Ice Fishing and Photography

I had the good fortune to get out of the city for the weekend and head out to a friend's camp.  I brought my photography gear with me as well as some insulated rubber boots.  We heard reports that there could be a lot of slush on the ice now that the temperatures were getting well past 0C during these sunny spring days.

I've only just started learning how to shoot the night time skies with long exposures. I was excited to apply what I learned last month when a group of us shot the 'Blood Moon'.  Being able to walk out on the frozen lake at 2AM and see the millions of stars was a great feeling.  There wasn't much light pollution 2 hours from the city and the conditions were as close to perfect as one could hope for.

For those interested in the tech stuff, here's some of the settings I used.  I don't claim to be an expert, this is just what worked for me that evening:

1. TRIPOD.   Without a good tripod the excercise is almost futile, unless you have MacGyver like skills.

2. Dark Skies (No Moon):
I started with Apperture Priority and set my apperture as open as possible.

Switched lens to Manual Focus (My shutter will not work if it thinks it's too dark) and focused on infinity.

ISO between 400 and 800.

Switched VR on lens to off (good practice i've been told when using a tripod as it is suggested the VR will look for movement and introduce it's own, causing motion blur)

Switched then to Manual mode and set shutter speed to 30 seconds

3. Moon Shots
Same as above, however ISO can be down to 200 or even 100 depending on your lens.  Apperture can be dialed in a bit. I think i was around F8.  Shutter now a fraction of second. I think i was getting some good shots around 1/3".  I was also using burst mode to crack off about 5 shots in succession.  I learned from the Blood Moon shoot that the moon is moving pretty fast and this can help get a frame or two of really clear focus.  It felt as though I was shooting the sun it was so bright.  I had to play a little with the shutter speed and ISO to get in the range of light I was happy with.

Hope this helps.  It worked for me and I was very pleased with the results.  As the weather gets warmer and warmer, I'll be looking forward to more late nights with no gloves!

Links:
Instagram: @thunderbaylandscapes and @at0mpub
Youtube:  Adam Sabaz
Camera Gear: Nikon D3100, 18-55 Kit lens, 55-200mm zoom, K&F Tripod and Filters, Fotga Cable Release

Music Used in Video:
Buddha by Kontekst https://soundcloud.com/kontekstmusic Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/b6jK2t3lcRs