Single water droplets falling into a glass. The first one splashes back up just in time to collide with the second one, falling from above. High-speed photography of these collisions requires precise timing, calculations, and luck:

Awesome, isn’t it? I have a special device for triggering my camera at the precise time, as well as coordinating the water droplets. The Camera Axe 5 with the valve sensor is very much a necessary tool to make these collisions happen, but even still I took over 700 images to get the 7 that I am showing here. Lots of fun experimenting, especially with background refraction:

Check out the gallery below, and let me know what you think! (and I know – it has been forever since my last update. Don’t worry, there are interesting things to post soon!)

I woke up yesterday and was greeted with large clumps of snow falling from the sky. The snow was wet and difficult to photograph, but I made the best of it and came up with this image:

These pillars of ice are snow crystals that form at warmer temperatures. Because the snow was clumping together, occasionally I noticed these pillars of ice in odd structures worthy of photographing. So there you have it, the first “snow flake” of the season – with many more of them to come!

It has begun! Temperatures are dropping below zero at night, allowing me to photograph frost in the morning. This winter I intend to spend a lot of time photographing frost, ice crystals and snowflakes in preparation for a book on snowflakes I’m publishing next year. I can’t wait!

These two photos are taken from the black trim around my car’s windows. This one shows what appears to be rectangular crystal formations. Interesting, as water usually freezes into 6-sided crystals. One study published in 1954 shows ice forming rectangles at very cold temperatures, but I think the more likely explanation is that this is the rectangular edges of hexagonal crystals. Science!

The below photo shows growth of a much more smooth design, almost looking like leaves.

Much more to come at the temperature continues to drop. Stay tuned!

During the weekend that I had the gigantic 800mm lens for the moon photos I posted recently, Desi, Mom, Walter and I all spent a day at the Toronto Zoo. Thanks to the folks at the zoo for free passes! I got some great portraits of the big cats:

It was a great day, even though it was a little chilly and rainy. I could have spent twice as much time there, if my arms could handle the weight of carrying that lens around!

Check out the gallery below, and let me know what your favourite shots are!

My first time around with Canon’s 800mm monster lens, I was disappointed in not getting a photo of the moon. I’m borrowing it again this weekend, and to my dismay the forecast called for cloudy skies… but I wasn’t about to give up!

I grabbed a friend, Ben, who’s camera has a higher pixel density than mine to get the most detail possible, and headed to the only region in Ontario last night with “variably cloudy” skies – we’d certainly need luck on our side. We ended up at the Cheltenham Badlands, as I knew the area was slightly remote and had a great view of the horizon. We were greeted with clouds.

Through equal parts luck, skill and stupidity, we managed to find a few breaks in the clouds after waiting nearly an hour with the cold dark wind keeping us company. Right after we got a clear shot, the rain started to roll in… we packed up and headed home.

I haven’t shown you the picture yet, because as fate would have it I had another chance later that evening. It was late, passed midnight I believe and I was in bed… I looked up at the sky and Bam! There it was lighting up the night sky. The clouds were breaking even though the forecast called for complete cloud cover and rain. I jumped out of bed, frantically assembled the camera, and headed outside to take this image:

I was thrilled. This image is taken with Canon’s EF 800mm F/5.6L + 2x extender II + 1.4x extender III, effectively giving me a focal length of 2240mm. A very expensive telescope. The detail, however, was incredible:

If only I had Ben’s camera to test the difference for this shot – we’ll have to try again some time. It’s amazing how much detail I could grab on an object 384,399 km away (420,383,858 yards for some! hah – inside joke).

Satisfied with my moon image, I was about to pack up when I decide to spin my camera slightly down and to the right to a bright star in the sky, just to see what I could find. To my surprise, that was no star.

I’m not an astronomer, so I have no knowledge of where the planets are in the night sky. Randomly pointing the camera at a bright dot and finding not only Jupiter, but all of its moons was a very fun surprise.

And off to bed I went.