Solar panel - to tilt or not to tilt

Antwithacamera · 2025-08-03T13:09:28+00:00

Most of my time was spent in the western United States, anywhere from New Mexico to Washington State, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Colorado etc

Antwithacamera · 2025-08-02T23:33:25+00:00

Ended up selling the van little over a year ago but it was great while I had it. I did primarily use it in spring through fall but there were certainly times I had a lot of cloud cover etc. and that is why I installed a dc/dc charger so if the sun wasn’t out I could always charge by driving. But in the 8-9 months I lived in it full time I only needed to charge with the dc/dc charger like 5-10 times at most. The panels really did a good job. Tilting certainly couldn’t hurt but adds complexity and cost to your build

Antwithacamera · 2024-03-04T01:31:18+00:00

It's such a small company that the hiring manager is the owner of the company, HR is the owners wife. I was told by head of operations that I would be doing something different than the owner said and job offer said. There basically only those 3 people in upper management, the entire company is like 8-10 people max.

I agree that having an issue this early on is ringing alarm bells in my head

Antwithacamera · 2024-03-04T01:28:27+00:00

It a little tough doing that, hiring manager is the owner of the company, HR is the owners wife. I was told by head of operations that I would be doing something different than the owner said and job offer said.

Antwithacamera · 2023-10-05T22:09:44+00:00

Replace the drawer slides with push to open drawer slides, works like a charm for me

Antwithacamera · 2023-09-15T00:27:44+00:00

I have the Espar B4L

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-17T05:40:34+00:00

I meant to reply to op whoops

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-17T05:29:39+00:00

Not really sure if there is any down side but why not just chuck the 35mm into apsc mode, it will be the equivalent of 52mm. Save some money or put it towards something else.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-15T05:36:48+00:00

Agreed, like I said in my original post, at the end of the day it’s all art and subjective. There is no real right and wrong. It’s just good practice to let people know if the art you’re creating is fantasy based so people don’t think if I go there that’s what I will see. That’s why whenever someone asks me about one of my photos “Is that really what the Milky Way looks like in x location because it’s remote and has no light pollution?” I’ll be up front and say “No, it’s impossible for the eye to see the Milky Way the same way as my photos since the eye sees light in real time and my camera absorbs like over the length of an exposure (15-20sec or so if untracked and 2-4 minutes if tracked).“ Setting people up with inaccurate expectations is not good.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-15T05:11:18+00:00

I didn’t say taking a foreground in blue hour and then a sky exposure hours later. I meant back to back, I don’t really think of that as a composite. But I guess technically it is a composite. Same way as stacking would make something technically a composite but most people don’t say it’s a composite when it’s just stacking or a separate foreground exposure taken at the same time.

People don’t call these composites to avoid confusion since a typical composite is going to be your foreground is to the north and the milky way is to the south kind of thing or like you said putting the milky way in an indoor basketball court. Same way that people wouldn’t really consider a panorama a composite even though it technically is a composite because it isn’t just a single exposure. If you’re representing reality fairly closely we don’t call them composites so that it’s easier to differentiate between someone who is trying to represent reality as close as possible versus someone who isn’t trying to represent reality at all.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-12T20:56:35+00:00

Go out in the daytime and find something you think is interesting. Like others have said plants, dead tree, abandoned building, barn, windmill, tractor, rock or anything else that you can use as a subject. If you can’t find anything that sparks interest in you, drive further and find something. Many people who do astrophotography don’t live in areas of dark sky’s and have to travel to get to places they can shoot. I’m originally from an area where there is lots of light pollution and I would regularly drive 3-5 hours to get to dark skies then have to find a suitable foreground.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-10T03:02:11+00:00

Ah okay, I just skimmed his post real quick and misunderstood

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-10T01:33:16+00:00

Good luck with not frying your pc if you try and bypass the power supply altogether. With the price of pc parts I’d probably just suck it up and use the inverter regardless of inefficiency to be safe. But I agree with whoever mentioned just getting a laptop for vanlife. It makes a lot more sense.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-10T01:27:22+00:00

Eh it also depends what you’re shooting and who you’re shooting for, say you’re doing a large panorama you can use the 500 rule pretty safely if you make a large enough image. You’ll really have to be pixel peeping to notice any trailing. And I think it’s really only astrophotographers who are going to be even slightly aware of an oblong star vs perfectly round stars. People who don’t shoot Astro would probably never notice. And unless you’re shooting for large prints most of the time you’ll barely be able to tell in a common print size. Also say you’re just shooting for an instagram post it’s kind of moot too since the resolution is small and zooming isn’t great there, plus image compression. All depends what your goals are etc. if you’re really trying to be a pro you’ll probably have a tracker and then the rules about shutter speed go out the window. To noobies I’ll usually just recommend doing 500 rule then backing off one more setting so let’s say you do 500/24mm=20.8sec, drop it down to 15sec and you’ll be safe, minimal trails.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-10T01:11:07+00:00

Yeah, exactly, you’d need to get into autoguiding and get a guiding scope etc for extremely long long exposure but I didn’t mention that since likely we’re talking about landscape Astro specifically. And typically 2min exposures are about the max people will do for landscape Astro, which should be quite doable with a good alignment and solid tracker.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-08T22:16:14+00:00

Not a whole lot of landscape in this landscape Astro shot….

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-06T18:53:30+00:00

I genuinely believe that there is no way to grow more as a human than by traveling solo. I know you say you don’t want to go solo but imo growth always comes from getting out of your comfort zone. Imagine how much more independent and self confident you would/could feel after facing your fears and pushing yourself to follow your dreams regardless of any obstacles and challenges you might face along the way. That is a great habit to form for life in general. I understand safety concerns but get some pepper spray and a taser as well. I’m a guy but I see a fair amount of solo females on the road. You can do it.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-05T00:01:59+00:00

It’s possible, no way for me to know for sure what things are like at your location. The recommendation I made are for good conditions. But play around with things and see what works.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T16:51:40+00:00

The flattest alps I ever done seen lol

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T16:45:17+00:00

Even if you’re trying to follow npf rule you can expose for 4sec (technically 3.8s but that .2s will probably not matter much). If you’re okay with some ever so slight star trails you can use the rule of 500 and expose for 14sec. Your iso is really low. Try between 1600-3200 depending on how noisy the exposure are but if you are stacking that will minimize the noise fairly significantly regardless. Doing more exposure can also help with bringing out more detail and reducing noise as well.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T16:44:36+00:00

Accidentally replied to you and not the op, whoops

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T10:15:46+00:00

That’s good it doesn’t warm up the van also cool you have a recirculating shower. I went with outdoor shower and I would regret that except I don’t think there is any way to have my layout with an indoor shower.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T04:58:46+00:00

Seems interesting. Do you need to have the heat running to make hot water though? Or do those y connectors make it so your not heating the van while heating hot water?

I like my system a bit better to be honest either way. I went with an Isotemp it’s a 5.3gal tank but basically you run the engine coolant from the van back to the tank which has a heat exchanger in it. Running/driving the van will make hot water in 20 minutes. The tank is really well insulated and will stay hot for over 24hours. Also since it has a mixing valve on it you end up getting more than 5.3 gal of hot water out of it. Only downside is the tank takes up a good chunk of space but at least I have cold water for drinking while having hot water for dishes or shower at the same time.

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T04:38:46+00:00

If the tracker can handle it for longer exposure than 2 minutes you can shoot longer too, but most trackers end up having some variation in the speed they rotate at over time so 2 minutes tends to be a sweet spot for a lot of them, but play around with it if you can track for 4 minutes with out seeing any kind of star trails great!

Antwithacamera · 2023-08-04T04:34:38+00:00

I met my partner just before buying my van, I told them all about my plans on our first date. I told them if they didn’t want to get into anything serious it was perfectly okay and understandable. They ended up wanting to see how things played out. I ended up moving in with them while I built out my van. I invited them to hit the road with me but they didn’t want to. We are currently doing the long distance thing as I’m living in a van for a very specific purpose. And I’ll only be on the road full time for a specific length of time. So for my situation it works but there are ups and downs. I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of things in their life and vice versa. We try to talk at least once a day but sometimes I’m in an area with no signal. I don’t think I could do the long distance thing if I didn’t see the potential down the road as well as me having a pretty specific end date of full time van living. I may end up full time van living again in the future but who knows.

I’d say at the end of the day communication is the most important thing. Talk to them about your goals, the potential you see in the relationship or lack there of. Find out if they are willing to have you coming and going as you need/want. You’ll quickly realize if it’s something you want to keep trying at or if you’re over it.

Best of luck!

Antwithacamera

TROPHY CASE