Colorful sunset

Here are two views of last nights sunset from our backyard, both taken with my Galaxy Note 4's camera with different white balances.  The shadows on the upper clouds caught my attention first and you can see them change over the 5 minutes or so between the two shots.  You can also see virga from the clouds below.  I am almost spoiled by the extra processing that my cell phone camera can do even before the images are stored compared to what I might need to do after the shot with my "real camera".  According to the image information, the exposures were f/2.2, 1/121 seconds, 4.8mm focal length and ISO 40 for the first image and f/2.2, 1/30 seconds, 4.8mm focal length and ISO 64 for the 2nd exposure.  I think the first was in auto white balance and both used HDR mode for the exposure.

Lightning over Tucson

I watched a nice lightning storm over the Tucson area tonight after sunset.  Lightning appeared over Oro Valley and Mount Lemmon while it was mostly clear overhead on Kitt Peak.

 This image is looking over Oro Valley, in the general direction of Biosphere 2.  Twilight was still heavy when I took this exposure.  The exposure is 2 second at f/4, ISO 1600 with my 70-200mm f/2.8L lens at 70mm focal length.

Looking over Tucson with the Tucson Mountains in the foreground and the Catalina mountains behind them.  A few strokes of lightning hit near the summit of Mount Lemmon with lots of other activity overhead.  This image was a 30 second exposure at f/8, ISO 800 with my 70-200mm f/2.8L lens at 100mm focal length.

Venus and Jupiter dancing in the evening sky

As Venus and Jupiter were getting very close together this past week, it's been cloudy in Tucson and I only got a brief hazy glimpse of them about 5 days ago.  Tonight on my way home, though, I was treated to the pair dancing in the western sky as well as the Moon rising in the east.  When I got home, I pulled out my Canon 70D along with my 70-200 f/2.8L lens and took some shots.  Here, I've backed the lens off to 70mm focal length to get the surrounding trees and stars.  A little adjustment in the GIMP brought out more details in the sky and a bit of sharpening helped show off structure in the trees.  This exposure was at 70mm focal length with an exposure of 2 seconds at f/5.6, ISO 1600.