Tag: Milky Way

Focus on Yosemite National Park [Encore Publication]: A photographer’s dream, Yosemite offers so much more than the postcard views

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area can count many blessings, but one I am most thankful for is our fairly close proximity to Yosemite National Park.  The second oldest national park in the US, Yosemite is a photographer’s dream.  Since the days when Ansel Adams helped make the park famous through his masterful landscape photography, shutterbugs of all stripes have been flocking there to try to capture some of its indescribable beauty.  Most of us will never be an Ansel Adams, but that doesn’t stop me from returning to Yosemite at least once per year to give it my best shot, as it were.

Without doubt, there are many iconic views in the park that are relatively easy for even novice photographers to render.  There is majesty in the panorama over Yosemite Valley as seen from the famous Tunnel View lookout.  One doesn’t even have to venture off the main park road to shoot a nice image of Half Dome or El Capitan.  But Yosemite offers so much more to the photographer who’s willing to look a bit more closely, to hike a little instead of jumping out of a car to shoot, or to come to a spot at unusual times, including the middle of the night.

In this post, I’ll share a few images I made in Yosemite National Park over the past year, but none of them will be a postcard-type shot that you’ve seen 1000 times before.  And we’ll talk a bit about how to find and capture these less discovered views.

While hiking in the Tuolumne Meadows area, 5000 feet above Yosemite Valley, we were caught in a freak hailstorm at the remote Dog Lake.  Instead of throwing a rain cover over my gear and running for shelter like a normal person would do, I set up my kit and started shooting.  This image plays off the contrasts between the peaceful and violent sides of nature and between the light and the shade.  It is a composite of several different shots made at different exposures, put together in Lightroom’s HDR (high dynamic range) merging tool.

Yosemite offers unusual and dramatic views to those willing to get away from the roads and brave some harsher conditions.  Buy this photo

Another less-visited attraction in the park is the wonderful Chilnualna Falls.  The lower waterfall is actually quite an easy hike from the parking area at the trailhead, and its little swimming hole makes for a refreshing break on a hot summer’s day.  Here’s a shot of my younger daughter enjoying a dip in the swimming hole just under the falls.  To blur the water, I used a slow shutter speed, which could only be achieved in the harsh mid-day light by attaching neutral-density filters to the lens.  Neutral-density (ND) filters are an essential accessory for the landscape photographer, because they block most of the available light from reaching the camera’s sensor, allowing you to use a slower shutter speed to blur motion and/or a wider aperture to throw the background out of focus.

These reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor, so you can use slower shutter speeds to blur motion, or so you can use a wider aperture to get a shallow depth-of-field, even in bright sunlight.

A neutral-density filter allows a nicely blurred shot of the waterfall at Chilnualna Falls.  Buy this photo

Another lovely hike in the high country of Tuolumne Meadows is Cathedral Lakes.  On our way back from these pristine and remote lakes, we passed this granite rock dome.  I used a polarizing filter on a wide-angle lens to bring out the details on the surface of the rock and to lend more drama to the sky.  Then, in post-processing, I converted the image to black-and-white to emphasize the remarkable texture of the granite slab’s surface.  For more discussion about converting images to black-and-white, take a look at my earlier post: B&W Photography post.

Using a polarizing filter can darken and add drama to skies, reduce unwanted reflections, and render stunning detail on shiny surfaces.  Converting an image to black-and-white can bring out the textures and patterns that may be less prominent when viewed in a color image.  Buy this photo

Just because a place is glorious in its own right doesn’t mean we can’t include people in our photos.  Putting humans in a landscape adds a personal touch, provides a sense of scale, and often tells a more compelling story than would an image of the same place without people.  Here I’ve included my daughters in a landscape from the incomparable summit of Sentinel Dome.

Including people in landscapes layers a human narrative on top of the natural story.  I like the added color, and humor, from the addition of my daughters in their college logo hats.  I’ve chosen a wide aperture to soften the focus on the lovely background.  Buy this photo

You don’t have to stop shooting when the sun sets.  Some of the most wonderful images of Yosemite are made after dark.  I came to this spot not far from the edge of the meadow in Yosemite Valley, and right on the bank of the Merced River, quite late at night when the sky was very dark.  I set up my camera and wide-angle lens on a tripod and made a 25-second exposure at a high sensitivity (ISO) setting.  The resulting image shows the spectacle of the Milky Way arched above the terrestrial grandeur of Half Dome and other Yosemite landforms.  For more discussion of capturing the Milky Way, visit this post: Milky Way photography post.

A favorite image of mine: The Milky Way above Half Dome.  Note that not every landscape image needs to be in “landscape orientation”.  Buy this photo

Next time you are fortunate enough to visit Yosemite National Park, try to discover some new places, visit favorite places less visited times of the day (or night), and include some people for a human component to the story.  Your images will stand out from the millions of others made in this glorious park!

Do you have a favorite photographic experience from Yosemite to share?  Please leave a comment to let us know.

Want to see more posts on great travel photography destinations?  See them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Ireland [Encore Publication]: The Emerald Isle offers unique landscapes and culture

We’re recently returned from a two-week adventure in Ireland and Scotland.  Our itinerary sandwiched a week of hiking in the glorious southwestern regions of Ireland (Counties Kerry and Cork) in between brief stays in the major cities of Dublin and Edinburgh.  The photographic opportunities in these regions are remarkable, with lovely landscapes, historic architecture, and a generous friendly culture evident everywhere.  I provide an overview in the form of a photo essay in today’s post, and upcoming posts will feature more details on specific places or types of subjects from the trip.

The Irish pub remains a central focus of life on the Emerald Isle.  In cities and tiny rural villages, the pubs are places for people to come together and catch up with old friends, make new friends, listen to live traditional music, and of course drink a pint or two.  This image was made in Dublin’s famed O’Donoghue’s Pub, where in the 1960s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival.
To make portraits in pubs, where the lighting is dim and the use of flash is out of the question, use a fast lens and a high ISO setting.  You need a shutter speed of at least 1/80 of a second to get a reasonably sharp image of musicians at work.  Buy this photo

It may come as a surprise (or not) to learn that Ireland’s most popular attraction is the Guinness Storehouse tour in Dublin.  Here my wife pulls a perfect pint of the “black stuff,” which we then enjoyed in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse with views overlooking all of Dublin.

Another low-light shot, this image was made with ambient light only, using a fast lens and relatively high ISO.  Remember to capture some shots of your traveling companions.  Buy this photo

I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula.  There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a Sixth Century monastery.  A photographer’s paradise!

St. Finbarr’s Church stands on a tiny island on the Gougane Barra Peninsula.  To make this image, I shot in the early morning when the quality of light was compelling, got down low to include the rushes in the lake, and used a polarizing filter to bring out the textures in the water and sky.  Buy this photo

Don’t put away your gear when the sun sets!  On a rare clear night in rural Ireland, the photography is stunning.  Here’s an image of the Milky Way sprawling above the ruins of St. Finbarr’s Abbey, a Sixth Century monastery.

To capture the Milky Way, use a sturdy tripod and a relatively fast lens with a high ISO setting.  In most cases, a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds is best, but here I used a somewhat shorter exposure to avoid having the cross appear washed out in the site’s artificial light.  Buy this photo

We then hiked a portion of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way.  You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes.  This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.

Here I used my go-to landscape lens, the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens, fitted with a good circular polarizing filter.  I adjusted the angle of the polarizer carefully to enhance the sky without weakening the refraction of the rainbow.  I got down low to the ground to include the leading line from the old wall.  Other compositional elements include the sheep in the field and the dramatic clouds in the sky.  Buy this photo

At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the family since 1750.  Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind.  Buy this photo

On our way to the start of our next day’s hike in Killarney National Park, we stopped at a viewpoint called Priest’s Leap for this lovely view.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remember to include yourself and your travel companions in some of your images.  Set up the camera and either mount it on a tripod or show another person how to release the shutter.  For more on how to make images including yourself, read this post: Post on Including Yourself

This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field.  Buy this photo

Ireland is filled with forests that exude a sense of mystery and magic.  Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream.  All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.

Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park.  Buy this photo

The legendary Gap of Dunloe outside of Killarney stretches for eight miles through mountains and valleys, along streams and by ancient farmhouses.  It can be traversed by horse-drawn carriages called “jaunting cars,” but the intrepid photographer will want to hike it instead.

The Gap of Dunloe offers compelling photographic subjects like this stream flowing in a valley surrounded by mountains.  A good wide-angle lens with a polarizing filter brings out the color and texture in such a landscape, even on a “soft day” like this one.  Buy this photo

We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two.  These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.

At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets, and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO.  Buy this photo

My essential portrait lens:

We were fortunate to stay two nights in Killarney at the wonderful Lake Hotel.  The hotel grounds include the ruins of an ancient castle situated on a lake with mountains behind.  During breakfast on our second morning, I noticed the cloud cover had lifted but there was still mist hanging on the side of the hills around the lake.  I ran up to our room, grabbed my thirty pounds of camera gear, and rushed outside to capture the ruins with the mist enshrouding the lake and mountains.

There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld.  Buy this photo

Our final day’s hike was the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way from Ventry to Dunquin.  The lovely views of the Atlantic are punctuated with green fields dotted with odd “beehive huts,” some dating back to the Neolithic Period.
To make this landscape incorporating ancient stone beehive huts and walls, I shot down across the fields to the sea, being sure to keep the horizon level.  Buy this photo

The picturesque Blasket Islands were home to a community of Irish-speaking farmer-fishermen until they were forced to evacuate in 1953.  This is one of Ireland’s most gorgeous stretches of coastline, captured here using a wide-angle lens with polarizer.  Rotate the filter until the sky is dark and dramatic.  Buy this photo

After Ireland, we spent a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland.  This image was shot along the Royal Mile.

Be on the lookout for unusual perspectives.  This image juxtaposes the different colors and textures of  the statue in the foreground with the cathedral in the background.  Buy this photo

Dining is an essential part of any trip, and Edinburgh offers many opportunities to savor the new Scottish cuisine.  This lovely smoked salmon plate (with accompanying wee dram of whisky) was captured at the Tower Restaurant atop the Scottish National Museum.

For more about how to shoot food images, read this post: Post on Food Photography.      Buy this photo

I hope this post inspires you to visit Ireland and Scotland.  Look for posts over the next few days with more details about the trip and images.

If you’d like to read more posts about photographic destinations, you can find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/

Have you visited Ireland?  What did you find most memorable?  Any tips on photographing this enchanted place?  Please share your thoughts in the comment box after this post.

Meteoric Rise [Encore Publication]: How to shoot the Perseid and other meteor showers

While the Geminid Meteor Shower in December and the Perseid Meteor Shower in August are the best-known, each year there are quite a few major meteor showers that afford great opportunities for seeing meteor activity.  Here is a partial list, courtesy of Sky & Telescope:

Major Meteor Showers in 2017
Shower Radiant and direction Morning of maximum Best hourly rate Parent
Quadrantid Draco (NE) Jan. 3 60-100 2003 EH1
Lyrid Lyra (E) April 22 10-20 Thatcher (1861 I)
Eta Aquariid* Aquarius (E) May 6 20-60 1P/Halley
Delta Aquariid Aquarius (S) July 30 20 96P/Machholz
Perseid* Perseus (NE) Aug. 12 90 109P/Swift-Tuttle
Orionid Orion (SE) Oct. 21 10-20 1P/Halley
Southern Taurid* Taurus (S) Nov. 5 10-20 2P/Encke
Leonid Leo (E) Nov. 17 10-20 55P/Tempel-Tuttle
Geminid Gemini (S) Dec. 14 100-120 3200 Phaethon

* Strong moonlight will interfere with these showers.

Source: Sky & Telescope

While it’s still technically tricky to make great images of a meteor shower, today’s technology certainly makes it possible for those of us without astronomical budgets to do so.  I shot some nice images of last summer’s Perseid shower and would have been out there shooting the Geminids last December except that the cloud cover here in the San Francisco Bay Area was 95-100%.  Here’s a composite of several images I shot last August of the Perseids.

A composite image made up of one long exposure for the lake, mountain, and trees, plus several 25-second exposures capturing the individual meteors I observed over a 2-hour period.  Buy this photo

Most of the techniques you need for capturing a meteor shower are the same as for capturing the Milky Way.  Review my post from a few weeks ago for a refresher course: Post on Milky Way Photography.

The special challenge when shooting a meteor shower is that meteors can occur anywhere in the sky.  Even with a very wide-angle lens, such as a 14mm or 16mm lens on a full-frame camera, only a small portion of the sky can be covered.  As we are limited to a maximum exposure time of about 25-30 seconds with a 14mm or 16mm lens so as to avoid blurring the stars into star trails, it’s clear that we have to shoot a lot of consecutive images to be likely to capture several meteors throughout the night.  We then use software such as Photoshop to combine the images in which meteors are visible into a single composite image showing all of the meteor activity we captured during the night.

A good tutorial on shooting meteor showers, illustrated with amazing images by Glenn Randall, can be found here: Glenn Randall post on photographing meteor showers.

Have you photographed a meteor shower?  What techniques did you use?  Please share your experiences here.

Want to read more posts about photographic techniques?  Find them all here: Posts on Techniques.

Focus on Ireland [Encore Publication]: The Emerald Isle offers unique landscapes and culture

We’re just back from a two-week adventure in Ireland and Scotland.  Our itinerary sandwiched a week of hiking in the glorious southwestern regions of Ireland (Counties Kerry and Cork) in between brief stays in the major cities of Dublin and Edinburgh.  The photographic opportunities in these regions are remarkable, with lovely landscapes, historic architecture, and a generous friendly culture evident everywhere.  I provide an overview in the form of a photo essay in today’s post, and upcoming posts will feature more details on specific places or types of subjects from the trip.

The Irish pub remains a central focus of life on the Emerald Isle.  In cities and tiny rural villages, the pubs are places for people to come together and catch up with old friends, make new friends, listen to live traditional music, and of course drink a pint or two.  This image was made in Dublin’s famed O’Donoghue’s Pub, where in the 1960s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival.
To make portraits in pubs, where the lighting is dim and the use of flash is out of the question, use a fast lens and a high ISO setting.  You need a shutter speed of at least 1/80 of a second to get a reasonably sharp image of musicians at work.  Buy this photo

It may come as a surprise (or not) to learn that Ireland’s most popular attraction is the Guinness Storehouse tour in Dublin.  Here my wife pulls a perfect pint of the “black stuff,” which we then enjoyed in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse with views overlooking all of Dublin.

Another low-light shot, this image was made with ambient light only, using a fast lens and relatively high ISO.  Remember to capture some shots of your traveling companions.  Buy this photo

I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula.  There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a Sixth Century monastery.  A photographer’s paradise!

St. Finbarr’s Church stands on a tiny island on the Gougane Barra Peninsula.  To make this image, I shot in the early morning when the quality of light was compelling, got down low to include the rushes in the lake, and used a polarizing filter to bring out the textures in the water and sky.  Buy this photo

Don’t put away your gear when the sun sets!  On a rare clear night in rural Ireland, the photography is stunning.  Here’s an image of the Milky Way sprawling above the ruins of St. Finbarr’s Abbey, a Sixth Century monastery.

To capture the Milky Way, use a sturdy tripod and a relatively fast lens with a high ISO setting.  In most cases, a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds is best, but here I used a somewhat shorter exposure to avoid having the cross appear washed out in the site’s artificial light.  Buy this photo

We then hiked a portion of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way.  You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes.  This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.

Here I used my go-to landscape lens, the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens, fitted with a good circular polarizing filter.  I adjusted the angle of the polarizer carefully to enhance the sky without weakening the refraction of the rainbow.  I got down low to the ground to include the leading line from the old wall.  Other compositional elements include the sheep in the field and the dramatic clouds in the sky.  Buy this photo

At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the family since 1750.  Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind.  Buy this photo

On our way to the start of our next day’s hike in Killarney National Park, we stopped at a viewpoint called Priest’s Leap for this lovely view.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remember to include yourself and your travel companions in some of your images.  Set up the camera and either mount it on a tripod or show another person how to release the shutter.  For more on how to make images including yourself, read this post: Post on Including Yourself

This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field.  Buy this photo

Ireland is filled with forests that exude a sense of mystery and magic.  Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream.  All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.

Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park.  Buy this photo

The legendary Gap of Dunloe outside of Killarney stretches for eight miles through mountains and valleys, along streams and by ancient farmhouses.  It can be traversed by horse-drawn carriages called “jaunting cars,” but the intrepid photographer will want to hike it instead.

The Gap of Dunloe offers compelling photographic subjects like this stream flowing in a valley surrounded by mountains.  A good wide-angle lens with a polarizing filter brings out the color and texture in such a landscape, even on a “soft day” like this one.  Buy this photo

We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two.  These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.

At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets, and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO.  Buy this photo

My essential portrait lens:

We were fortunate to stay two nights in Killarney at the wonderful Lake Hotel.  The hotel grounds include the ruins of an ancient castle situated on a lake with mountains behind.  During breakfast on our second morning, I noticed the cloud cover had lifted but there was still mist hanging on the side of the hills around the lake.  I ran up to our room, grabbed my thirty pounds of camera gear, and rushed outside to capture the ruins with the mist enshrouding the lake and mountains.

There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld.  Buy this photo

Our final day’s hike was the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way from Ventry to Dunquin.  The lovely views of the Atlantic are punctuated with green fields dotted with odd “beehive huts,” some dating back to the Neolithic Period.
To make this landscape incorporating ancient stone beehive huts and walls, I shot down across the fields to the sea, being sure to keep the horizon level.  Buy this photo

The picturesque Blasket Islands were home to a community of Irish-speaking farmer-fishermen until they were forced to evacuate in 1953.  This is one of Ireland’s most gorgeous stretches of coastline, captured here using a wide-angle lens with polarizer.  Rotate the filter until the sky is dark and dramatic.  Buy this photo

After Ireland, we spent a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland.  This image was shot along the Royal Mile.

Be on the lookout for unusual perspectives.  This image juxtaposes the different colors and textures of  the statue in the foreground with the cathedral in the background.  Buy this photo

Dining is an essential part of any trip, and Edinburgh offers many opportunities to savor the new Scottish cuisine.  This lovely smoked salmon plate (with accompanying wee dram of whisky) was captured at the Tower Restaurant atop the Scottish National Museum.

For more about how to shoot food images, read this post: Post on Food Photography.      Buy this photo

I hope this post inspires you to visit Ireland and Scotland.  Look for posts over the next few days with more details about the trip and images.

If you’d like to read more posts about photographic destinations, you can find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/

Have you visited Ireland?  What did you find most memorable?  Any tips on photographing this enchanted place?  Please share your thoughts in the comment box after this post.

 

Meteoric Rise: How to shoot the Perseid, Geminid, and other meteor showers

The next two nights (Dec. 13-15) offer a treat to landscape and night photographers around the world.  This time period is the peak of the Geminid Meteor Shower, which, along with the Perseid Meteor Shower (peaking around August 12-14), affords the best opportunity of the year for seeing meteor activity.

While it’s still technically tricky to make great images of a meteor shower, today’s technology certainly makes it possible for those of us without astronomical budgets to do so.  I shot some nice images of last summer’s Perseid shower and would be out there shooting the Geminids the next two nights except that the cloud cover here in the San Francisco Bay Area is expected to be 95-100%.  Here’s a composite of several images I shot last August of the Perseids.

A composite image made up of one long exposure for the lake, mountain, and trees, plus several 25-second exposures capturing the individual meteors I observed over a 2-hour period.  Buy this photo

Most of the techniques you need for capturing a meteor shower are the same as for capturing the Milky Way.  Review my post from a few weeks ago for a refresher course: Post on Milky Way Photography.

The special challenge when shooting a meteor shower is that meteors can occur anywhere in the sky.  Even with a very wide-angle lens, such as a 14mm or 16mm lens on a full-frame camera, only a small portion of the sky can be covered.  As we are limited to a maximum exposure time of about 25-30 seconds with a 14mm or 16mm lens so as to avoid blurring the stars into star trails, it’s clear that we have to shoot a lot of consecutive images to be likely to capture several meteors throughout the night.  We then use software such as Photoshop to combine the images in which meteors are visible into a single composite image showing all of the meteor activity we captured during the night.

A good tutorial on shooting meteor showers, illustrated with amazing images by Glenn Randall, can be found here: Glenn Randall post on photographing meteor showers.

Have you photographed a meteor shower?  What techniques did you use?  Please share your experiences here.

Want to read more posts about photographic techniques?  Find them all here: Posts on Techniques.

Under the Milky Way Tonight [Encore Publication]: How to make great images including our home galaxy

Not too long ago, making images of the Milky Way was not practical for most photo enthusiasts.  Only astronomers and a handful of professional astrophotographers had the expensive equipment required to capture sufficient light from the cluster of quite dim stars that we refer to as the Galactic Core in the night sky.  Shooting with a very long exposure didn’t do the trick for the Milky Way, because leaving the camera’s shutter open for more than about 15-30 seconds would blur each star’s image due to rotation of the Earth.  These blurs, called star trails, could make for striking images with the stars appearing to streak in circles across the sky, but the subtle beauty of the Milky Way would be lost with these long exposures.

But in the last five years or so, camera sensors have become much more sensitive to light, and now it is possible–indeed quite easy–for photo enthusiasts to photograph our home galaxy without expensive specialized equipment.

Here’s how:

You will need a camera with a sensor that can gather a lot of light and with a shutter that can be kept open for a long time.  These requirements limit the range of suitable cameras to full-frame DSLRs and advanced interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras.  You will also need a fairly fast wide-angle lens: I recommend a zoom or prime (fixed focal length) lens with a focal length of 14-16mm on a full-frame camera, and a maximum aperture of f/4 or faster.  For astrophotography I most often use the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens.  It’s got great image quality and is well built, and of course it is wide enough and fast enough for the purposes of capturing the Milky Way.

You will also need a heavy, solid tripod.  I’ve been successful using a lighter weight tripod for Milky Way shots while traveling, but a good professional tripod is better.  I use the SLIK 615-315 with a ball head.

Finally, you’ll want to have a remote shutter release, either a hardwired cable release or a wireless remote release.  This is to trigger the camera without touching it, so as to avoid blurring the image from the vibration of your touch.

Once you have the right equipment, it’s fairly straightforward to photograph the Milky Way.  Choose a dark sky area, far away from the light pollution of any cities or other sources of stray nighttime light.  Shoot toward the Galactic Core where the stars of the Milky Way appear brightest and most colorful.  To plan for where the GC will be on any given date and time and at any given location, I use a smartphone app called PhotoPills: PhotoPills in App Store.  Try to include foreground and/or middle-ground subjects to add interest to your composition.  The image below, made at Yosemite National Park, is appealing because the Milky Way is seen rising above the iconic peak known as Half Dome.

The Milky Way is seen arched through the sky above Half Dome and other landforms in Yosemite Valley.  Careful composition adds drama to your Milky Way images by including Earth-based subjects as well as the sky.  Buy this photo on my website

With your fast wide-angle lens on your full-frame camera, all mounted on your stable tripod, you are ready to shoot.  Remove any filters on the lens, set your camera on full manual mode, select a fast ISO (I usually start at about 3200 and sometimes have to go even higher) and a wide aperture (f/4 or wider), and choose a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds (shorter if your lens is longer than about 18mm).  You can use the 500 Rule, which states that shutter speed should be approximately 500 divided by the focal length of the lens; for example, for a 16mm lens you can use a shutter speed of not longer than about 31 seconds.  Turn off your autofocus on your lens or camera, as it will not work in so dark a setting; instead, manually set your focus to a point near infinity where the stars appear sharp in your viewfinder (or better yet, on your live-view screen).  I like to tape my lens to this setting before it gets dark, so I know the focus won’t change while I’m out in the field in the dark.  It’s also a good idea to turn off your camera’s long-exposure noise reduction feature, if it has one, as this wastes time in the field and it’s equally effective to reduce the noise in Lightroom during post-processing.  Of course, you want to be sure you are shooting RAW files.

Go ahead and shoot a lot of frames, experimenting with different ISO settings and compositions.  It is often a good idea to get a very long exposure, sometimes several minutes long, so that your foreground subjects will be properly exposed.  The frames with the foreground well exposed can later be combined in Photoshop with the ones in which the night sky is properly exposed.

This image was made from several frames: one long exposure for the lake, trees, and mountain in the foreground and middle-ground, and several different 25-second exposures that each captured a different meteor during the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower.  The resulting image shows all of these objects quite prominently, along with the Milky Way.

You may want to combine several different images to see all the features of the night sky and the terrestrial objects clearly. Buy this photo on my website

 

With practice, you’ll find that capturing the Milky Way is within your reach, so long as you have suitable equipment and the patience required to compile enough images that a few will turn out to be successful.  I believe it’s well worth the effort because a good Milky Way shot is so subtle, colorful, and strikingly beautiful.  Good shooting!

Have you created a Milky Way image that you love?  What were the key components to your success?  What were the challenges you faced?  Please share your thoughts and experiences here.

Want to read more posts about photographic techniques?  Find them all here: Posts on Techniques.

Focus on Yosemite National Park [Encore Publication]: A photographer’s dream, Yosemite offers so much more than the postcard views

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area can count many blessings, but one I am most thankful for is our fairly close proximity to Yosemite National Park.  The second oldest national park in the US, Yosemite is a photographer’s dream.  Since the days when Ansel Adams helped make the park famous through his masterful landscape photography, shutterbugs of all stripes have been flocking there to try to capture some of its indescribable beauty.  Most of us will never be an Ansel Adams, but that doesn’t stop me from returning to Yosemite at least once per year to give it my best shot, as it were.

Without doubt, there are many iconic views in the park that are relatively easy for even novice photographers to render.  There is majesty in the panorama over Yosemite Valley as seen from the famous Tunnel View lookout.  One doesn’t even have to venture off the main park road to shoot a nice image of Half Dome or El Capitan.  But Yosemite offers so much more to the photographer who’s willing to look a bit more closely, to hike a little instead of jumping out of a car to shoot, or to come to a spot at unusual times, including the middle of the night.

In this post, I’ll share a few images I made in Yosemite National Park over the past year, but none of them will be a postcard-type shot that you’ve seen 1000 times before.  And we’ll talk a bit about how to find and capture these less discovered views.

While hiking in the Tuolumne Meadows area, 5000 feet above Yosemite Valley, we were caught in a freak hailstorm at the remote Dog Lake.  Instead of throwing a rain cover over my gear and running for shelter like a normal person would do, I set up my kit and started shooting.  This image plays off the contrasts between the peaceful and violent sides of nature and between the light and the shade.  It is a composite of several different shots made at different exposures, put together in Lightroom’s HDR (high dynamic range) merging tool.

Yosemite offers unusual and dramatic views to those willing to get away from the roads and brave some harsher conditions.  Buy this photo

Another less-visited attraction in the park is the wonderful Chilnualna Falls.  The lower waterfall is actually quite an easy hike from the parking area at the trailhead, and its little swimming hole makes for a refreshing break on a hot summer’s day.  Here’s a shot of my younger daughter enjoying a dip in the swimming hole just under the falls.  To blur the water, I used a slow shutter speed, which could only be achieved in the harsh mid-day light by attaching neutral-density filters to the lens.  Neutral-density (ND) filters are an essential accessory for the landscape photographer, because they block most of the available light from reaching the camera’s sensor, allowing you to use a slower shutter speed to blur motion and/or a wider aperture to throw the background out of focus.

These reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor, so you can use slower shutter speeds to blur motion, or so you can use a wider aperture to get a shallow depth-of-field, even in bright sunlight.

A neutral-density filter allows a nicely blurred shot of the waterfall at Chilnualna Falls.  Buy this photo

Another lovely hike in the high country of Tuolumne Meadows is Cathedral Lakes.  On our way back from these pristine and remote lakes, we passed this granite rock dome.  I used a polarizing filter on a wide-angle lens to bring out the details on the surface of the rock and to lend more drama to the sky.  Then, in post-processing, I converted the image to black-and-white to emphasize the remarkable texture of the granite slab’s surface.  For more discussion about converting images to black-and-white, take a look at my earlier post: B&W Photography post.

Using a polarizing filter can darken and add drama to skies, reduce unwanted reflections, and render stunning detail on shiny surfaces.  Converting an image to black-and-white can bring out the textures and patterns that may be less prominent when viewed in a color image.  Buy this photo

Just because a place is glorious in its own right doesn’t mean we can’t include people in our photos.  Putting humans in a landscape adds a personal touch, provides a sense of scale, and often tells a more compelling story than would an image of the same place without people.  Here I’ve included my daughters in a landscape from the incomparable summit of Sentinel Dome.

Including people in landscapes layers a human narrative on top of the natural story.  I like the added color, and humor, from the addition of my daughters in their college logo hats.  I’ve chosen a wide aperture to soften the focus on the lovely background.  Buy this photo

You don’t have to stop shooting when the sun sets.  Some of the most wonderful images of Yosemite are made after dark.  I came to this spot not far from the edge of the meadow in Yosemite Valley, and right on the bank of the Merced River, quite late at night when the sky was very dark.  I set up my camera and wide-angle lens on a tripod and made a 25-second exposure at a high sensitivity (ISO) setting.  The resulting image shows the spectacle of the Milky Way arched above the terrestrial grandeur of Half Dome and other Yosemite landforms.  For more discussion of capturing the Milky Way, visit this post: Milky Way photography post.

A favorite image of mine: The Milky Way above Half Dome.  Note that not every landscape image needs to be in “landscape orientation”.  Buy this photo

Next time you are fortunate enough to visit Yosemite National Park, try to discover some new places, visit favorite places less visited times of the day (or night), and include some people for a human component to the story.  Your images will stand out from the millions of others made in this glorious park!

Do you have a favorite photographic experience from Yosemite to share?  Please leave a comment to let us know.

Want to see more posts on great travel photography destinations?  See them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/.

Focus on Ireland: The Emerald Isle offers unique landscapes and culture

We’re just back from a two-week adventure in Ireland and Scotland.  Our itinerary sandwiched a week of hiking in the glorious southwestern regions of Ireland (Counties Kerry and Cork) in between brief stays in the major cities of Dublin and Edinburgh.  The photographic opportunities in these regions are remarkable, with lovely landscapes, historic architecture, and a generous friendly culture evident everywhere.  I provide an overview in the form of a photo essay in today’s post, and upcoming posts will feature more details on specific places or types of subjects from the trip.

The Irish pub remains a central focus of life on the Emerald Isle.  In cities and tiny rural villages, the pubs are places for people to come together and catch up with old friends, make new friends, listen to live traditional music, and of course drink a pint or two.  This image was made in Dublin’s famed O’Donoghue’s Pub, where in the 1960s bands such as the Dubliners sparked the Irish folk music revival.
To make portraits in pubs, where the lighting is dim and the use of flash is out of the question, use a fast lens and a high ISO setting.  You need a shutter speed of at least 1/80 of a second to get a reasonably sharp image of musicians at work.  Buy this photo

It may come as a surprise (or not) to learn that Ireland’s most popular attraction is the Guinness Storehouse tour in Dublin.  Here my wife pulls a perfect pint of the “black stuff,” which we then enjoyed in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse with views overlooking all of Dublin.

Another low-light shot, this image was made with ambient light only, using a fast lens and relatively high ISO.  Remember to capture some shots of your traveling companions.  Buy this photo

I highly recommend a visit to the very remote Gougane Barra peninsula.  There’s only one hotel, which offers outstanding food and views over a tiny island with a picturesque church and the ruins of a Sixth Century monastery.  A photographer’s paradise!

St. Finbarr’s Church stands on a tiny island on the Gougane Barra Peninsula.  To make this image, I shot in the early morning when the quality of light was compelling, got down low to include the rushes in the lake, and used a polarizing filter to bring out the textures in the water and sky.  Buy this photo

Don’t put away your gear when the sun sets!  On a rare clear night in rural Ireland, the photography is stunning.  Here’s an image of the Milky Way sprawling above the ruins of St. Finbarr’s Abbey, a Sixth Century monastery.

To capture the Milky Way, use a sturdy tripod and a relatively fast lens with a high ISO setting.  In most cases, a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds is best, but here I used a somewhat shorter exposure to avoid having the cross appear washed out in the site’s artificial light.  Buy this photo

We then hiked a portion of the long-distance Sheep’s Head Way.  You’ll rarely encounter completely clear skies while walking in Ireland, but the changeable conditions can create opportunities for glorious landscapes.  This lovely image was made just as the rain let up and the sun poked out, generating a vivid rainbow that spanned over the green fields and ancient walls.

Here I used my go-to landscape lens, the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens, fitted with a good circular polarizing filter.  I adjusted the angle of the polarizer carefully to enhance the sky without weakening the refraction of the rainbow.  I got down low to the ground to include the leading line from the old wall.  Other compositional elements include the sheep in the field and the dramatic clouds in the sky.  Buy this photo

At the end of the Sheep’s Head Way sits the lovely Bantry House, owned by the family since 1750.  Climb the hill behind the house to capture the house and its gardens with the harbor behind.  Buy this photo

On our way to the start of our next day’s hike in Killarney National Park, we stopped at a viewpoint called Priest’s Leap for this lovely view.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: remember to include yourself and your travel companions in some of your images.  Set up the camera and either mount it on a tripod or show another person how to release the shutter.  For more on how to make images including yourself, read this post: Post on Including Yourself

This image at Priest’s Leap was made using a normal lens with polarizing filter, stopped down to maximize depth-of-field.  Buy this photo

Ireland is filled with forests that exude a sense of mystery and magic.  Look for the little things as you walk: a flower or shamrock, a moss-covered tree, a tiny stream.  All that rain has the happy side-effect of making Ireland the greenest place I’ve ever seen.

Slow down and seek out the little natural details around you, like this moss-covered tree in Killarney National Park.  Buy this photo

The legendary Gap of Dunloe outside of Killarney stretches for eight miles through mountains and valleys, along streams and by ancient farmhouses.  It can be traversed by horse-drawn carriages called “jaunting cars,” but the intrepid photographer will want to hike it instead.

The Gap of Dunloe offers compelling photographic subjects like this stream flowing in a valley surrounded by mountains.  A good wide-angle lens with a polarizing filter brings out the color and texture in such a landscape, even on a “soft day” like this one.  Buy this photo

We spent every evening in Ireland visiting a pub or two.  These pubs differ in character, but all reflect the generous and friendly local culture, and many offer live music.

At a pub in Killarney, I was chatting with this fiddler during a break between sets, and made this portrait using natural light with a fast portrait lens, a wide aperture, and a high ISO.  Buy this photo

My essential portrait lens:

We were fortunate to stay two nights in Killarney at the wonderful Lake Hotel.  The hotel grounds include the ruins of an ancient castle situated on a lake with mountains behind.  During breakfast on our second morning, I noticed the cloud cover had lifted but there was still mist hanging on the side of the hills around the lake.  I ran up to our room, grabbed my thirty pounds of camera gear, and rushed outside to capture the ruins with the mist enshrouding the lake and mountains.

There was no time to set up a tripod as the warming sun was burning away the magical mist on the lake, so I shot this image handheld.  Buy this photo

Our final day’s hike was the beautiful Wild Atlantic Way from Ventry to Dunquin.  The lovely views of the Atlantic are punctuated with green fields dotted with odd “beehive huts,” some dating back to the Neolithic Period.
To make this landscape incorporating ancient stone beehive huts and walls, I shot down across the fields to the sea, being sure to keep the horizon level.  Buy this photo

The picturesque Blasket Islands were home to a community of Irish-speaking farmer-fishermen until they were forced to evacuate in 1953.  This is one of Ireland’s most gorgeous stretches of coastline, captured here using a wide-angle lens with polarizer.  Rotate the filter until the sky is dark and dramatic.  Buy this photo

After Ireland, we spent a few days in Edinburgh, Scotland.  This image was shot along the Royal Mile.

Be on the lookout for unusual perspectives.  This image juxtaposes the different colors and textures of  the statue in the foreground with the cathedral in the background.  Buy this photo

Dining is an essential part of any trip, and Edinburgh offers many opportunities to savor the new Scottish cuisine.  This lovely smoked salmon plate (with accompanying wee dram of whisky) was captured at the Tower Restaurant atop the Scottish National Museum.

For more about how to shoot food images, read this post: Post on Food Photography.      Buy this photo

I hope this post inspires you to visit Ireland and Scotland.  Look for posts over the next few days with more details about the trip and images.

If you’d like to read more posts about photographic destinations, you can find them all here: http://www.to-travel-hopefully.com/category/destinations/

Have you visited Ireland?  What did you find most memorable?  Any tips on photographing this enchanted place?  Please share your thoughts in the comment box after this post.

 

Focus on Yosemite National Park: A photographer’s dream, Yosemite offers much more than postcard views

Those of us who live in the San Francisco Bay Area can count many blessings, but one I am most thankful for is our fairly close proximity to Yosemite National Park.  The second oldest national park in the US, Yosemite is a photographer’s dream.  Since the days when Ansel Adams helped make the park famous through his masterful landscape photography, shutterbugs of all stripes have been flocking there to try to capture some of its indescribable beauty.  Most of us will never be an Ansel Adams, but that doesn’t stop me from returning to Yosemite at least once per year to give it my best shot, as it were.

Without doubt, there are many iconic views in the park that are relatively easy for even novice photographers to render.  There is majesty in the panorama over Yosemite Valley as seen from the famous Tunnel View lookout.  One doesn’t even have to venture off the main park road to shoot a nice image of Half Dome or El Capitan.  But Yosemite offers so much more to the photographer who’s willing to look a bit more closely, to hike a little instead of jumping out of a car to shoot, or to come to a spot at unusual times, including the middle of the night.

In this post, I’ll share a few images I made in Yosemite National Park over the past year, but none of them will be a postcard-type shot that you’ve seen 1000 times before.  And we’ll talk a bit about how to find and capture these less discovered views.

While hiking in the Tuolumne Meadows area, 5000 feet above Yosemite Valley, we were caught in a freak hailstorm at the remote Dog Lake.  Instead of throwing a rain cover over my gear and running for shelter like a normal person would do, I set up my kit and started shooting.  This image plays off the contrasts between the peaceful and violent sides of nature and between the light and the shade.  It is a composite of several different shots made at different exposures, put together in Lightroom’s HDR (high dynamic range) merging tool.

Yosemite offers unusual and dramatic views to those willing to get away from the roads and brave some harsher conditions.  Buy this photo

Another less-visited attraction in the park is the wonderful Chilnualna Falls.  The lower waterfall is actually quite an easy hike from the parking area at the trailhead, and its little swimming hole makes for a refreshing break on a hot summer’s day.  Here’s a shot of my younger daughter enjoying a dip in the swimming hole just under the falls.  To blur the water, I used a slow shutter speed, which could only be achieved in the harsh mid-day light by attaching neutral-density filters to the lens.  Neutral-density (ND) filters are an essential accessory for the landscape photographer, because they block most of the available light from reaching the camera’s sensor, allowing you to use a slower shutter speed to blur motion and/or a wider aperture to throw the background out of focus.

These reduce the amount of light that reaches the camera’s sensor, so you can use slower shutter speeds to blur motion, or so you can use a wider aperture to get a shallow depth-of-field, even in bright sunlight.

A neutral-density filter allows a nicely blurred shot of the waterfall at Chilnualna Falls.  Buy this photo

Another lovely hike in the high country of Tuolumne Meadows is Cathedral Lakes.  On our way back from these pristine and remote lakes, we passed this granite rock dome.  I used a polarizing filter on a wide-angle lens to bring out the details on the surface of the rock and to lend more drama to the sky.  Then, in post-processing, I converted the image to black-and-white to emphasize the remarkable texture of the granite slab’s surface.  For more discussion about converting images to black-and-white, take a look at my earlier post: B&W Photography post.

Using a polarizing filter can darken and add drama to skies, reduce unwanted reflections, and render stunning detail on shiny surfaces.  Converting an image to black-and-white can bring out the textures and patterns that may be less prominent when viewed in a color image.  Buy this photo

Just because a place is glorious in its own right doesn’t mean we can’t include people in our photos.  Putting humans in a landscape adds a personal touch, provides a sense of scale, and often tells a more compelling story than would an image of the same place without people.  Here I’ve included my daughters in a landscape from the incomparable summit of Sentinel Dome.

Including people in landscapes layers a human narrative on top of the natural story.  I like the added color, and humor, from the addition of my daughters in their college logo hats.  I’ve chosen a wide aperture to soften the focus on the lovely background.  Buy this photo

You don’t have to stop shooting when the sun sets.  Some of the most wonderful images of Yosemite are made after dark.  I came to this spot not far from the edge of the meadow in Yosemite Valley, and right on the bank of the Merced River, quite late at night when the sky was very dark.  I set up my camera and wide-angle lens on a tripod and made a 25-second exposure at a high sensitivity (ISO) setting.  The resulting image shows the spectacle of the Milky Way arched above the terrestrial grandeur of Half Dome and other Yosemite landforms.  For more discussion of capturing the Milky Way, visit this post: Milky Way photography post.

A favorite image of mine: The Milky Way above Half Dome.  Note that not every landscape image needs to be in “landscape orientation”.  Buy this photo

Next time you are fortunate enough to visit Yosemite National Park, try to discover some new places, visit favorite places less visited times of the day (or night), and include some people for a human component to the story.  Your images will stand out from the millions of others made in this glorious park!

Do you have a favorite photographic experience from Yosemite to share?  Please leave a comment to let us know.

 

Under the Milky Way Tonight: How to make great images including our home galaxy

Not too long ago, making images of the Milky Way was not practical for most photo enthusiasts.  Only astronomers and a handful of professional astrophotographers had the expensive equipment required to capture sufficient light from the cluster of quite dim stars that we refer to as the Galactic Core in the night sky.  Shooting with a very long exposure didn’t do the trick for the Milky Way, because leaving the camera’s shutter open for more than about 15-30 seconds would blur each stars image due to rotation of the Earth.  These blurs, called star trails, could make for striking images with the stars appearing to streak in circles across the sky, but the subtle beauty of the Milky Way would be lost with these long exposures.

But in the last five years or so, camera sensors have become much more sensitive to light, and now it is possible–indeed quite easy–for photo enthusiasts to photograph our home galaxy without expensive specialized equipment.

Here’s how:

You will need a camera with a sensor that can gather a lot of light and with a shutter that can be kept open for a long time.  These requirements limit the range of suitable cameras to full-frame DSLRs and advanced interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras.  You will also need a fairly fast wide-angle lens: I recommend a zoom or prime (fixed focal length) lens with a focal length of 14-16mm on a full-frame camera, and a maximum aperture of f/4 or faster.  For astrophotography I most often use the Nikon 16-35mm f/4 lens.  It’s got great image quality and is well built, and of course it is wide enough and fast enough for the purposes of capturing the Milky Way.

You will also need a heavy, solid tripod.  I’ve been successful using a lighter weight tripod for Milky Way shots while traveling, but a good professional tripod is better.  I use the SLIK 615-315 with a ball head.

Finally, you’ll want to have a remote shutter release, either a hardwired cable release or a wireless remote release.  This is to trigger the camera without touching it, so as to avoid blurring the image from the vibration of your touch.

Once you have the right equipment, it’s fairly straightforward to photograph the Milky Way.  Choose a dark sky area, far away from the light pollution of any cities or other sources of stray nighttime light.  Shoot toward the Galactic Core where the stars of the Milky Way appear brightest and most colorful.  To plan for where the GC will be on any given date and time and at any given location, I use a smartphone app called PhotoPills: PhotoPills in App Store.  Try to include foreground and/or middle-ground subjects to add interest to your composition.  The image below, made at Yosemite National Park, is appealing because the Milky Way is seen rising above the iconic peak known as Half Dome.

The Milky Way is seen arched through the sky above Half Dome and other landforms in Yosemite Valley.  Careful composition adds drama to your Milky Way images by including Earth-based subjects as well as the sky.  Buy this photo on my website

With your fast wide-angle lens on your full-frame camera, all mounted on your stable tripod, you are ready to shoot.  Remove any filters on the lens, set your camera on full manual mode, select a fast ISO (I usually start at about 3200 and sometimes have to go even higher) and a wide aperture (f/4 or wider), and choose a shutter speed of 20-25 seconds (shorter if your lens is longer than about 18mm).  You can use the 500 Rule, which states that shutter speed should be approximately 500 divided by the focal length of the lens; for example, for a 16mm lens you can use a shutter speed of not longer than about 31 seconds.  Turn off your autofocus on your lens or camera, as it will not work in so dark a setting; instead, manually set your focus to a point near infinity where the stars appear sharp in your viewfinder (or better yet, on your live-view screen).  I like to tape my lens to this setting before it gets dark, so I know the focus won’t change while I’m out in the field in the dark.  It’s also a good idea to turn off your camera’s long-exposure noise reduction feature, if it has one, as this wastes time in the field and it’s equally effective to reduce the noise in Lightroom during post-processing.  Of course, you want to be sure you are shooting RAW files.

Go ahead and shoot a lot of frames, experimenting with different ISO settings and compositions.  It is often a good idea to get a very long exposure, sometimes several minutes long, so that your foreground subjects will be properly exposed.  The frames with the foreground well exposed can later be combined in Photoshop with the ones in which the night sky is properly exposed.

This image was made from several frames: one long exposure for the lake, trees, and mountain in the foreground and middle-ground, and several different 25-second exposures that each captured a different meteor during the peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower.  The resulting image shows all of these objects quite prominently, along with the Milky Way.

You may want to combine several different images to see all the features of the night sky and the terrestrial objects clearly. Buy this photo on my website

 

With practice, you’ll find that capturing the Milky Way is within your reach, so long as you have suitable equipment and the patience required to compile enough images that a few will turn out to be successful.  I believe it’s well worth the effort because a good Milky Way shot is so subtle, colorful, and strikingly beautiful.  Good shooting!

Have you created a Milky Way image that you love?  What were the key components to your success?  What were the challenges you faced?  Please share your thoughts and experiences here.