Night Landscapes

<p>So often we associate nighttime images with either astro-photography of the stars and moon, or of night scenes of the city or other man-made subjects including artificial light sources. I started playing with nighttime landscape opportunities almost as soon as I bought my first DSLR. If there is a moon for lighting, but the stars are not totally overwhelmed, it can make for some interesting effects. Here are a couple of mine. Please share some of yours.</p><div></div>

<p>Here is another one from Bryce Canyon:</p><div></div>

<p>An emergency vehicle sliding through the frame....somewhat different than lightning. Some action is good.</p><div></div>

<p>This is from a canoe trip in northern Ontario.<br>

It's always a challenge with a bright moon.</p>

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<p>trying out 12800 ISO</p><div></div>

<p>David- I really like your photo.</p>

<p>Here is one of the Teton Range from the Idaho side on an extremely clear (and cold) night. This was a single exposure. The brightest object above the road was Jupiter.</p>

<p>I have also been playing with a composite of two images, the first taken at dusk and the second, without moving the camera and tripod, taken after dark.</p><div></div>

<p>Here is a composite image of two photos, one photo taken at dusk, and one well after dark.</p><div></div>

<p>Glenn, I love both images. I've been thinking about trying the composite approach, and now I'll have to try and follow your example. Thanks for sharing!</p>

<p>Gup, what happens if you point the camera the other direction? Did you try that angle?</p>

<p>Beautiful shots, all of them! Why is it that where i live the sky is so bland but everywhere else it's just.. like in this pictures.</p>

Our first night, the stars were bright. by David Stephens, on Flickr

New Mexico

 

New Mexico

 

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Still trying to figure how this site works. Forgive the small image. Not sure how to delete it to then repost.

Colorado...

Ray, very impressive. I love it!

Cherry Springs St Pk, Pennsylvania Feb 20

 

Glenn, I really like your last post of the Milky Way. Can you share the exif data and the location? David, your first image with the red cliff and tree is quite good.

I will be going to Alaska and will be on an Arctic Circle day trip to photograph the Northern Lights. I have been reading Patrick Endres' e-book, How to Photograph the Northern Lights. It's superb and he's most helpful. I purchased a 16mm f2.0 lens for the Aurora. Any other tips you can send my way? Thanks. Larry

Glenn, I really like your last post of the Milky Way. Can you share the exif data and the location? David, your first image with the red cliff and tree is quite good.

I will be going to Alaska and will be on an Arctic Circle day trip to photograph the Northern Lights. I have been reading Patrick Endres' e-book, How to Photograph the Northern Lights. It's superb and he's most helpful. I purchased a 16mm f2.0 lens for the Aurora. Any other tips you can send my way? Thanks. Larry

Larry, make sure you have a sturdy (very sturdy) tripod and a remote shutter release. Then practice, practice, practice so you know how everything works by feel. Trying to figure it out for the first time, in the dark, and as that once-in-a-lifetime image passes away is too late. Good luck and have a ton of fun! We look forward to seeing your results.

David, Thanks for your apt advice. I will practice night shots whenever I can get away from the city. Obviously, it won't be the Aurora, but at least I can practice getting the focus correct and experiment with different shutter speeds. Just practicing using the camera in the dark will be a plus. I will happily post any successes online at PN. Thanks again. Larry

There is a program called "Starry Landscape Stacker," which combines multiple exposures to get the best composite star images and combines them with the optimized terrestrial portion.

 

<br><br>I'm really interested in pursuing night landscapes, it's just not very practical in a Chicago suburb. 30 miles or so into Wisconsin may do the trick. My brother took a stunning photo of Bryce, using a 14 mm lens. The entire hoodoo field is captured, against the starry sky. I'd post it, but it's against the PNET rules.

 

<br><br> You can combine sky images to average out noise, but you need longer exposures to capture enough photons for deep space objects and stars dimmer than about magnitude 3. Exposures longer than 500/fl seconds leave star trails, unless you use a tracking device.

 

<br><br>A red illuminator will let you see what you're doing without affecting your night vision. i wish my Sony A7 had a red-only option in the finder, like my iPhone for star location.

Edited March 9, 2017 by Ed_Ingold

I have a great headlamp with the red light function. It works well. My problem now is I need glasses to read the LCD screen on top of my D800E and my other glasses to see the stars! Petzl Tikka RXP. It's rechargeable, too.

Gup, there's a new technology you should investigate. They call them bifocals. (giggle, giggle...)

Really, I have the same problem. For photography I've found my contact lenses and reading glasses don't cut it. I have to switch to my granny glasses so I can see both the camera screen and my subject. Bummer!

Larry - The composite nightscape photo was taken on a very clear night from the foothills of Idaho Falls, Idaho. I set up the tripod at dusk and took the foreground image at 0.8s, ISO 800, f:8.0 using my Rokinon 24mm f:1.4 on my Canon 5D II. I then waited more than an hour for the sky to darken and obtained a series of five exposures at 20s, ISO 1,600, f:1.4, with the same lens and camera as before. The five images of the Milky Way were blended using Starry Night Landscape Stacker, which Ed Ingold mentions above. The resulting image was then composited with the foreground image in Photoshop. The most knowledgeable source of information about nightscape photography that I have found is by Roger Clark at http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/nightscapes/ .

I found another "tool" for spending hours outside on cold nights - tactical gloves. Technically, they're sold as shooting gloves, and come in several weights and styles. They are thin in the fingers and very flexible, and warmer than bare skin. I can pick up a dime wearing them. Some are fingerless, like bicycling gloves, but without the heavy padding. That preserves maximum tactile flexibility, but are notoriously hard to take off. In really cold weather I wear ordinary gloves or mittens, taking them off as needed. But for an old guy with poor circulation, a 60 degree night might as well be freezing after a while.