. And he does it extremely well. So in this conversation, you'll learn just how Justin finds these unique locations that lend itself to the beautiful night sky to add context making a richer photo. How to embrace the process and appreciate the joy of not only a shooting, but also experiencing the night sky for yourself, even when maybe it's colder than most would enjoy. And, if you love something, how to make time for it. Often having to balance his full time job with his passion of shooting the night sky, but also needing sleep, that's pretty important. You know, it's easy to say, you know what, I'll capture it another day. But, that just is not an option for Justin. you love something, you will go out and make time for it. So again, there's a lot to learn in this one. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's interview with Justin Anderson. Justin, my first question for you is, when did you know that photography was going to play an important role in your life?

Justin Anderson: 2:20

I started taking photos about four years ago. I've always had a cell phone in my hands with a camera and just enjoyed taking the photos. But about four years ago, I went up north, fishing with my father. And I really wanted to take photos of the Northern Lights when I was up there. And when I did, I got my mom's old camera and I just, learn how to use it for that weekend. And I went up there and the Northern Lights were dancing. So I was able to get a few good photos of them. And then since then, after that I got my first DSLR and it kind of just sat dormant in my own, in my closet and I didn't do much with it. And then from there, storms started to pick up. I got some photos of lightning, which really brought the passion up and realized that I can make a cool photo of lightning and then there was no storms one night and I just started capturing the stars and I just love the stars. I love seeing them and I've always enjoyed looking up at the stars, always enjoyed watching meteor showers, anything really. And from there I just really wanted to learn and keep going and perfect that skill. So that's what I just do. I always, go out with just an intent to take a cool photo and that's about it.

Raymond Hatfield: 3:25

Just take a cool photo and that's it. Oh my gosh. I wish. That's about it, yeah. I wish that, you know, sometimes I get lost, I know a lot of others do as well in the simplicity of photography. I wish that I could just boil it down to that same feeling every time. I love that. When you went out that first time when you went fishing with your dad, you said that you took, I believe it was your mom's camera, got a few photos, liked them. Got back home, got yourself a camera. Was it that trip or was there one photo in particular that you captured and thought to yourself, Hey, wait a minute. I, might actually, you know, have a proper go at this and, try it for myself.

Justin Anderson: 4:01

Yeah, I know exactly which photo and I could share that with you after the call. But, I was outside and my parents, I was with my parents at the time, but they live on an acreage outside of town. So I was sitting and enjoying the lightning show that had just gone by. And there's a bunch of really bright lightning strikes. And a few days before that, I had seen something either on Facebook or Instagram of just a really cool. Spreadsheet on how to take photos of lightning. I was like, wow, that's really cool. I was just enjoying it. And then I said, you know what? I'm going to just grab that camera. That's in my closet. See if I can take a cool photo of lightning. I set it up a few pictures in, and I got a really cool lightning strike off from the distance. And I said, Oh, I love this. I'm going to go chasing. Cause I always used to enjoy going for a drive with my dad watching storms. So I went for a drive, and I was about three miles from home, and I set up my camera, and I, there's a perfect rain, shelf in the photo, and then there's a lightning strike that went through the center of the photo. I didn't edit it or anything, because I didn't know how to edit, and that photo came out, and I was so proud of that photo. That came up, and I believe that was three years ago now, so. And that's the photo that went, wow, I can take cool photos, and then I went out the next day. next to him and took some more photos and the next one and just kept going until I realized, wow, this is, really cool that cameras can pick that up.

Raymond Hatfield: 5:16

Before all this, would you consider yourself, I guess a creative person or somebody who was interested in, visual arts like this?

Justin Anderson: 5:24

I wouldn't say so, no. I would say that I was more so enjoying just, I'd have a cell phone and I'd take a photo of a sunset. And you'd have, I'd have family members go, wow, that's a great photo and that would be about it. And then that's really all that I would get. I'm not too creative when it comes to my own personal stuff. I'm incredibly organized, which I think really helps with taking more photos because I can have locations and I can look at it now with a creative eye. But I don't think I was born with a creative eye. I think that was developed.

Raymond Hatfield: 5:50

But that, first photo or that, yeah, let's go back to that lightning photo, you know, because today I look at some of your work and think to myself, he gets it, he sees it. You know, I know that when you go out, just by looking at your photos, I can tell that when you go out, you can easily visualize the scene and the photo that you want to take. So at some point that skill developed for you. If you think back to that first photo, was there any sort of thought process as far as composition or, anything, I guess, more advanced, or was it just simply, I'm going to go out, take a photo and just see what happens.

Justin Anderson: 6:25

Absolutely. No, no idea what I was doing. I just went down. I went down a gravel road and I set up my tripod on a nice safe spot that I could pull over and I just started clicking photos just constantly. And sure enough, that lightning strike happened. I did get a cool building in there. And like I said, I'll share it with you after the call. It is a really cool composed photo, but I didn't think of that at all when I was out taking photos. That wasn't my purpose. I was out saying I want a lightning strike and that was it.

Raymond Hatfield: 6:51

Yeah, and you got it and you got it. Yeah. So when you decided for yourself, you know what? I think i'm really gonna, take this seriously. Learn more about the art of photography and start taking, more photos like this. What was the hardest part for you? technically to nail when it comes to, photographing lightning or, the night sky, because you know, I know from experience that just, putting your phone or putting your camera on auto isn't going to do it. So what was the hardest part technically for you to learn there in the beginning?

Justin Anderson: 7:19

I'm pretty good with settings, so the settings itself were not hard. I was able to figure out the rules that you can follow, the rules that you can break a little bit, so those part wasn't, too hard. The editing process of these photos definitely comes in play, and I'm no expert in editing by any means, and I don't think anyone is, because there's so many different ways that you can edit a photo that just doesn't work. I can take a photo from three years ago and edit it again and it looks a lot better. So editing I think would be the really tough part that, everyone really struggles when it comes to the night sky. but yeah, I, say for the settings and focusing and stuff like that, it didn't really, I didn't struggle at all with that because I'm young and I understood most of that already. But when it came down to editing and just finding the location, that was really cool. I follow all the Big time photography accounts, the NASA accounts, all these really cool photography accounts, and I looked up to them, but I think that really struggled because I wanted their photos. I wanted to take something really cool. I wanted a cool desert or a nice old building, and I think you have to start off with just very little. Just start with just trying to capture the stars, and that's it. So I think you can jump too much into it too quickly, which could really harm your photography, push it back a little bit.

Raymond Hatfield: 8:33

Did you do that? Like right away? Were you trying to be too ambitious? Was there a time where you were too ambitious? And, you know, it definitely

Justin Anderson: 8:40

Definitely. I mean, when I first started out, I think I was a little bit too ambitious. I took a lot of photos and I, tried to get the best possible stars, the best Milky Way possible with the cheapest gear. So, and you still can, but I just, I think I pushed really hard, but, and I could have very easily burned out from that, but luckily I didn't. I, was able to push through, but, I think one of the big things that people struggle with night photography is uh, when you're out taking photos, like for example, I'm out chasing the northern lights. I get one or two of those. a month. So I only get to go out once or twice a month with my camera and learn. So really, in a matter of three years, you only get a few chances to use your camera throughout that time. Plus, it's minus 30 degrees Celsius out, so you don't want to be out in the cold. So really, the practice part really can be a problem, because the whole night is great practice, but when you get those photos back to your camera, onto your computer, it's really hard. That's when you get to look through them and go, these photos are really good. This is what I could have done differently. So that's one of the really hard parts of astrophotography is just that you don't have a whole lot of time. If you can get out for a full week during the new moon cycle, that's seven, that's only seven nights of taking photos, but during the day, you can get out anytime you want, really.

Raymond Hatfield: 9:57

That's interesting. I had never really considered that fact. I had always assumed. I'm not assumed, but you know, just kind of thought to myself, if you want to shoot at night, just go out and shoot at night. But you brought up an interesting fact there about, with it having to be new moon, that meaning that there's no moon in the sky. Correct.

Justin Anderson: 10:14

Correct. Yeah, you don't want any moon in the sky. It depends on what you're going for, like the photo behind me, there was a moon in the sky, but it wasn't very bright. But this is a different kind of, this is not pollution clouds, which don't really happen at night. They happen closer to astronomical twilight. So it depends on what you're photographing. But if you want stars, if you want really dark skies, you have to For one, get away from the bright cities. That could be an hour drive, depending where you are. It might be even more. You might have to drive three hours. I'm one of the lucky ones that only has to walk five minutes. But it really depends because you also don't want a moon in the sky. So any kind of moon can really drown out those stars, but it depends. You can still practice with the full moon. It's just not as enjoyable, really. So you really want no moon, no light pollution around, and that can be really difficult. You might get, you might go out Saturday night because that's your only night off, but it could be cloudy too. And then that means you miss the one night for the new moon, and you have to go for the next month. So practice can definitely be a problem when it comes to astrophotography, you just don't get enough of it.

Raymond Hatfield: 11:16

What is it about astrophotography that you love so much? Because during the daytime, you know, you don't have these challenges. It's not as cold. If the sun's out, that's actually a good thing. You can get more photos. So what is it about astrophotography that really sings to you?

Justin Anderson: 11:30

If I'm being honest to start off with, it was hard and I wanted, I didn't want just regular photos, sunset photos are cool, but people taking them with their cell phones. I was like, Oh, I want that photo. So when I started taking photos of the stars, I love that people looked up to him like, wow, that's really, I'd love to take a photo like that. So that was really my driving factor immediately was for one. I love the stars. I just have always enjoyed looking up with them. But for two, People looked at that and went, wow, that's really hard. He must be an expert. I'm an amateur. I'm not professional by any means. So that was my driving factor. And then now I just love learning about the night sky. I live for the night sky. I'm out almost every single night that it's clear and there's no moon. And I just love looking up at the stars. And I also love taking photos of cool buildings and cool stuff in Manitoba. My province is beautiful. Pretty boring. People think that Manitoba is the flatlands and it's really boring and there's nothing interesting here. But as you can see by the photo behind me, it's pretty gorgeous and I love showing that.

Raymond Hatfield: 12:31

Yeah, it's absolutely beautiful. It's funny. So I grew up, in like Northern California and it's very mountainous and it's, beautiful. And we have the ocean, not very far from us. And then at some point I moved out here to the Midwest in the U S and I realized right away, I was like, this place is flat. There's really not much going on here. but I think that, It's one of those like grass is always greener type situations, like no matter where you are, people from here are like, why would you move, from California? But I think having that perspective, there's a lot of things that once you stop and you look at it, you can really appreciate a lot more. Like one of my favorite things out here in the Midwest in the flatlands is just simply the clouds are entirely different than they are in a mountain range, where they're probably more drawn out and fluffy. So. I appreciate that, that view and that understanding that you have of the beauty of your location. So when it comes to the astrophotography of this, do you think that your photography benefits from your location? Do you think that you could do it differently? I don't want to say anywhere else, because you know, obviously you wouldn't be able to do it anywhere else. Down here in the States, we don't have the Aurora and whatnot as much as you do. So talk to me a little bit about that. Do you think that that played, I guess your location specifically, played a big part in you falling in love with the Aurora and wanting to capture it as well?

Justin Anderson: 13:53

I think a big part of it, I used to live, I've lived in Manitoba my whole life. I grew up here, I have family 30 minutes down the road, so I love Manitoba. But when I was, at the start of 2020, I actually moved to Alberta and I got to live in Alberta in the mountainous range. I got to go hiking and join the mountains and I lived there for about nine months. And then I finally moved back to Manitoba to be with my family and be closer. And also I love the mountains. I would love to go tomorrow for a trip to the mountains and enjoy takes cool photos, but Manitoba is just home to me. I love the prairies I love seeing the flatlands you don't realize how much of a pain mountains can be when you do a Three hour hike to get to a cool spot for your aurora to find out there's a mountain in the way You can't see them. So, definitely mountains help, but I love the flatlands. I absolutely love it here. when I lived in Alberta, I actually chased Comet NEOWISE for 12 days out of the three weeks that it was here, so, and that was working full time too, so I would I'd work from 7 a. m. to 4 p. m. From 4 to 7, I would have a nap. From 7 till 9, I would edit a photo, make some supper, make some snacks for the night, do whatever I needed to do, and then from 9 30 to about 4 o'clock in the morning, I'd be out taking photos of Neowise, and then I'd be up, and that's like from 4 to 7 again, and I'd be up the next morning at work. I did that for 12 nights. Like, I have that all documented as well on my website. But I did that for 12 nights total and I loved every minute of it. That was a huge part in making me a better photographer too because I got 12 nights of experience in one in a three week span That's huge. That's, yeah, that's unheard of. And the moon was a factor in a lot of the photos, but I did get really lucky with the new moon base with Neowise. And it really brought out, I got to get a flatland with prairies on one side of Alberta. I got the mountains on the other side. I got some really cool photos that I look back on and some great memories and some great lessons. And then now, even though I could go to the mountains and take photos and it's, It's a little bit easier because you have a great mountain and it's a little bit easier to find the foreground there. Here I just love finding those old buildings, those old locations that you post it and people go, wow, I know that location or that reminds me of home or that reminds me of my, growing up. So. I do love Manitoba for, it's a lot of history here too.

Raymond Hatfield: 16:19

Yeah. That's always a good feeling when you get, a little bit of, recognition for your photos and you can tell that it really means something to somebody. I want to go back to, going out in that crazy schedule that you just, laid out for me right there when it comes to capturing. did you say that it was a comment? Is that what it was?

Justin Anderson: 16:35

Yeah. Comment Neo.

Raymond Hatfield: 16:36

So with a comment. It's here, and then it's gone, right? It's a very, defined amount of time. How did you plan for something like that? Was there one photo, like a bucket list photo that you had, that you really wanted to get? Or was it an experiment, every single night?

Justin Anderson: 16:52

It was mostly an experiment. I started out with Comet NEOWISE because we have lots of comets that go by the Earth, but we don't really. I don't look at them because I don't have a telescope. I look at stuff with my naked eye rather than a huge telescope or a zoom in lens, which I'd like to down the road, but for now this is what I focus on. And I started seeing some photos of this comet neowise. It looked really cool. We haven't seen a naked eye comet in years. It's been, I think, 20 some years since we've seen something naked eye that was that bright. And I started seeing photos of comet neowise and I kind of just brushed it off as an, not cool comet, but Cool to see it come by. But then I started seeing photos of it pop up in 400 millimeters, then 300 millimeters, then 200 millimeters. Now I have 200 millimeters myself. I can take that photo. So then, 200mm, I saw that one and I was like, I'm gonna go out and take that photo. So I went out, started chasing the UIs, and I saw it for myself with my naked eye, and I was blown away. And then after that, I was in Manitoba for the first little bit of it, for the first three nights, and then I went back to Alberta. And a friend of mine was in Alberta, and we both said, there's a comment in the air, we cannot sleep. We can't miss any chance. So basically we just went anywhere possible. The one night in Alberta there was fantastic northern lights. The best northern light show of the year almost. And we went out, we went straight east because that's where the clouds said they wouldn't be straight west said it was going to be clouds, but west is mountains. East is flatlands, so we went to a beautiful barn set up ready to go and it was solid clouds and I have a time lapse of there. That's just all clouds. I had people calling me from Manitoba saying I've never seen the aurora this bright before. There's a comet. I can see it in the middle of the city. I had, we were seeing photos from west of Calgary of great aurora. Aurora, the comet, the noctilucent cloud. It was basically a bucket list shot and I missed it. And that night really haunts us because we went the wrong direction. But then that night we also got some good photos of comet NEOWISE on the highway and a really cool photo of the NEOWISE, the Aurora, and the comet. And, really cool leading lines into the shot, which is one of my favorite shots just because of the story. So, and then from there we went, west the next night because we wanted mountains this time. So we went west and sure enough we got a great photos of Neowise over a nice pond with a fire off in the distance. And then the next night we said, all right, where are we going to get away from the clouds? So we went north and then the next night we went to Waterton, which is about three hours one way. And we drove down there for just a single night and then came back that night. So yeah, we drove all over just trying to get as many cool foregrounds as we could, but mostly just the experience of being able to say, I chased that comet. I lived for that comet and just a great memory.

Raymond Hatfield: 20:21

Yeah, for sure. Those are great stories. I love stuff like that. So when it comes to I think astrophotography, tell me a little bit about more your style, because I'm thinking if somebody's listening right now, maybe they haven't gone to the show notes yet to check out your photos. They're thinking astrophotography, that's like, Galaxies that stars that's like deep space type stuff, full frame of just stars, but the photos that you're taking and you're talking about foreground and all that stuff. So tell me more about your style of astrophotography.

Justin Anderson: 20:50

Yeah, so my style of astrophotography is called landscape astrophotography. So my focus is not so much the stars, but more so the landscape around me. So a cool building, a beautiful lake, a pond, something to draw your eye to the photo. And my goal is not, is to, Not have the stars being the subject. I want my foreground to be the subject and stars are going to add to it When I first started out it was mostly just I let the stars do the talking I had a flat foreground and just barely a foreground and then just stars Then finally I realized that I want my foreground to do all the talking So that's why I focus so much on my foregrounds My style is I think unique to myself because when it comes to stars Either your foreground is too dark or your foreground is too bright. But then if your foreground is too bright, your stars are going to be trailing, your stars are going to be really noisy. So my entire goal behind it is to have a clean foreground as if that's what it would look like in person with your own naked eye, whether or not you have a little bit of light on to make it a little bit easier. But I don't want noise because your eyes don't see those noise. So I want a nice clean foreground, but then the sky, I want it to be exactly what it looked like. I tend to not stack any photos when it comes to the sky. this photo behind me is just one single photo of the sky. The foreground is 959 different photos. Whoa, I stack. I stopped for the foreground and I instead of stopping for the sky, which a lot of after photographers do the opposite. They stack the sky to get a lot of detail in the sky and a lot of very little noise. But then the foreground is just a single photo that they just stack in there. My style is just completely I want a clean foreground and I stopped for the foreground and then I'll paint the sky back in. But this is exactly how it looked. If I was to take a picture of the back of my camera at this time, This is the photo that you would have seen on the back of the camera, just not as, or a little bit more noisy.

Raymond Hatfield: 22:47

Why is that? You know, in a world where we, go online and try to watch YouTube videos and tutorials of, you know, whatever it is that we're interested in, in your case, astrophotography, if everybody's doing it the exact opposite way, what made you say, hold up, I'm going to do it this way instead and see if I like it?

Justin Anderson: 23:04

Well, it's just a little bit of practice and just experimenting. I learned this for this, stacking software or this, ability to stack in Photoshop for removing people in photos, just the median stacking. If you have a landscape and there's a bunch of people walking around, you take 100 photos, you, then you stack it and it'll remove the people because. They're not in every single photo. And then I just kind of started thinking that noise is very random. So I tried playing around with it. And I learned that stacking the photo the same way, but for a landscape, you get a really clear, crystal clean photo without any noise, because that noise is random. That noise is moving around like people would be. From there, I started playing around with it, figuring out, moving into light room, And I didn't beforehand and then stacking afterwards and then realizing that this really is a great tool, but then being able to go back into old photos, the reason that a lot of people take a very long exposure for this photo here, you might want to take a three minute long exposure, really low ISO to get very little noise, but a lot of detail in the foreground. I used to do that a lot. And sometimes I will, depending on my location and how. Most time I have, but I find a lot of the time I don't have time to do that. And if I forget to do that and I moved my camera before and I go, ah, shoot, I messed up now I have to make a composite out of that image. And that's not what I want. I want my image to be exactly what it looked like. So being able to use this method, I'm able to go back into old photos of old barns, I didn't take a long exposure photo for, and fix that foreground and have a really clean foreground, even though I never. took a foreground photo, I was only taking sky photos, but I increased the noise. And then I stock it to remove that noise.

Raymond Hatfield: 24:50

Wow. so just in case anybody's listening and is not aware, stacking is where you have a series of photos, you take one right after another. And then you bring those into Photoshop. You said you are your editor of choice, and then you can use all the information from all those photos to remove certain things, right? In this case, noise from your photos. So are you changing your ISO at all to change the amount of, your noise in the photos, or you're just shooting at the same ISO, but because you have so many photos stacked, Photoshop is able to find the clearest parts and then remove the noisy part of the noise.

Justin Anderson: 25:26

Yeah, exactly. I just leave the ISO, leave your exposure exactly as is, and then that's it. For this photo here behind me, I was taking constant one second long exposures because it was fairly bright out that night. But in those exposures, I didn't have any detail in that building behind me. There was no detail at all. It was just pitch black. You can barely even see it. So then afterwards, what I did after I was done taking photos, I took 20 second long exposures and I took eight of them. It was a little bit bright, but that was okay. And then it was still a little bit noisy. So then I stopped those eight exposures and then that gave me a really clean output of just the building. Then I had fireflies and all the lights you see on the ground there, they're fireflies. So I took every single photo from the night, which was 950 photos from that hour long session. And I stopped them. All of them into, just as a program called separator by stacking them. I was able to get all the lights of the fireflies and they showed up like star trails. They just continuously showed up wherever the light was. They were there, but then I really decreased the size of that photo. So I wasn't working with a 10 gig file and just completely downsize that file and move that into Photoshop. And that's 950 photos plus the photos for the foreground. I just brought in those. Fireflies for the light and that was it. And then the sky was just a single photo. So that is exactly what you would have seen there if you're sitting all night watching the sky. You'd see fireflies, you'd see that building, you'd see the reflection, and then you'd also see the nondualizing clouds in the sky as well as the sunset.

Raymond Hatfield: 27:00

So how much of your photos change dependent on the, scenario of that night, like of the situation of that night? Are you showing up and thinking to yourself like, Because I'm thinking of this firefly example that you're giving right here. I'm sure that you didn't show up thinking, Oh man, I'm going to get some pretty sweet fireflies here, like, tonight. Like, that's what it is that I want to capture. But it happened after the fact. So, I guess the question that I'm getting at here is, What percentage of your photos are reactionary versus pre planned?

Justin Anderson: 27:31

I pre planned for as much as I possibly can. I actually did know about fireflies because this is just down the road from my house. And I had gotten a photo of fireflies the night before. So I knew that they were coming out. They're starting to get into firefly season. And I actually was talking to a friend about how he wants fireflies in his photo so badly. So I wanted to So when I did set up for a foreground, of course, fireflies are the least of my concern. If I didn't get fireflies, it wasn't going to be the end of the world to me. My goal was those noctilucent clouds and creating a nice balance between the building on the side and then the reflection, but also keeping the sky being, adding on to the image because the sky is your, focus really. So once I got done, I saw the fireflies happening throughout the entire night. I was standing there enjoying it and seeing the fireflies buzzing around my face, and I knew that they were going to be great. And then that's when I started thinking, how am I going to get these fireflies into my final photo? there's things in the night sky, chasing the Aurora can be quite difficult sometimes because you don't know which direction to look. You start in the northeast, you end in the northwest. Well, I don't want, I have 15 millimeters that I can use, And sometimes 15 millimeters is just too much. It's just, it's too wide, you have too much sky, very little aurora, and it just really can be boring unless you have an amazing show. So I try to go into 24 millimeters or 30 millimeters and try to punch in just a little bit, but then you have the problems of what happens if something to your left, or the aurora starts dancing to your left. I tried not to move my cameras. I want to focus on that subject that I'm working with and if I miss it, I miss it and I enjoy it with my naked eye. so that's where I try to get, think about what could happen. I get one camera facing northeast, I get another camera facing northwest. There was actually a photo I got of Steve back in March, which is just a strong thermal emission and it's basically a force field between the aurora and no aurora. And I got a great foreground lined up and Steve happens basically straight west or straight east or straight above you. So it's a little bit more difficult to capture because you're not facing that direction. You want to face north, you want to get the cool show. So I had both cameras set up, one facing straight north and then the other one was actually facing straight northwest. But with a lot of blank space because I knew that Steve had potential to come back that night. He showed up earlier. So I knew there was a chance again. So I was like, I want to capture it if it happens. And I was able to capture Steve perfectly. It lined up with the image exactly how I wanted it. But if there was no Steve, then I would have gotten absolutely nothing. I would have missed a good portion of the show of the Aurora. So really, it's a matter of do you want to risk it? Or do you want to just go with a simple photo?

Raymond Hatfield: 30:13

Right. I guess that's why you got to do cameras, right? Just in case, exactly. I want a third. So, so I'm trying to do the math in my head here. And let's say, you know, for this photo right here behind you, you said that there's almost a thousand photos, stacked into this one shot right here. If you're shooting at like a one second exposure, I mean, even if you're, super optimized, for time and very efficient. That's almost 20 minutes of time right there. That's after you've created the composition. You've already set up the camera, your settings, you put up a tripod. Does that sound like a short amount of time to you? How long does it normally take for you to, okay, let me rewind. You show up to a location. What's the first thing that you look for?

Justin Anderson: 30:59

location. I hopefully have scouted it throughout the day. So I know what I'm looking at. I know that either I have permission to be there or I don't. So I have to sit on the road or I have to sit from wherever. So when I get to my location, I look at what I'm going to be photographing. In this case, this is facing northwest ish, more north than northwest. And I was looking at it and going, what do I want? What's my foreground is straight northwest almost. So I'm going to be focused on that. We're going with the building on the left. I'm on the right. There's actually a second building here just to the right of this one. So where do I want this? We're going both buildings. So that's when I kind of move around, look at it and see where do I want to set up the cameras and I'll take a quick test exposure and see how it looks from that spot. Move as I need to, but then line up the astrophotography is. Don't be in a rush. 20 minutes is actually really fast. I think I was at this location for both. Cool. 45 minutes to an hour. Oh, wow. So, I just simply sat there and enjoyed it. I just sat back. I always have a lawn chair with me. I just set up both cameras, let them take their photos, and then I sit back and enjoy it. I'll check them periodically just to make sure the settings are still good. exposure still looks good. I don't have to bump up any exposure or slow it down or anything like that. But then I just sit back and enjoy the show and I let the cameras just do their work because I've set them up, I don't want to be touching them a bunch and accidentally bump it and then things are off a little bit, so, yeah, I just sit back and enjoy the show. When I'm watching the Northern Lights, I set up both my cameras and then I just sit back and enjoy and I'll just watch. Which is the best way to do it.

Raymond Hatfield: 32:32

Yeah, I know. I bet. Having never seen, you know, the Aurora in person, I would imagine that it's an amazing sight to see. ask you then for, does the camera setup go? Because, it sounds to me, I'm assuming that you have some sort of timer, intervalometer. what's the purpose of that? Just to be able to have. A series of stacked images, is that it?

Justin Anderson: 32:54

Yeah. So one of the big things about nighttime photography is any motion is bad. So if you don't have a good tripod and it starts to move a little bit, your photo is wrecked. You can't use that photo. So you do not want any motion. So you want a good sturdy tripod. But another thing is you don't want to shake your camera. So if you have your camera, you have your hand on the button, the shutter and you press that shutter down, it might shake the camera just a little bit. So your stars are no longer sharp, or you might twist the camera just a little bit. And then your foreground moves just ever so slightly. And in that photo, it becomes blurry. So one of the big things I do is on my one camera, I have a remote always connected to it at all times it's connected and it's just wrapped around the camera. So when I need to, I just simply use that button, take the photo, but then it has a locking feature. A lot of people will set the, their photo or their camera's intervalometer to three seconds. And then every three seconds, it takes a photo. The photo is two and a half seconds. Then you have a half second buffer. I'm lazy. I just simply just press the button and it just locks into place. And it'll just take constant photos. Um, one reason for that is. I live in Canada, and battery life is awful in Canada, especially in the minus 30. So I just press that button and lock it in place, and it just goes. I don't need to worry about double A batteries with me at all times. So, if the batteries die, I know that the camera's still going to be taking photos, because it's just, it's a button, it's just a constant press. So that's on one camera and then my other camera, I have the same thing, but I don't leave it connected. I actually just have the internal intervalometer and I just tell it to constantly take its own photos. Just every one second, it'll just take another photo. So as soon as it stops, it takes that one. So that's what I do. I just leave them set up with their intervalometers, whether it's built in or whether it's external. And then let the photos just just go, whatever I capture is whatever I captured. And if the photo comes out bad and I have to move it, then so be it. I might move it two, three times in the night, depending on what I want to try. But I just, I love sitting back and enjoying the show kind of makes it more than just photography for me. And now I get to sit back and enjoy.

Raymond Hatfield: 35:00

Right. How do you know when you're done? I guess, cause essentially you could just let the camera run forever. Like what's that balance of getting enough photos and. Knowing when to pack it up and get into a warm car.

Justin Anderson: 35:14

Oh, that's, the million dollar question. I'm lucky to live in this area so I can just run home and be done sort of thing. So that's a, big question that the Northern Light Chasing is probably your hardest one because when it comes to Milky Way, You can go home at any point. The Milky Way is going to be there tomorrow. So it's really not the end of the world if you miss an hour. But if you miss an hour of Aurora, you don't know what you're missing and you might miss the best part of the show. So that really can be difficult. There are things like I watch the data, the data starts to drop off and it looks awful, then I'll start to pack up and go home. I also think about tomorrow because I do work Monday to Friday, eight to four. So like, this night I was up till 12 30. And I said, you know what? There's not to listen. Clouds are still happening, but they'll be out hopefully again tomorrow or the next day. I'm going to enjoy going to get out and to get photos then. And I got the best part of the show. I got the photo that I wanted. So I'm done Monday or Sunday night. I was up taking photos and it was a little cloudy, but not to lose the club road again. I got a really cool photo of an old barn sunset, all that. And I was actually at home. I was probably only taking photos for 10 15 minutes, because the clouds started to move in. And the Nautilus and Clouds are still out along the horizon, but I just said to myself, I have a million photos of these, do I really need these photos? Because, with not moving your camera around, I get one photo or two photos from a night, and that's it.

Raymond Hatfield: 36:38

Yeah.

Justin Anderson: 36:39

Because I'm stacking and I'm only taking one of the skies so Really out of a whole night of I might come home with two thousand three thousand photos I have three or four photos from that night and then the time lapse sequence. So if I don't move my camera if I don't have a different foreground lined up in that spot Then I start thinking about okay. I've got my one photo that i'm going to post on instagram or facebook That's my photo that I want. I've got enough for a time lapse and then i'm good. That's enough for me You

Raymond Hatfield: 37:08

Let's talk about how to best prepare for something like this, because I know that there's a lot, as you were mentioning, in terms of weather. There's obviously the gear that you gotta figure out, and just like knowing what are good conditions to be out in. So if somebody's just getting started, like, take me for an example, right? I don't, if I were to go out and take photos at night, I would, Just wait until tonight, and I would just go out and just hope for the best, right? Like, what are some ways that I can make sure that conditions are gonna be fair enough to be able to capture something, decent?

Justin Anderson: 37:42

You know, one of the big things is clouds. That's like the one thing everyone has to deal with. Unfortunately, if you can't see the sky, you can't take photos of it. So if you're chasing northern lights, if you're chasing an eclipse, whatever you might be chasing, you can't take photos of it if it's cloudy, unless you're chasing clouds and then you're in good shape. But no, if you're, if you want, the one thing you should really focus on is the clouds. You want to make sure that you're going to a location without clouds. There's apps to give you a good idea. But the best way to tell is just in person and team that there's clouds. I've had plenty of, like, in the comet chase, I, clouds said they were going to be clear to the east and I went east, and it was cloudy, so, that can really mess you up quite a bit. But, clouds are, the forecast for clouds is one of your big ones. If you're going, uh, to take photos of the sky or the stars, whatever you might be, you kind of want to get away from the moon. A little bit of moonlight isn't the end of the world, so on the coming off the first quarter moon, on either waxing or raining, that's a really good time to go because a little bit of moonlight will light up your foreground, but it doesn't drown out the stars too much. But no moon at all will be really dark skies, wherever you go. Another location you want is you want to find a spot with no Bright lights. So in this case, I'm about 30 minutes out of town in this photo here, and I don't want bright lights to the north because that would drown out the dark skies. So I keep the bright lights to myself. They're behind me. If I'm facing north, my target's to the north, my bright lights are to the south. If I'm shooting the Milky Way, which is to the south, my bright lights are to the north behind me. So that's one of the big things this is about.

Raymond Hatfield: 39:21

So how, like, about how far away do we need to be? You know, I mean, is there some sort of like standard rule?

Justin Anderson: 39:26

The further the better, um, but unfortunately that that can't happen sometimes. You can get to a dark sky preserve and there's a scale. It's called Bortle scale. There's Bortle 1, which is incredibly dark skies, and then Bortle 9, which is middle New York, middle Winnipeg. So you don't want to be in Bortle 9 and I, if I was out taking photos, I'd be wanna, I'd want to be away from Bortle. Portal 4 or less. So 4, 3, 2, 1 would be your locations. It's very rare to get into Portal 1 just because of how bright city lights are getting. Even the small little communities are really taken away from the dark skies. So Portal 1 is quite difficult. For me to get to Portal 1, it's about three hours. But my backyard's in Portal 3, Portal 2, and that's more than enough to take photos of the sky. So the further away you can get, and there's maps online. If you look up the maps, Dark Sky map finder, you'll be able to see exactly your location and how bright the city lights are. And how far they span, but if you go and look the further away the better So even if you can get away 30 minutes outside of the city It's still going to help and it's still going to get you some practice But it might not be as much as you would get if you're an hour away from the city And it depends on how bright the city is if you're in new york It might need to go for a bit more of a drive than if I was in Brandon, like my hometown, for example, which is a lot smaller.

Raymond Hatfield: 40:45

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that you said dark sky map there, I'm going to be sure to link that in the show notes, because I wouldn't have any idea how to measure, the night sky on my own. So I'm glad that there's other people who do stuff like that, so that we can just figure that stuff out on our own. Let's talk about gear a little bit here. It's not something that we talk about very often, but you know, in, in a specialty like this, there's always going to be questions. I know that there's always a, debate over full frame crop sensor, zoom prime, you know, what sorts of settings. So can you walk me through what you have found to work for you as far as camera and lenses?

Justin Anderson: 41:24

What works for me is whatever camera I can get my hands on. So I always like to tell people that the best camera is the one in their hands in their hands Whether that's a DSLR, whether it's mirrorless or whether it's your cell phone, I've been out taking photos and my cameras are set up and I'm enjoying the show, but I want to take a photo to post to our Facebook or keep people in the loop. This is what I'm seeing. So quite often I'll just take my phone, set it on my extra tripod or press it up against my boot and Put pro mode on it and take a simple photo. And I had someone ask, we'll find a print off that of that photo, even though it wasn't even edited of any kind to know, sorry, that's on my cell phone, better quality photos, but photos on your cell phone are fantastic. the cell phones are getting really good, especially ones within the past two or three years, I would say absolutely get out. You can take photos of them. So, the gear that I have, I stuck with Canon. I have a Canon 6D Mark II. And then a Canon 6D Mark I. I like them both because they are identical bodies. Uh, the buttons on them are absolutely identical between the two. The only physical difference is one has a flip out screen, the other one is a fixed screen. So when I'm out in the middle of the night, I don't have to worry about which button I'm pressing, because I know them, like, back of my hand. Both buttons are identical. I just press them. Press the view button and whatnot. I have a few different lenses. I've got a Tamron 15 to 30 F2. 8. I've got a 24 millimeter F1. 4. I've got a 50 millimeter F1. 8. And I love using them all. The Tamron is fantastic, but it is a 1, 500 lens. So it is a bit of a killer on the budget, but it is fantastic when it comes to corners and just how sharp the corners and the stars are. And it's really nice having the, ability to go between 15 and 30, depending on what you're shooting. But I absolutely love the 50 millimeter and the photo behind me is taken on the cannons nifty 50 for 150.

Raymond Hatfield: 43:15

Wow.

Justin Anderson: 43:15

That's

Raymond Hatfield: 43:16

awesome.

Justin Anderson: 43:16

And I've got some amazing photos. I've actually been posting a lot of photos on my Instagram of the nifty 50 of what I've been taking with it just to show that 150 lens on a, 8, 900 camera. Take some fantastic photos. really, it depends on what, what you want to use. I would recommend getting a prime if you can, just cause they're a little bit better when it comes to night sky, but stick away or get F 2. 8 or wider. Try to stay away from F4s, especially if your camera is one of the lesser bodies, just cause you want wide aperture, which will really help because you can't push your ISO.

Raymond Hatfield: 43:52

So when it comes to, the lenses, it seems like everything that you mentioned there, was pretty wide. Oh, wow. Look at this two episodes in a row. My phone has gone off, even though it's on silent. Something's going on here. Okay. I apologize for that. So you mentioned there though, most of your lenses are definitely on the, uh, wider scale there. Is that, specific to landscape astrophotography?

Justin Anderson: 44:16

Definitely like I want to keep my landscape involved. So when I use full frame, so when I'm shooting at 24 millimeters, it's quite wide, but it's good for the sky. I want to be able to capture the Aurora. I have an 85 millimeter. I have a 120 to 400, but those tend to stay in my bag a lot more often because 85 millimeters doesn't really look great when it comes to Aurora. You can't get the cool structure in there. It's pretty much just all green. So when it comes to my style landscape, I want to get 24 millimeters, 15 millimeters. I want to capture that building, as well as, the sky and have enough room that you can still see the giant band of the Aurora or the giant pillars, depending on what I'm capturing. So I definitely try to stick wider than 50 millimeters. I do want to get a 35 millimeter F 1. 4 just to play around with. but anything wider than 50 millimeters is kind of my, my forte, my favorite.

Raymond Hatfield: 45:09

Let's talk about, We all love gear. We all love buying gear. Has there ever been a piece of gear that you were like, I have to have this. This is gonna make my photos so much better. And then at the end of the day, it didn't really contribute to anything. Maybe you don't even use it anymore.

Justin Anderson: 45:25

I'd say remote shutter. I have two of them and I only use one for my Canon 16 Mark one just because I don't really, it doesn't have a built in intervalometer, but the intervalometer for my 16 Mark two is built in and I use it all the time. That's my main source of intervalometer. So I have two intervalometers in my bag. I only use one of them because I have to. I think that's one of the things if your camera has a built in, just use what you have. tripods, I wouldn't spend$700-$800 on a tripod. I've got a few of the 100 or 50 tripods from Amazon and they're fantastic. I do have a $200 or 300 tripod now that I absolutely love, but tripods, I would just get something that's sturdy. You don't need to spend a million dollars on your tripod. other than that, a nice red light for at night, you want a headlamp and with a nice red light on it because red will make your eyes, It keeps your night vision. White light makes your eyes clamp down, and then you have to readjust as soon as you turn the light off. But if you have red, you can still see at night, and look up at the stars, and you can still see with ease what's happening in the night sky.

Raymond Hatfield: 46:28

Oh, that's awesome.

Justin Anderson: 46:30

Yeah, so red light is definitely your best friend in night sky.

Raymond Hatfield: 46:33

And they have, like, headlamps with red lights inside? I love that. I'm gonna have to check it.

Justin Anderson: 46:38

Most headlamps out there have that red light built in and people don't realize what it's for, but it's for your, your night vision. Not necessarily just for nighttime photography, but anything if you're running around at night and you need a little bit of light, but you also don't want to lose your night vision, that little red light is really handy.

Raymond Hatfield: 46:54

Right. One of my favorite movies growing up was the hunt for red October. And I always remember there was some scene, I don't remember exactly what the scene was, but it was just like the whole, everything within the submarine was like red. And I remember asking like my stepdad at the time, like, why, why wouldn't they use just like white lights? And that's pretty much what he said. He was like, Ooh, yeah, no, that can really screw up your eyes. You know, using the red light really helps. So that's good to know that, I guess when you're out, in this sort of, condition and you're, really trying to get work done as far as your camera goes, you're not going to screw anything up there. So I got another question for you here. And that is when it comes to, astrophotography, I want to know what is it? What is it that you love more about it? is it the getting out? And just shooting or is it the final product?

Justin Anderson: 47:38

The getting out definitely the final product is just icing on the cake I love being able to share my final photos and say look what I captured But getting out is the best part if I didn't enjoy getting out. I wouldn't be doing this most nights I just especially setting up your camera and being able to just Set it up and enjoy the night. That's why I focus on that so much is because I get to enjoy my night sky and I get to see it for myself. When i'm involved with a lot of people on nights that the northern lights are out or whether or not there's not Fluorescent clouds whatever might be out My goal is to enjoy it for myself. I wanna be off my phone as much as possible. I don't wanna be sitting behind a camera going, oh, this is a perfect shot. I want to sit back and enjoy it. I want a time lapse of it that night.'cause I can go back and watch it and go, oh, I remember that. I, I remember seeing that part dance and really cool parts. But then I just enjoy sitting back and enjoying it. So I would definitely say that the chase itself, the seeing new locations, the being able to try out new things is great. But just enjoying it and sitting back and going, this is my life. I get to sit and watch the stars. A lot of people wish they had that. I get to watch the northern lights multiple times a month and just enjoy it.

Raymond Hatfield: 48:50

I bet there's a lot of people listening right now thinking, I wish I could do that. That sounds wonderful. Justin, is there anything that I, didn't ask you today that you want to make sure that people know or understand fully about astrophotography?

Justin Anderson: 49:05

Yeah, I would say that there's so many people out there that do it, they don't realize they're out there. I can speak for Canada just because that's where I'm from, but when it comes to Northern Lights especially, or the astrophotography groups. Canada has different locations and different Facebook groups. Facebook is your best friend when it comes to it. There's Art of Night Photography groups, there's Astrophotography and Milky Way photography groups. There's so many groups out there that they're made to help you learn. When it comes to Northern Lights, I run a group called Manitoba Aurora Astronomy and our entire purpose is to let people know that there's stuff happening in the night sky. If the Northern Lights are happening, we keep people up to date so that they see that the Northern Lights are out. Well, I'll actually post saying, hey, Northern Lights look really good tonight. I would recommend going out and the entire comment section on that post, which we call a trend. Is filled with people saying, I'm at someone's location and this is what I'm seeing. I'm at someone's location. Oh, did you guys just see that really bright meteor? So we try to keep people up to date, especially with the Aurora, not so much with night sky for threads, just because, you know, it's kind of consistent with night skies

Raymond Hatfield: 50:09

every

Justin Anderson: 50:09

single night for Aurora. It's a little bit more, we keep people up to date and we're talking the entire time and I'll say, you know, I'm sitting at home right now and Oh, I think it's time. I'm going to go for a drive. The data is looking really good. There's Manitoba, Aurora, Astronomy, Saskatchewan, Aurora Hunters, Alberta, Aurora Chasers. There is Great Lakes, Aurora Hunters, I think it is, and there for the Great Lakes in Canada and the U. S. That's a great area, uh, around Michigan, I believe. And there's so many different groups out there. Once you move further down into the southern states, there are a lot of astrophotography groups. But look for your locals, most states, most provinces have their own photography groups of astrophotography, and they're filled with a lot of knowledge.

Raymond Hatfield: 50:49

Yeah, I bet, you know, people definitely more knowledgeable than I for sure, and I'm sure that, correct me if I'm wrong, are groups like this typically pretty welcoming of new people who are, you know, just trying to get started into something like this? If somebody's listening and they want to learn more about it, would this be a good place for them to start? Sure.

Justin Anderson: 51:07

Absolutely. The groups there, they all they want is people to learn and follow their passion as well. I know for me, if someone posts in the group saying, Hey, I'm looking at getting a camera. Well, I'm first one in there saying this is what I recommend. This is this is what I would do. Personally, if someone's asking questions, we actually have guides in our group that will have all your questions answered. So your, quick little frequently asked questions are in there. If you want to learn more about how to take photos, photos. There's a full guide on how to take photos of the night sky in there. If you want to learn how to chase the northern lights and how to actually predict them for yourself, there's full guides on how to understand that there from a beginner to an intermediate. I have that all on my website as well. So our whole purpose is that we want our community to grow. And if you, We're trying to keep everyone included. I have so many people, whether it's people in their late 50s, 60s, or whether it's someone, I have, I know someone who's 15 just down the road from me, who's learning all about, chasing the Northern Lights. And he's actually messaged me multiple times saying, Hey, get out, look, they're out. And he's beat me to it. So, uh, there's so many people out there that are, just a wealth of knowledge and are, willing to teach too. So, and it's great to see people get involved because the more people that can get involved, more people that can help newcomers and then that the hobby gets to grow and there's nothing better than maybe another photographer out at night when you're out taking photos.

Raymond Hatfield: 52:27

Yeah, no, that is fun. It's always the camaraderie there is always great. Justin, before I let you go, you know, I got to say thank you obviously for coming on and sharing as much as you did. This has been a great chat. I can tell that you're very passionate about this. I came through in the interview. For those listening who are thinking the exact same thing right now, where can they find you online and see some of your work?

Justin Anderson: 52:49

No, for sure. My photography is all my name. So it's Aurora and then J. Anderson. You can find me on instagram at Aurora J. Anderson twitter. It's Aurora J. Anderson on facebook that was taken. So I've used Aurora Justin Anderson. So that works as well. you can find me on the on Facebook at, the Manitoba Aurora Astronomy. You'll see me posting there a ton just because I'm the one that created that group. But Aurora J, Aurora Justin Anderson on Facebook is the one where you can find me. My website is AuroraJAnderson. com. So feel free to go there. You can check out all my photos. You can ask a lot if you're interested in buying a print. I also have a lot of blogs about what you can expect for the night sky each month, as well as so you a my comet chase I have that entire thing recorded so you can read through it and see the photos I took throughout the entire sequence of all 12 nights and how I struggled with that sometimes and then the entire battle a lot of videos are on there as well and I'm working on putting up some more tutorials on how I edit as well as I have lessons coming up so if you actually want a one on one lesson with me, Bye. Learning how to take photos with your own camera. Those are coming up here as well soon. And then, lots of information on Aurora chasing as well. So if you're either going up North or you live, I'd say in the Northern states or anywhere in Canada, really, and you want to learn how to chase the Northern lights for yourself, there's tons of information from beginner levels to intermediate levels there.