Bryce Canyon Stars by nightscape

Milky Way stars view from the bottom of “Wall Street” — an extremely narrow canyon on the Navajo Loop Trail, Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah. Light painting was with two Z96 light panels, using the “Reflective Projection” technique described on pages 97-100 in my ebook.

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Starry Alpine Reflection by nightscape

Milky Way over alpine lake near Hayden Peak, on the edge of the High Uintas Wilderness, Utah. Photographed last week with three of my workshop alumni friends. Incredibly, clear and dark skies that night. A little post-processing contrast was all that was needed to bring out the latent colors of the starry night sky! (Canon EOS 5D Mark III • Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 @ f/2.0 • 13 sec • ISO 6400.)

PHOTO TIP: A second, longer exposure (30 seconds) for the foreground produces a better Milky Way sky reflection in the water. This exposure is blended with the shorter sky exposure (13 seconds) via Photoshop’s Layers. 13″ gives me perfectly round stars in the Central Bulge area, using the 24mm lens on a full frame camera. 30″ produces elliptical or egg-shaped stars (due to the earth’s rotation), but we tend to overlook this imperfection in a lake reflection. If I were using a wider, 14mm lens, I’d need to use a 20 to 25 seconds exposure for the sky and 45 to 60 seconds for the foreground. I usually double these foreground exposure times if there is no water present (in order to obtain even more shadow detail for my foreground objects). When exposing longer than 30 seconds, I typically turn on the camera’s “Long Exposure Noise Reduction” function (Note: some camera’s will benefit from the LENR function even for exposures under 30″ — my Canon 5DM3 is fairly noise-free up to 30″.)

My new ebook, “Milky Way NightScapes,” gives extensive details on my style of starry night landscape photography. Four chapters cover planning, scouting, forecasting star/landscape alignment, light painting, shooting techniques and post processing.

Grand Teton Workshop: Only two spots left in my 2nd Teton workshop (July 19-23).
Arches/Canyonlands Workshop: Only three spots left in my 2nd Arches workshop (August 10-14).

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