David Mathre Photography

360 Images

  • Northern Light Display over New Jersey (11-November-2025)
    Northern Light Display over New Jersey (11-November-2025). Images taken with a Nikon Z9 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens.

    I received NOAA Space Weather alerts that there was a high potential for strong geomagnetic G3/G4 activity for the next few days. Several strong solar flares had ejected charged particles directed toward the earth. It is unusual to see Northern Lights (Aurora) in New Jersey. The last time there was a strong display that I could see from my backyard was on 11-October-2024. I hoped for a chance to view and photograph the northern lights from my backyard again. I checked both the Clear Sky report for the Sourland Mountains, and the National Weather Service local forecast which indicated mixed clouds with some clear skies for the night. I set up cameras with wide angle lenses and a 360° camera to record images over the night. It was cold and windy, so I wasn’t going to stay out all night by myself. Rather let the cameras do their work then download and view the images the next morning. The cameras were set up with external batteries and lens warmers (to prevent condensation on the wide-angle lenses). It seemed like every time I went out to check the cameras there were fast moving clouds and I wasn’t sure if I would get anything other than images of nighttime clouds.

    The next morning when I started to download the images, I did see some red and then green colors in some of the images. The following time-lapse videos show the Northern Light display looking straight up and north over my house. During the night there were several displays of both red and green lights starting a little after 20:00. The high winds kept the clouds moving across the sky. The brightest display occurred a bit after midnight. After that the clouds blocked further displays.

    Time-lapse video created from images taken with a Hasselblad X2d camera and 20-35 mm lens (ISO 800, 20 mm, f/11, 32 sec exposures). The images were processed with Capture One, and the time-lapse video created with Photoshop. The camera is pointed north looking over my house.

    Little Planet Starlapse video taken with an Insta 360 RS camera. The video including the starlapse effect was created using the Insta 360 studio software.

    Time-lapse video created from images taken with a Nikon Z9 camera and 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 800, 15 mm, f/11, 30 sec exposures). The images were processed with Capture One, and the time-lapse video created with Photoshop. The camera is pointed north looking over my house from the backyard.

    Time-lapse video created from images taken with a Hasselblad 907x camera and Laowa 8-15 mm fisheye lens (ISO 400, 11.5 mm, f/11, 32 sec exposures). The camera is pointed straight up capturing a 180° view of the sky. The images were processed with Capture One, and the time-lapse video created with Photoshop. The house blocks part of the view to the north (left side of the image).

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  • Overnight view outside my hotel room window. Images taken with an Insta360 X5 camera.

    Composite of 32 images taken with a Hasselblad 907x camera and 25 mm f/2.5 lens (ISO 800, f/8, 32 sec exposures) processed using Photoshop (scripts, statistics, maximum). Clouds were moving through, and you can see some star trails.

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  • Ten-Years Ago Today. Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.

    A springtime Little Planet view of my backyard from the past. The image is a composite of 37 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and Bower 8 mm fisheye lens and then processed with AutoPano Giga Pro. AutoPano Giga is no longer available/supported so I now use PTGui Pro to create little planet images. I think I was using a Mindarin Astro to rotate the camera and trigger the camera. I stood next to the tripod so my shadow would be visible in the image. The two Sycamore trees no longer exist, the deck was replaced with a patio, and there are now solar panels on the roof of the house. Much of the backyard grass has been converted to a wildflower meadow.

    Little Planet View of My Backyard. Composite of 37 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and Bower 8 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens (ISO 200, 8 mm, f/16, 1/30 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and AutoPano Giga Pro.

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  • Backyard Springtime Nature in New Jersey.

    It was foggy after yesterday’s heavy rain. The wildflower meadow in my backyard is all green with a few flowers starting to bloom. Right now, it is a race between the desired wildflowers and the undesired weeds. My definition of a weed is something that doesn’t have a flower that I am interested in and/or something that is growing aggressively and blocking the desired wildflowers. While on my morning backyard walkabout I took a sequence of 81 images to combine and create a “Little Planet” view of the wildflower meadow before most of the flowers start to bloom. I used the PTGui Pro program to process the images and create the 360-degree Little Planet view.

    Little Planet View of the Backyard on a Foggy Spring Morning. Composite of 81 mages taken with a Hasselblad X2d camera and 38 mm f/2.5 lens (ISO 800, f/8, 1/125 sec). Images processed using PTGui Pro.

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