More Nightscape Metal Prints Delivered to Lemon Tree Gallery for Spring Show. New BIGGER sizes.

 More Metal Prints delivered this weekend to the Lemon Tree Gallery for the upcoming spring show. Yall come visit in Cpae Charles Virginia!

JBOTV Nightscape Online Gallery

Lemon Tree Gallery Cape Charles Virginia

Shadowpainting Nightscapes

 

“  S  H  A  D  O  W  P  A  I  N  T  I  N  G ”

N i g h t s c a p e s 

A technique that is a variant of light painting that I have been developing is something I call “Shadowpainting”. This unique backlighting technique enables the creation of deep contrasting shadows and depth in a scene by utilizing RGB lights, light poles, and a wireless control system where the photographer can preview and instantly control the shutter speed, ISO, and aperture remotely. Shadowpainting also consist of the photographer “Colorscapeing” the Nightscape scene by utilizing a complementing color scheme to the subject being filmed. 

Basic equipment: A mobile RGB LED with long light pole, a camera that can be controlled through a smartphone/wifi. Most recent DSLR’s will have wifi as well as a downloadable app that will enable remote control of the camera. One can use wifi or Bluetooth, however you will get better range with wifi and that is what I always use.

The actual equipment I used with these shots is a Cannon 200D/SL2, GVM RGB 7s light, monfrotto tripod and a Samsung 10s smartphone that is used to operate the camera remotly while filming and repositioning the lights.

Step 1 FINDING A SCENE

First locate the scene you want to film. Desirable targets for me usually are historic in nature. It is also good to select a subject that has some object behind and to the side of the selected subject. This could be trees, or just about anything really. It is the objects that surround the foreground subject that you will create most of your deep and best contrasting shadows. An example of a subject that would NOT make for good shadowpainting would be a small barn sitting in the middle of a field with nothing around it. This would make for a nice light painted scene however not so much for shadowpainting.

A good example of Shadowpainting from behind the subject

Important tip: One thing you want to look for in determining a scene is to try and find a subject that you can place your light inside of your subject. For example, a car, a boat, a small abandoned house, etc. Finding a subject like this will allow you to film from the inside shooting your light outside, usually through a doorway or window. This also will let you expand you colorscape because you can choose what color to paint the interior with, here again is where the complementary color match comes into play. What I did was have a color wheel guide on my cell phone and reference it often when deciding the color palate to use.

Subjects like this REALLY come to life when shooting from the interior. These are the type of subjects I look for the most. They are not always possible to find, but worth the search and time to find them.

These are two good examples of painting from the interior shooting out to the exterior bringing life to the scene.

A)    Once you have found the scene you want to Shadowpaint, find the best composition and figure the placement of the camera, this is done during the day. It is important to do this step during the day because you need to scout out the area you will be positioning with the RGB light and determining areas that you can backlight the main subject, or subjects in the scene. When you find the locations to film to the side and behind the foreground subject, mark them during the day, just be sure you can remember where they are so at night you can easily find them.

B)     The other reason to do this planning during the day is because you will need to determine your color palate or “Colorscape” for which you will paint with. Here you can decide what color you want the main subject to be, then determine complementary colors for the scene. Remember what colors you decide during the day, that takes the guessing out during the night.

 IMPORTANT

If not on public property, ALWAYS get permission to film at the location you want to shoot. NEVER take for grantit that it is ok to film, get permission first.

Note: Basically, with proper planning, there is little to no guess work regarding the composition and lighting at night. Once on location, the only real adjustment you may want to make will be minor adjustment with camera placement. Once you are on location and ready to film and everything is set, SUPER lock down the camera on the tripod so it cannot move at all.

Step 2

As soon as it is astronomical twilight or night, turn on the camera and smartphone. Wirelessly connect the two and open the camera app so you can control the camera from the phone. Now set your proper exposure and aperture and iso based on the available natural light in the scene. Once the settings are where you think they should be, fire off several test exposures without any lighting. Check to make sure the tripod/camera is level, examine your test exposures carefully. Once satisfied, now it is time to start Shadowpainting.

Now remember, you already have the colorscape design figured out, so you really can move pretty fast capturing the exposures.

A good example of finding a subject that you can shoot from the interior, creating a lot of life to the scene.

How to Shadowpaint?

Here are some important tips. For one, take your RGB light attached to the light pole and start by filming behind and to the side of the foreground subject. ½ of the exposures should be facing away from the foreground subject. The remaining exposures film to the back side, and side of the foreground subject. Use your smartphone to trigger the camera and view the scene remotely.

If you want a brighter light in certain exposures, simply decrease shutter speed.

Here is a range of shutter speeds I use, and ISO is usually always set to 100. Usually f2.8 Aperture.

4 sec  6 sec  8 sec  10 sec 15 sec 20 sec & 30 sec

(TIP: If you need to start shooting before it is night, but close, you can raise the aperture which will allow you to decrease your shutter speed so you can start light painting. I have had to do this sometimes when I have a time limit of where I have been given permission to film, like parks for example.)

While selecting shots you will want to position the RGB light in different angels, like turning the light pole down so the RGB light is just setting off the ground. This will create fantastic shadows. If there are trees behind the foreground subject, definitely extend the pole and take exposures facing away from (Or behind) the subject. Also take the pole and extend the light into the various tree limbs and take exposures towards the foreground subject, the side, as well as behind. If there are trees and shrubbery behind a subject I am shooting, usually I will take between 8 to 15 exposures just in that area.

Next move to the sides of the foreground subject and light the subject with the selected pre chosen color, take exposures towards the subject as well as away. Keep in mind to vary the height of the light from right on the ground, to as high as the light pole will extend. By extending the light pole to it’s fullest and holding the pole above my head at arms length, I get a reach with the RGB light of over 15 feet. Many times I will take the light and extend it far deep into the trees that are behind the foreground subject. Doing so, will take several exposures while repositioning the light. This creates fantastic deep shadows behind your foreground subject. Think of the light pole as a tool that will enable you to put the light in places that normally would be difficult to do.

NEVER shadowpaint directly head on in front of the camera facing the subject. ALWAYS film from the sides and behind. At most facing the front of the subject, you will want to paint at the quarters on both sides of the subject.

Preview the exposures in the camera but be sure not to move the camera in anyway.

How many exposures to take? That totally depends on the subject and scene. Depending on the size of the subject I will film anywhere from 10 to 120 exposures. Usually the higher number of exposures is due to the size of the scene. The bigger the scene, than usually the more exposures are necessary. On average, I will shoot between 40 to 80 exposures. Creating the shadows takes more exposures because your basically shooting at least two or three addition exposures ( facing away and behind the subject) than one would ordinarily do with standard light painting techniques.

Once you have completed all your main exposures, shoot some safety shots using a flashlight to paint some of the areas that you may fear you have missed. Once in a while, I will use one of the exposures in the final edit. They are good to have.

NOTE: Remember because you are using a RGB light, you can use the colors and positioning to bounce light off the ground or subjects, to help direct the viewers eye of where you want them to focus on. This is a handy thing to remember when composing the shot. In the field I have a few times almost given up on the composition because I just could not frame it the way I wanted, then only to realize I can use lighting to direct the viewers eye in the scene, this has saved me on more than one shoot.

In Post

Once back to post processing, import all images into a script in Photoshop, then highlight all layers, blend in lighten mode. Then go through one layer at a time, adding a layer and adjusting opacity, and any color adjustments. Camera RAW Filer is my go-to. There are plenty of online tutorials on how to stack layers should you not be familiar.

Also as you go through the layers use a layer mask to mask out anything unwanted like the lights themselves. Also be carefull to look at each layer and see if the light is effecting parts of the image that you dont want it to do. If it is, then mask it out.

Once you adjust all the layers in Photoshop, flatten the image. Now you will make final global adjustments like brightness and contrast. Also this is where you can look at the image and if there are some colors you want to pop more, (saturate or de saturate) Use the camera RAW filter and use the color mixer.

At this point, wrapping up, look at the image and see if there is any effects you may want to add such as light rays, fog, lens flair, etc. If you are not familiar on how to do these things, just google online free tutorials using photoshop on youtube.

Shadowpainting is a great tecknique for a lot of subjects and is something I also do on a lot of foregrounds in my Milky Way filming. For filming lanscape Milky Way images (widefield) I use a Ioptron Sky Tracker Polar Aligned, usually with an 11-16mm Tokina Lens wrapped with a lens muff.

All the best, good luck and clear skies.

Godspeed,

Jim Baugh

Jim Baugh Outdoors TV

jbotv@outlook.com

Examples

An example of a Shadowpainted foreground with an astro shot composited. 25 foreground exposures shot at 11mm, 3 background exposures shot at 320mm. Notice the white light coming out of the hatch. An example of extending the light pole to its fullest, inserting the RGB light through the hull of the boat and positioning it inside under the hatch with the light pointing outwards. This was a real shot, the moon did rise right over the wrecked boat, and it was that color. The full moon over Oyster VA/Atlantic Ocean Halloween night 2020

A good example of bouncing a blue light on the ground to direct the viewers focus to the tractor at the top left of the image.

Tangier Island Chesapeake Bay November 2020 Docks and Milky Way, foreground was 35 exposures, Milky Way Single 5 minute exposure tracked.

An example of having to start filming at a higher F stop to reduce light, so the exposure time could be increased. This shot started at around 1-2 second exposure. Then the F stop was decreased and exposure lengthened as the scene became darker. I did this because there were street lights getting ready to turn on that would kill the scene, so had to work fast and cheat the light at the beginning of the shoot. Good thing to know!

Jim Baugh pre scouting and ready to film at the National Wildlife Refuge Eastern Shore of Virginia
November 4, 2020

jbotv@outlook.com

Check out

The Mlky Way Galaxy Our Home Short Film

Winner of 5 awards

Milky Way and Nightscapes by Jim Baugh

Digital Prints Available

This pic is a good example of using the light pole to position the RGB light in places that usually would be very difficult to do.

Jim Baugh repositioning the RGB light shadowpainting a nightscape in Magothy Bay.

Digital Prints Here

"The Milky Way Galaxy, Our Home" short film. Updated 11/4/24 / Winner of 5 awards and in over 12 Film Festivals Worldwide

Online Nightscape Gallery Click Here

Watch MWGOH Short Film HERE

Jim at Experimental Film Virginia Festival 2019

*** 

ANNOUNCEMENT 7/4/24: JBOTV is proud to announce that our short Milky Way film has been selected for the Wide Screen Film and Music Video Film Festival

ANNOUNCEMENT 5/21/22: JBOTV is proud to announce that our short Milky Way film has been selected for the Panama Series Festival 2022

ANNOUNCEMENT 2/4/21: JBOTV is proud to announce that the Milky Way Galaxy Our Home As Seen From The Eastern Shore has now been selected for the NAFCo Short Film Festival. The North Appalachian Film Collective for this winter festival had over 1,800 film entries, those selected represented around 15%, of which these selected films will be shown during the festival from Feb 26-28^th. This is a special selection for our film and our production company, marking now the 8^th film festival our short has been featured in. Today with this announcement the Milky Way Galaxy Our Home has now been playing in festivals coast to coast for it’s 3d year and has so far won awards in Cinematography, Editing, best Soundtrack, and Best Experimental Film.

This selection has also made the Milky Way Galaxy Our Home one of the most selected films on FilmFreeway. We have more announcements out soon regarding our short film as well as our Astrophotography plans and goals for 2021 out soon.

Thank you and Godspeed.

Jim Baugh

JBOTV

Announcement 6/10/20  We just got notice; our little Milky Way Film on the Eastern Shore has won the best in Experimental Film Category in the Madras Independent Film Festival in India. Many thanks! This is now the 4^th award the film has received, the other three were from the Southern Shorts Film Festival USA for Cinematography, Editing, and Music. This has all been such an honor and look forward to the festivals over the summer. Now off to Wachapreague next week to film the last of the New Moon for prime Milky Way Season. Cheers. JB

Announcement 6/6/20 We are pleased our short film has been selected for film festivals from coast to coast and garnished awards in Cinematography, Music, and Editing. Now our little Milky Way film from the Eastern Shore of Virginia has been selected in the Madras Independent Film Festival in India. WOW!

Submitted to Sundance Film Festival

Submitted Timelapse Film Festival LA 2020

Announcement 5/11/20 “The Milky Way Galaxy Our Home as seen from the Eastern Shore” has been selected for the Si-Fi Film Festival in Oregon and will play at the Moonlight Theater September 18-19^th 2020. This will be the fifth film festival this short film has been selected for and has won three awards for Cinematography, Editing, and Music. Much appreciate all the kind comments and wonderful response this short film has received. It also has been very cool to share these new dark sky sites on the Shore across the USA! It has also been great meeting all the filmmakers at these various festivals our film has been selected for. Lots of great talent out there! Godspeed, JB

Announcement 12/17/19 “The Milky Way Galaxy Our Home” as seen from the Eastern Shore has been selected to be featured in the 2020 Ocean City Film Festival. This will be the fourth festival for our short film. Very exciting an honored. JB 

More pics and video clip at bottom of post

Announcement 10/14/19: JBOTV, Mermaid Bay Productions LLC and Mermaid Bay AIR is proud to announce that our short film “The Milky Way Galaxy Our Home” as seen from the Eastern Shore has won three (3) awards of merit in the Southern Shorts Film Festival Fall 2019. The awards are for the Documentary Category.

Music

Cinematography

Editing

We would like to thank the judges for this honor and looking forward to attending the festival. Godspeed, Jim Baugh.

****
Announcement 9/5/2019: “The Milky Way Galaxy Our Home” as seen from the Eastern Shore short film has been selected for the First Time Filmmakers Showcase Film Festival. Finalists will be screened at Pinewood Studios UK and Raleigh Studios in Hollywood California. The live Lift Off Film Festival will be seen in 11 major cities worldwide. Festival runs from Oct 13-20 2019 the general public can vote online for their favorite film showcase. Click Here

****

"Milky Way Galaxy, Our Home"

Short film premiered June 29,2019
Experimental Film Virginia Festival
Held at the Palace Theater

Filmed at 4 dark sky locations on the Eastern Shore of Virginia ranging from bortle class 1-4 Produced by JBOTV, Mermaid Bay Media Productions LLC and Mermaid Bay AIR

“Nicely done Jim. Congrats! I enjoyed the film. The soundtrack worked perfectly. Great work!”

                       ~ Jae Sinnett

Jazz Radio Host/Producer Sinnett In Session/The R&B Chronicles WHRV FM - Music Educator/Drummer/Composer at WHRO Public Radio

“It came out really good!!  Congrats on those sweet time lapses.  I like that Redbank spot, I might have to check that out”

                                                 ~ Mike Eversprill “Milky Way Mike”

National Geographic, Weather.com, Stargazer, Photography Week digital magazine.

“Are you kidding me! Magnificent! Too cosmic! Humbling! Powerful and moving. And. I see you are the composer as well! A simply stunning film. Congratulations on your masterpiece.”

                         ~ Musician Peg Volk

“Wow beautifully done and the music is perfect. Double congrats!!!”

                                        ~ Pianist, Earnest Mathewson

It was a great evening and film festival!

***

ANNOUNCEMENT:

6/30/19

 Jim Baugh Outdoors TV special short film project 2019 titled “The Milky Way Galaxy, Our Home” as seen from the Eastern Shore of Virginia was selected and premiered at the Reel & Raw Film Screening presented by Experimental Film Virginia on June 29th at 7:30 pm in Cape Charles Virginia. This short film features four dark sky locations on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Each shooting location was carefully selected from satellite maps and was researched to enable the best camera view of the Milky Way path from solar midnight to astronomical twilight. Over 20,000 images were captured to create a total of 4 Milky Way Time-lapse. Aerial film was also produced of the selected locations and produced by Mermaid Bay AIR. The theater sold out, standing room only and the festival was a huge success.

You can preview the film below

on JBOTV Youtube Ch.

Also on Vimeo

IFO's (Identified flying objects) in the film include:

Fireflies, airplanes, satellites, meteors, and two passes of the International Space Station traveling at 17,500mph.

PRODUCTION GOAL AND DESIGN

GOAL : When I first thought of the possibility of finding some dark sky sites on the Eastern Shore back in  the fall of 2018, my first concern was that I would not be able to find any. Even though the Eastern Shore of Virginia is rural, there still is the light pollution of Virginia Beach as well as from small towns on the Shore. So I studied satellite maps closely on google earth and covered the coastline of the Eastern Shore of Virginia from the Maryland border to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. I found several locations that looked like they would be fairly well obscured from light pollution and most of these sites were sea side facing the Atlantic ocean looking south east. This was VERY good.

After mapping out the locations, it was then time to hit the road for the next few months visiting these sites and getting a visual on weather or not there would be any surprise lighting problems like street lamps, etc. In the end, I settled on 4 different sites that all had a varied look, feel, composition, and bortle class ranging from 1 (Wachapreague) to a class 3 or 4 which was Cape Charles. The sites that we filmed that were extremely dark (Red Bank, Wachapreague, and Magothy Bay) are probably some of the best newly published dark sky sites on the East Coast. Fortunately, these sites are also open to the public, easily accessible and require no hiking or camping. I had many kind people with various park services and private citizens offer for me to film on their private property or park during closed hours. Although very much appreciated, I declined this because I wanted all sites featured in this film to be readily available and open to the public at any time. So yes, you can come and film in the exact locations you see in this film.

DESIGN: I spent a lot of time researching astrophotography for both stills and time lapse. I will say that I have never seen a Milky Way time lapse I did not like. I just love the look. However from what I could tell, most of the time lapse available to view at the time had certain similar characteristics that if I had a choice, we would avoid. The two main items that to me stood out the most was:

1. The time lapse image was over exposed with to high an ISO setting in the field then boost more in post processing. This makes the Milky Way stand out, but the feel of a nightscape is lost. The sky around the Milky Way is just way to bright and noisy. Now…This to me still looks cool, however I thought if there is away to retain the effect of a night sky, that would be preferable for this film.
2. Most of the time lapse that I viewed were only partial, maybe filmed over a couple of hours. I could not find many or any that had the full sweeping arc of the Milky Way from below the horizon, to completing its full journey westward overnight. There are a lot of reasons for this, one of which (at least in the mid Atlantic) There is only the new moon of May that you can film this. So the window is only maybe 3-5 days so you have to be extremely lucky with the weather to be able to film all night and also have ways to beat condensation on the lens. Also considering that filming this way, one can expect to be maybe awake for 30 hours or so which is a lot harder to do than filming for a couple of hours in July.
   

So, these were the two things I wanted to achieve. 1) Produce time lapse film that exposed the Milky Way however kept the essence of the night sky without over exposure and high ISO. 2) Be sure to film the Milky Way in May in order to capture the Milky Way rise from below to over the horizon and complete it’s path/arc through the night sky. This we accomplished at the Red Bank dark sky site. The other almost full arc we filmed at Wachapreague, the Milky Way started just above the horizon and made for a nice long arc over the night sky.

I could not find anywhere a tutorial on how to NOT to overexpose these astrophotography time lapse films. So I had to figure it out in the studio and I came up with a system and technique that worked! It is a combination of how the film is shot in the field in conjunction with a post processing technique that is pretty much opposite of what has been done in the world of Milky Way Astrophotography so far. The result is a Milky Way that is exposed yet retains the look and feel of the night sky without high in field ISO settings and utilizing various global exposure and gain controls in programs like Lightroom.

Sooooooo if all this was not enough to do! Then came my biggest surprise of all. Really, the biggest hurdle. The WEATHER! Out of 40 potential days of filming astrophotography around the moon phase, in four months we only had TWO That’s (2) nights of clear weather. That was it!! Those two nights I filmed all night at the two darkest sites, Wachapreague and Red Banks. As you can see from the film, it was an extraordinary sight. These two location are among the very few on the East Coast that can provide a dark sky view like this. Plus… the camera view of the Milky Way over the ocean. No light pollution at all. Incredible.

In the end, due to the bad spring/summer weather of 2019, I was still filming our last Milky Way time lapse only two days before the premier at the film festival on June 29th. It was that close folks. I had been editing the short film for 4 months and was down to only needing 6 seconds out of the 4:17 minute film. All done, except for those last 6 seconds. I have never worked so hard for only 6 seconds of film in my life.

If I actually got paid by the hour, I could retire today.

Godspeed,

JB

A few quick facts about the film

·         Over 20,000 images were takin to create 4 time lapse segments.

·         Principle filming was done over a 4-month period and B roll time lapse was produced over a 4-year period.

·         Satellite Maps from Google Earth were used to successfully locate the new dark sky locations.

·         The International Space Station flew through our view of the Milky Way twice in one night and appears so in the film.

·         Up to 5 heat packs plus a fan on the lens was used and necessary to combat lens condensation.

·         In order to keep massive flying insects from hovering on the lens in these remote locations, foggers/bug bombs were set off just to enable time to set up the gear. Then rags coated with deet were draped on the tripods plus a battery operated fan with insect replant was dispersed throughout the overnight filming. This kept the swarms of mosquitos, black & green flies at bay.

·         The squiggly blue light that quickly flashes in the lower right-hand corner during the Wachapreague Milky Way, is actually caused by a surf fisherman using glow lights on his rod tip.

·         Out of 40 possible production days based on the moon phase over the 4 month period, because  the cloudy spring there was only 2 nights of clear skies in four months. Those two nights were the result of Red Bank and Wachapreague Milky Way Time Lapse.

·         Magothy Bay was filmed 3 different times, Cape Charles 5, Wachapreague 2, Oyster 1, Townsend 1, and Red Bank 1.

·         This is the first time the featured locations have ever been published as good dark sky sites.

****

Photo Info & Gear:
Cannon SL2 DSLR, Tonika 11 to 16 Lens F2.8 Exposure 15 sec. ISO 1600/800.
Intervalometer
Magnus Tripod
Jaws Grip
Hero 4
Aukey 4k
Mavic AIR Crystal Sky 5.5 Mavmount
OPOLAR fan
HotHands for lens condensation prevention
WD2 wireless portable hard drive
Cannon R800


Software Apps on Galaxy S10e:
Stellarium, Star Walk 2, Sky Map, Luna, and My Radar.

Post Processing:
Premier CC, Lightroom CC, Photoshop CC, DaVinci Resolve.

Post Production Audio:
Premier CC, Adobe Audition, Yamaha KX 88, Roland JV1080 Synth with Vintage Synth Expansion and M-Track.

SHOOTING LOG BELOW

6/21/19 Magothy Bay

After reviewing our Milky Way film in post production last week, I still was not satisfied with one of our locations and that was Magothy Bay. The weather just has never been quite right the two previous times I shot there. The location is beautiful and has a wonderful foreground, it also is a very dark sky. Bottom line was I really wanted this dark site to work with us however I was running out of time. The “Milky Way Galaxy, Our Home” short film premiers June 29^th at the Palace Theater for the Experimental Film Festival and unfortunately this last week the moon phase was not really in our favor. Also clouds have been a major issue… every dam day!

Looking at our film I realized the small section I wanted to replace in length was only 6 seconds. Six seconds out of a 4:17 length short film. I made it a mission to figure out how to get a Milky way time lapse shot that would look great and fill this space. Unfortunately, I can’t control the moon, or the weather.

So what I did was to monitor the astrophotography weather sites everyday throughout the day and hope for the best, and pray a lot. But we were facing some serious issues with the moon and clouds and the next new moon was the week after the festival. It was last Friday, this 21^st that I found a small window, only about an hour or two and it turned out to be quite possibly a gold mine of a shot. Here is what I found.

On the 21^st, sunset was around 8:30 and clouds and I mean heavy overcast was happening all day. BUT around sunset, the prediction was the west winds would subside and there would be a break in the clouds for only a couple of hours. The moon was not visible but would be rising around 11:30 or so.

Well, what I thought was that it may be possible to get the Milky Way Time lapse started as the sun set, and once darkness came, the Milky Way would pop out of the sky at around a 45 degree angle for about 45 minutes to an hour, then the clouds would come and the moon would rise over the ocean all about the same time. If this works as predicted, we are talking one hell of a beautiful transitional shot for our film. The Milky Way, then the moon would come into the shot, then the clouds would move in and act as a transition or a “Wipe”. Now this would all happen over the course of only 1-2 hours. BUT we get 6 seconds of finished time lapse per hour, so that means I would get between 6 to 12 seconds of finished time lapse and that is EXACTLY how much time I needed.

I planned this carefully and did think it was a long shot that all of this would work. As fate will have it, the sun did set, the Milky Way appeared right where it was supposed to be, then the moon rose over the Atlantic ocean, then the clouds came in. The shoot could not have been more perfect. I edited the shot the next day over about 9 hours, my last edit, and completed the film.

This was an incredibly narrow window to film, but it was not the only time I had to plan to film in such a narrow time frame based on the moon and weather. During a March shoot my window to capture the Milky Way was only 1 night (due to clouds) and the predicted time we would have clear skies was only 1 hour. Turns out, that was exactly the window of time I had to film and that was between 3 and 4 am in the morning.

For the purpose of this short film, I did want to have 1 if not 2 all night time lapse that would show the Milky Way from below the horizon to rising and completing its full path over the night sky. We accomplished this; however it is worth noting that the 2 all clear nights we had to film, were the only 2 clear nights we had in four months of filming.

The finished film is quite breath taking and look forward to its debut at the film festival. I am also looking forward to taking a few nights in July and August and just enjoying the Milky Way leisurely without worrying about if the dew is going to set in on my lens and if the heat packs are gonna work.

It has been an incredible journey these past four months with some stories I will tell for a lifetime. During my 31 years of producing television, music, and short films, this project is definitely at the top of my favorite list.

We will post more info about other festivals and in late June the film will be on the Jim Baugh Outdoors TV Channel on Youtube and social media.

“The Milky Way Galaxy, Our Home” as seen from the Eastern Shore of Virginia premiers June 29^th at the Experimental Film Virginia Festival in Cape Charles Virginia. The festival will showcase the films at the historic Palace Theater as well as remote projection screens along the waterfront/beach. Tickets are available at the Lemon Tree Art Gallery.

Godspeed,

JB

6/4/2019 Cedar Island Wachapreague VA

Milky Way over Cedar Island, Eastern Shore Virginia.

WOW! Fantastic shoot just north of Wachapreague, this was our last shoot for our Milky Way film to debut at the film festival in cape Charles June 29^th. These are just a couple of sample stills from the shoot. I think so far we have captured maybe 20,000 RAW images complied into 4 time lapse segments. All 4 locations are on the Eastern Shore. This was only the second clear night in about four months of shooting. Incredible location with hardly any light pollution at all, basically none.

This shoot went extremely well and we had very clear skies plus a nice 10 to 15mph wind so the bugs were not bad at all plus very low humidity. I had prepped the lens with heat packs just in case, but there was no condensation at all. Total exposures was around 2000, iso 1600, 15 sec exposure, 20 sec interval. I burned through two batteries on the SL2, actually had more jucie in the second battery but had filmed for some 6 hours so had 35 seconds of finished timelapse which is more than I needed.

If you plan on coming to Wachapreague and need accommodations we stayed at the artist apartment above the Current Reflections Art Gallery located right in Wachapreague, this is only minutes away from our dark sky site where we filmed, here is the web site go check them out. Awesome place with two rooms, full kitchen, living room, bath, great place to stay either while doing photography, fishing, or even bird watching!

Facebook link for Current Reflections Lodging

https://www.facebook.com/CurrentReflectionsArt/

Milky Way over Cedar Island Wachapreague  Eastern Shore of Virginia

5/7/2019 Red Bank

Meteor during filming of Red Bank

WOW! This overnight shoot was certainly our best weather wise as well as our best dark sky site. The south east rise of the Milky Way was over the pitch black Atlantic ocean and had clean visibility through most of the night. The light pollution you see in the lower right is Virginia Beach (approx. 50 mi away) and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel.  I had picked out this location several months ago and have been anxiously waiting for the right opportunity to film it. The location is called Red Banks on the sea side of the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

Although the skies were super clear, the big fear I had was dew. The relative humidity was I think 93% and the temp was gong to be around 56, so I knew I was headed for possible problems. So this was the first night I pulled out all the stops, in an effort to film all night without ANY condensation on the lens. The good news is because of these things we did to prep the camera, although we had dew almost immediately on everything early in the evening including tripods, chairs, etc, not one drop of moisture was on our lens. It amazed me! Here is what we did and without taking these measures, we would have never been able to film and we ran the camera from around 11pm until 4am the next morning with not a drop of dew. Here is what we did.

1 Climatize:

I took the camera and put it in it’s camera bag and set it outside for 4 hours. Once on location, I put the camera bag outside near the tripod this was around 7pm, filming would start around 11. At about 10pm I took the camera out of the bag and velcrowed 4 heating paks (hand warmers) that I had attached to a sock with rubber bands, this was wrapped tightly around the lens. I also used gaffers tape prior to lock down both the focus ring on infinity and zoom so the settings could not be accidentally knocked out of wack. This works very well. Once the heat packs were on the camera went back into the bag and again set outside next to the tripod.

2 Heat Packs:

The hand warmer heat packs are the disposable ones you can find anywhere. I attach then to a sock which adds more insulation to the lens and camera. The four heat packs kept the camera completely dry while everything else, and I mean everything, was covered in dew.

3 Battery operated fan:

I bought a battery operated fan from amazon for 13 bucks that would run all night off AA batteries. This fan was mounted close the lens and pointed directly at it. This did 2 things, kept the millions of bugs off the lens and moving air across the glass continually will greatly reduce the chance of condensation.

Combating the bugs!

This is a biggie. Here on the Eastern Shore the flies when they bite (and they do non stop) will actually draw blood. These insects not only make it impossible to film, but they can play havoc on your lens. I thought about experimenting with a couple of things and all I can say is I only got bit once all night. Never had flies around me for the most part, and no flying insects ever touched my lens. Here is what I did.

1 Clothes:

Cover your body with clothes, I wore sweat pants, hoodie, socks, etc. Then spray anything exposed with your fav bug spray. Next, spray your clothes.

2 Deet Rag:

Get a rag and place it on your tripod and spray it liberally with your bug spray. Get it good and soaking and leave it on your tripod.

3 Off Clip On Battery Operated Mosquito Device:

This is something I was looking for, not sure it would work, but it seemed to help. I mounted it under the tripod to cover the small area I was filming. The fan kept running all night and never ran out of power. This is an ideal set up if you are sitting still like filming timelapse.

Between doing all these things, I had zero issues with bugs in one of the worst buggy areas I have ever been. I will continue to use this when ever doing overnight timelapse. The fan we mounted pointed at the lens also helped.

The camera I used is our SL2 with Tonika 11-16 lens. This evening we shot close to 2000 RAW and Jpeg images. I did have to swap out a battery once during the overnight shoot, but that was it. I also used our intervalometer set to 15 sec exposure with a 20 sec interval and set to continuous. The intervalometer was totally soaked starting early in the evening but worked fine all night.

At this point we have only one more location to film before we complete our Milky Way Madness 2019 short film of locations featured from the Eastern Shore of Virginia. We have been editing as we go along filming and the project is turning out very nice. I was mostly worried we may not ever get a chance with the weather to produce a very clean and complete Milky Way time lapse. However fortunately, we did accomplish this last night.

Godspeed,

JB

5/2/2019 Cape Charles

Success! JBOTV filmed last night from 11 to 5 this am in Cape Charles. We had a lot of moving clouds but was able to shoot around 2000 RAW exposures for a time lapse to be in our upcoming Milky Way film featuring Eastern Shore locations. Here is the finished image. From here we film north up the Shore through July. New moon is coming up this weekend so as long as it is a clear night good time to do a little star gazing. Will be reporting on our drum show as soon as it is finished hopefully over the weekend. Tight Lines, Cheers. JB

Filming Notes for this shoot:

Since our last time lapse was plagued by dew, on this shoot again we were set up only a few feet from the water of the Chesapeake Bay with changing temps as the night cooled. Before leaving for the shoot we climatized the camera outside for five hours and before heading out, wrapped 3 warming packs around the lens and secured them with Velcro straps. Prior to this we also anchored down both infinity and aperture with gaffing tape. Once again on location tested out iso and shutter speed and captured several foreground shots. Once on location plans changed a little due to some street lights that were on timers so our location changed for the time lapse by about 70 feet. Once ready to time lapse, we again used an intervalometer set to 15 sec exposure, 20 second interval with a 10 second drive mode to start. I also took a battery fan for the lens but it was not necessary due to a pretty good 10 to 15ph wind all night long.

Although we did experience some dew on the tripods and our clothes, the lens was 100% clean of any moisture. The heat packs worked extremely well and lasted from around midnight to 5am. The entire shoot of the Milky Way passing.

4/11/2019 Mermaid Bay

First clear night in quite a while and the moon set before midnight, sooo, set up time lapse cameras between 2 and 4 am to catch the Milky Way. This was shot at Mermaid Bay on the Shore. The next shoot in May will be quite further north on the sea side, much less light pollution. We did catch some meteors in the time lapse, very nice night. This image was a 4 exposure stack out of 300 RAW images. 15 sec exposure, 1600 ISO F 2.8. Foreground light painted at 200 ISO 15 sec exposure. Next shoot is May 4^th on the next new moon. Cheers.

4/4/2019 Oyster & Townsend

We are on new moon eve however the overnight weather forecast has given us almost no window to film astrophotography. Early this am there was a small window of only partial clouds. So, at 3 am this morning we had our cameras set up at two new fairly dark sky locations on the Eastern Shore, Oyster and Townsend. Both locations had partial clouds however it made for some pretty cool images. We will shoot again on the next new moon in May 2019. In September we will produce a short film featuring all the Milky Ways we filmed both in photo and time lapse. Cheers. Below is Oyster and Townsend this morning.

Oyster Virginia

Townsend

Photo Info:

Because of the clouds in Oyster we did not take but a few exposures. The final image here is taken from only one exposure, no stacking.

The image from Townsend was an 8 image stack taken from about 30 exposures. Included was calibration dark slate. Townsend is closer to the light pollution of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and we were butting up against twilight, however the image has a pretty good signal to noise ratio. All post processing was done RAW in Lightroom and Photoshop and downresed to these jpegs. JB

3/31/2019 Chesapeake Bay

Tonight’s Milky Way over the Eastern Shore! Our first photo kicking off Milky Way Madness 2019. Had been trying to get in some shots of the Milky Way but the weather and moon have not been on our side for a few weeks.

Tonight we had a VERY narrow window from 3am to 4 am to catch the Milky Way. I checked two different weather services both reporting a clearing between fronts but only for a couple of hours and our Milky Way window was only from around 3:30 to 4:10am. This was also the only time we had a break in the clouds for days. The Milky Way rose high enough to film around 3:30, and twilight was starting around 4:30am, plus a front with lots of rain heading our way in a matter of a couple of hours. So... we really did have a very narrow window to get this shot.

I got to say, the weather folks called this one perfect. We did get that window of clearing, and just long enough for us to get the right shot.

The new moon will be this coming Friday and weather permitting we will film it again. Camera settings and technique: SL2 11to16 F 2.8 ISO1600 15 sec exposure 40 images captured RAW Edited in Lightroom and image stacked 4 exposures in Photoshop.

Picture taken 3:30am in Cape Charles on the Eastern Shore of Virginia approx. 5 miles north of Kiptopeke State Park. The pic below is the exact camera location during day light,

***

7/30/2019

Timelapse, approaching new moon

8/31/2019

JBOTV Final milky Way timelapse for 2019. This completes our filming season for the milky Way. Nice night, clear skies. Only a couple hours of MW visibility and it is setting west under Va Beach light pouleted skies. But...Still a nice shot.

8/13/2019

Perseids Meteor Shower

We filmed last night for the peak Perseids Meteor Shower from midnight until 5am this morning. Due to the full moon and heavy cloud cover we only had a window from 4 to almost 5am. We did see a lot of meteors and caught a few on camera. The biggest with a fireball was incredible but missed the shot by about 2 seconds. A beautiful night, and the moon looked awesome peeking through the cloud cover. Here is the info on the Shoot. Location, USA/Chesapeake Bay facing north, meteors were filmed coming down over the Cape Charles town area between 4-5am. This location was one of the dark sky sites we found filming the Milky Way Galaxy is our Home Short Film. Camera/SL2 lens 11-16 F2.80- ISO both 1600 also filmed at 800 due to the moonlight. Intervalometer set to 15 sec exposure, 20 second interval. We filmed a total of 1,650 images over 5 hours. Cheers. JB
NOTE: The pic with 4 meteors is a compost of two images. Both images had 2 meteors in the shot.

7/28/2019

Approaching new moon, however had a moonless night plus meteor shower

Location: Cape Charles, Eastern Shore of Virginia (Mermaid Bay) Camera: SL2 Tonika 11-16 lens ISO 1600 15sec exposure. Single.

Well….Sometimes ya get lucky! After spending 4 months filming the Milky Way with only getting two clear nights, finding a clear night sky to film has been a challenge this year. BUT!!! Last night was an exceptionally clear crisp night and the Milky Way was almost vertical when we started filming. I was unaware that there was a meteor shower predicted and we really got a great show. I saw the largest and brightest meteor I had ever seen and it was very low to the horizon. Fortunately, I did get one on camera as seen here. It was in a perfect position to see with the Milky Way in the backdrop. We don’t get many of these on camera in a lifetime. Awesome evening!

7/1/2019

NEW MOON July 1 2018

We wanted to shoot some stills of the Milky Way in July and August for this post. Last night it was another cloudy night as it has been for the last four months. However we did manage to pull this one off filmed at Mermaid Bay in Cape Charles.

The dune grass was light painted for approx 4 seconds of a 15 sec exposure and 4 exposures were takin, then stacked and medan merged.

This shot of the Milky Way was only two days after the Film Festival our our short film premiered.

Below are a few pics from the Ocean City Film Festival 2020, Great event! Also a short video takin during the Q and A after the screening of The Milky Way Galaxy Our Home as seen from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, to a packed theater.

Festival director ask Jim "The Cinematography, editing, just wonderful. How do you go about, the process, of writing music for such a beautiful film?" Answer below.