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Star photos from Tanzania...

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
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I'm pretty much a complete n00b at star photos, but I tried my hand at a couple stacked exposures on Kilimanjaro.





I'm pleased with the results but they're really not nearly as clean as some of the shots I see from others, and I'm really at the phase of stumbling around with curves/levels/color adjustments until I find something I like, rather than really having a solid process.

Both were 20x exposures @ 20 seconds each, stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and then pulled into Photoshop for adjustments. The lights on the first one are from a city below the mountain - mists were slowly rising as I took the exposures, so each one was slightly lighter than the previous. When I first saw the light, I thought the shots were ruined but I think it turned out nicely.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
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VT
Did you do a night safari with a spot light too, I saw some of your other photos on facebook. I was in Tanzania for a week and Kenya for two weeks thirteen years ago. Had a Nikon Coolpix (first 1MP+ camera) back then but lost almost all the photos when a HDD died a few years later.

Did you visit Carnivore if you had to pass through Nairobi? Almost like a Brazilian BBQ only with tons of game meats.
 
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binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
We didn't do any night safaris.

Haven't posted anything from this trip yet; I have some from Peru on Facebook. We just culled the images yesterday and will start picking out the choice ones tonight.

We didn't go into Kenya - after the climb, we did Olduvai Gorge, Lake Manyara, Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater. It was pretty amazing.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
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Guess I imagined it from your post on facebook alone:think:

My sister summitted Mt Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya on a prior trip but we did get to stay at high elevation on Mount Kenya.

Did you get sick at all?

I was sick for three days in Kenya and later my sister got sick too. Nothing compared to her first trip when she had to hike for miles and miles with a 50+ lbs pack with amoebic dysentery.
 
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syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
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I remember the first day or two I had an opportunity to rent a mountain bike in Tanzania and then I was kicking myself because no other hotels, game parks, etc had mountain biking in either country.

The roads there were really bad, even worse than Central America...
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,161
1,261
NC
Neither of us had any altitude sickness. We actually both felt great the whole trip; Jenn could have used another layer on summit day, she was too cold, but otherwise I was surprised at how good we felt about the altitude. Both of us were hungry the whole trip, no headaches that weren't associated with needing food...

We both had a little stomach discomfort on the last day of the safari, not sure what caused it, but nothing too bad.

The roads were bad in a number of areas, though I think our trip from the San Jose airport to the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica was far worse. At least in Africa we weren't propping logs up to transport ourselves across small rivers. We did get a lot of the "African massage" though - they sure like to abuse their suspension.

Never saw any mountain bikes the whole trip. I told our guide coming down the last day on Kili that they should start a biking service, since the whole last 1.5 days is a massive drop in elevation.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
I didn't get any altitude sickness either. I did develop a strange sun rash condition though.

We were in Africa in late December/early Jan, so possibly with the roads more dried out and rutted. I've been to CR probably at least 16 times and I've been all over other than the Caribbean Coast. Maybe those Land Rovers just suck...