Please Join Us
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
as Chris Garner, Cr.Photog., CPP
presents an extended day program
1:00pm - 9:30pm
(please note special dinner and shooting schedule below!)
Deep Space Astrophotography
Due to the nature of our subject for the evening, our schedule will be built around the night sky. If it is too cloudy we will not be able to include a demo of photography outdoors, and if it is not cloudy, but it is extremely cold, the demo will be short!
1pm-4pm: Class Indoors
4pm-5:15: Early Dinner Break
5:15-up to @6:45: Outdoor Photography- dress warmly! note that length of outdoor photography time is weather-dependent!
@6:45 -9:30pm: Class Indoors
Chris will be looking for someone to volunteer the use of their equipment, so please bring this along if you have it:
DSLR or Mirrorless camera with lens in the focal length range of 200mm up to 600mm (lighter is better) with a minimum aperture of f/2.8-f/5.6 or so that can manually focus. Also either a built-in or external intervalometer that easily works with your camera. Lens needs to have a lens cap (a hood is nice but not required). A full working knowledge of all menu functions on the camera and a full working knowledge of the intervalometer will save time. Also your camera needs to be able to mount in good balance to a tripod with a 1/4-20 thread to accept the tripod plate..
Deep space astrophotography is a perfect blend of science and art, and is possibly the most challenging thing you will ever attempt with a camera. The monetary rewards of this segment of photography are small, but the rewards to your soul and creative spirit are immeasurable. Join Chris as he walks you through the beginnings of this fascinating journey through our universe. You will learn initial capture, data manipulation, post-processing, and special tricks of the trade which will keep you from spinning your wheels. He will cover photographing planets, nebulae, galaxies, star clusters, supernovae remnants, and just about any other object found in the night sky. Most professional photographers already have some, if not all, of the equipment necessary to begin this journey. Chris will show you how to take what you have, and show you the baby steps that you can take to build your deep space astro toolbox and portfolio. Prepare to open your mind to a whole new world of photography and find the creative spark to take your everyday work to the next level!
Chris Garner, Cr.Photog., CPP
As a third-generation photographer with a childhood and youth spent in the industry, and with 18 years spent running a multi-employee studio built around portraits and volume schools/sports photography, Chris was on the verge of burnout. He had trouble finding the creative spark necessary for photographers to produce their best work. In the summer of 2015, Chris decided to take a camera on vacation for the first time ever in hopes of finding something to get the creative juices flowing again. In the early hours of a moonless morning in Garden City Beach, South Carolina, Chris captured the Milky Way on his camera with a wide-angle lens and a tripod. From that moment on, astrophotography became his obsession. It brought to life a new form of creativity that Chris wasn’t expecting. Now, just three years into the craft, Chris has progressed from wide-angle landscapes with the stars to deep space astrophotography, capturing high-resolution images of nebulae, star clusters and galaxies thousands and millions of light years away.
1 PPA Continuing Education merit will be awarded for PPA members attending 6.5 hours of the program!