Two Rivers in the Grand Canyon

“Two Rivers” ~ The Dark River (a.k.a. The Great Rift in the Milky Way) rising over the Colorado River in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. This location is at Mile 139, just below the confluence with Kanab Creek. ~ © Royce Bair

The Story: I woke up eleven days ago at 3:30 am on the 5th day of a Colorado River rafting trip with Western River Expeditions (that’s their boat on the bottom right); and found that the Milky Way core had finally rotated almost to the point that the Dark Horse Nebula could be seen at the bottom of the canyon. Five hours earlier I had gone to bed under the conclusion that the Milky Way core would not be revealed from this location (according to PhotoPills), before the Astronomical Dusk had ended, due to the high canyon walls.

This 188-mile section of the Grand Canyon is one
of the darkest regions in the USA and occupies
an area larger than many eastern states!

PhotoPills had been right; however, even though the Astronomical Dusk (AD) was just ending, the view of the Milky Way in this 6,000 feet (1829 m.) deep section of the Grand Canyon was breathtaking, and I decided to wait another 15 minutes into the twilight, allowing more of the “horse” to be revealed and started an 8-exposure stack (to reduce digital noise) at 3:45 am. About a minute after I finished the stack, the bright yellow star, Antares, disappeared behind the canyon wall.

After the stack for the Milky Way, I waited another 45 minutes into the Nautical Twilight (at 4:30 am) and did a 4-exposure stack for the foreground. The results of these two stacks were then blended in Photoshop.

Although shooting past the Astronomical Dusk lowers sky contrast and makes the Milky Way more faint, it was worth it in order to place the core closer to its reveal and produce a better sky composition—reminding me once again that even though the AD is technically the best time to photography the Milky Way, there are esthetic and artistic reasons to fudge a little and wander into the Astro Twilight periods!

EXIF: Stacked & Blended. Canon EOS 5D Mark III using a Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 Fisheye lens. Sky: 8 shot stack, @ 15 sec | f/2.8 | ISO 8000. Foreground: 4 shot stack @ 30 sec | f/4.0 | ISO 1000

How-to-Tutorial: Exposure stacking. Many wonder how effective stacking is in reducing digital noise. Although tracking is a better method of reducing noise and improving detail in the sky, for the small investment in extra field time, stacking is very effective. I often like to say that stacking is the poor man's method of tracking. It requires no extra equipment, only a little extra time in the field. In this case, only eight 15-second exposures, or two extra minutes. Of course, one must spend extra time in post-processing to stack the exposures. I used Starry Landscape Stacker for the Mac. Windows users can use Sequator. Both software programs align the stars (which move between each exposure) and treat the foreground separately (which does not move).

How many stacking exposures should you make? For starry night skies I recommend at least five shots, taking them as fast as they'll write to your memory card. The more you shots you take, the smoother the software can make the sky between the stars. Eight to ten shots works better. About 15 stacks produces the best return on my investment of time—much more than this produces a diminishing return (less noticeable smoothness for your extra efforts). If you need to shoot the foreground separately (for a twilight blend) like I did, four or five stacks is typically good enough, since foregrounds often have details (rocks and plants) that tend to hide noise. When I do the foreground stacks separately, I typically just process them im Photoshop as a Smart Object.

Many people ask about shooting additional "dark exposures" (with the lens cap on) and processing these with your stack (both Starry Landscape Stacker and Sequator offer this option). Doing this will help remove some of the hot and noisy pixels in your image, and you can do this if you have extra time; but, I've found if you are strapped for time, the winning results would be shooting 15 "light" frames over 10 "light frames, followed by 5 dark frames. However, if you have only have time to shoot about 5 to 8 light frames before clouds move in to cover your stars, then following up with an equal number of dark frames will be very beneficial.

These three images were enlarged 200% in order to show show the digital noise (click to enlarge for more detail). At this enlargement, a standard 25 to 30 seconds exposure still shows some star movement or trailing. By reducing the exposure time to 15 seconds (and even shorter times when using longer focal  length lenses) and compensating with a higher ISO, one can make stacking even more effective.

How long should your exposures be? Stacking allows you two benefits:

1. Reduced digital noise via the stacking process
2. The ability to choose a shorter exposure time to eliminate star trailing (due to the Earth's rotation)

You should choose an exposure time that works best with your lens' focal length. Instead of a typical 30 seconds exposure, you should go with a 15-second exposure for 14mm to 16mm lenses on a full frame camera. Ten to 13 seconds for a 24mm lens, and 5-8 seconds for a 50mm lens (refer to the "400 rule" in my eBook for more details).

When you decrease you exposure time, you'll need to compensate by choosing a wider f-stop (i.e. f/2.0 instead of f/2.8) or go to a higher ISO (i.e. 12800 instead of 6400), or a combination of both. I often use an ISO of 8000 instead of 12800 (even though I am slightly underexposing), and compensate in post processing with the Adobe Raw Converter (or Lightroom) Exposure slider.

Processing the sky exposure. Make sure you process your stacks as 16-bit TIFFs in order retain as much bit depth as possible. Once you have processed your stacked exposures into one image, you'll need to increase the sky contrast, especially in this case where I went into the Astronomical Twilight, which makes the Milky Way even more faint than usual. As explained in my other blog posts and in my eBook, I use ''S'' Curves to increase the sky contrast. Photoshop and Lightroom Curves does a better job of protecting Milky Way core highlight details than other processing methods.

The left image is the Camera Raw exposure and the right image is after adding sky contrast, using an "S" Curves in Photoshop. The red lights and reflections are weak blinking lights the river guides use to mark the trail to a hidden portable chemical toilet that makes river rafting more comfortable (and a national park requirement).

The foreground exposure. In order to see foreground detail below the Milky Way sky, one typically needs to use an exposure that is at least 4 to 8 times greater than the sky exposure. To reduce noise, one should use the camera's Long Exposure Noise Reduction feature. Stacking exposures will further help. However, if one is close to an approaching twilight period like I was, one can wait and take that foreground about 45 minutes later like I did. You can also take a twilight exposure for the foreground before the Astronomical Dusk begins.

This foreground exposure was taken during the Nautical Twilight, and was a stack of four 30-second exposures to further reduce noise. NOTE the fisheye distortion of the river's shoreline: this will be corrected at the end of the tutorial.

Blending the Milky Way and foreground exposures. Using the sky as a masking channel and inverting the selection, the brighter foreground is selected, copied to the clipboard and then pasted as a layer over the Milky Way sky exposure. Once alignment is perfect, the layer is flattened into a final blended image.

Exposure blends like this are NOT considered "composites" because the tripod and camera did not move. In fact, alignment blends are quite easy as long as both camera and tripod do NOT move between exposure! Click image to enlarge.

Correcting fisheye lens distortion. This image was taken with the relatively inexpensive, but amazingly sharp (and very low coma) Rokinon 12mm f/2.8 ED AS IF NCS UMC Fisheye lens (made for Nikon | Canon | Sony E full-frame cameras). Using a fisheye lens enabled me to show the deep canyon perspective of this area. However, fisheye lenses exhibit extreme barrel distortion near the outside edges of the image, especially when they are tilted upwards! You can enable the Lens Corrections Profile in Adobe Camera Raw or Lightroom to remove this distortion, but it will greatly change the look of your image and typically destroy the image quality, especially near the edges. I've found a better solution is to selectively use Photoshop's "Warp" feature (Edit > Transform > Warp) only on the offending areas of your images. This correction feature enables more image quality to be retained and is much less destructive. Caution: always make sure you do this correction last, as any masking channels you have previously created will no longer align with your newly warped image!

Often, only one or two corners of a "fisheye" landscape image need lens distortion correction. Once in the "Warp" submenu, I clicked on the far left corner of the river's shore line and dragged it straight down until the river looked more natural. Although the other corners of the image are just as distorted, their distortion is actually adding a unique perspective to the image and were left alone. A simple, ten-second correction! 

Subduing the blinking red lights. I could have removed the red lights and their reflection in the water, but they are part of the river experience, so I choose to darken them instead in the final image (top of page).

Popular Links: How to Shoot the Milky Way • Post Processing NightScapes • Workshops and PhotoWalks • Tutorials and Tips • Overcoming Lens Coma • Video Hangout with my Friends

Grand Canyon Milky Way Photography Workshop

Starry Night Photography and Colorado River Rafting in the Grand Canyon — all in one photo workshop. This could be the trip of a lifetime! Our adventure is scheduled for September 20-23, 2016.

Everything is provided for in this workshop: prepared meals, air transfers from Las Vegas to the river and back, camping equipment, entertainment, and dedicated photo instruction by NightScape Photographer, Royce Bair.

For more information on our itinerary and costs, go to this NightScape Photography Meetup page.

All three of these Milky Way "NightScapes" used a 2nd exposure technique to add starlight detail to the foreground. Learn how on this page and in my workshops ~ all images © Royce Bair

Adding Ballast to Stabilize Your Tripod

My tripod stabilized with a heavy bag of rocks during a time-lapse series.

Use the heaviest tripod you can stand to carry: Many wildlife photographers recommend that if a person wants sharp photos when using a long telephoto lens, one should buy the heaviest tripod that he or she can stand to carry into the field. Although nightscape photographers typically use wide angle rather than telephoto lenses to capture the night skies, the need for a stable tripod is still there, especially when multiple exposures are required.

Or, add the extra weight once you're on location: One way to get the stability of a heavy tripod is the add the weight or ballast after you get to your location. Ballast is often defined as the heavy material that is placed in the hold of a ship to enhance stability. In my night photography, this ballast comes in the form of a canvas shopping bag that is partially filled with rocks (gathered on location) and hung from the bottom center of the tripod.

The day or night solution to sharp images: I often use this same technique for my daytime photography. The new light-weight carbon fiber tripods are very sturdy, but I've discovered that even a medium breeze can sometimes shake my camera and blur my images. Adding ballast in the field offers a win-win solution!

In the night scene below I captured the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River bathed by the light of a quarter moon. Six hours later, after the moon had set, I was able to capture the glory of the Milky Way. Because the weighted tripod remain perfectly stable between the two exposures, combining these two images was fairly easy in post production.

Grand Canyon and the Colorado River bathed by moonlight ~ © Royce Bair

6 hours later, with the moon gone, I can now capture the glory of the Milky Way ~ © Royce Bair

In post production, I easily combined the two exposures because of perfect alignment, due to a stable tripod.

Equipment Used: For the above photos, I used the Canon EOS 5D Mark III camera body with a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens. The 5D Mark III provides excellent low-noise control at the high ISOs I need for this type of starry night photography, and the ultra-wide (114º) Rokinon lens provides excellent coma aberration correction. The camera was mounted to a Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head, attached to a light-weight Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 3-Section Carbon Fiber Tripod (weighted down with my canvas bag of rocks). You can read about the benefits of using a geared head here.

When I am on unstable soil, i.e. sand, I also take the precaution of placing flat rock supports under my tripod legs so there is less chance of shifting between exposures. (During the night, wind gusts reached over 40 mph, so I was glad that the tripod had been weighted with the bag of rocks!)

Flat rocks under the tripod legs provide added support when on unstable soil, i.e. sand.

Milky Way from the bottom of the Grand Canyon

Milky Way above the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon ~ © Royce Bair

Because the Grand Canyon walls are so high and narrow, there is only about a one-hour window where the bulge of the Milky Way can be seen during the night. This photo was taken two weeks ago, at about 4:30 in the morning. The stars were starting to fade from view, because it was only about 90 minutes from sunrise. A few minutes later, and I would not have been able to capture this scene. I used the Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 lens on my Canon 5D Mark III because of it's ultra wide 114º angle of view, with minimal barrel distortion. This lens is well-corrected for coma aberration, so it is perfect for star photography (not to mention its under $400 price tag). The Mark III gives me one to two stops less noise than my older Mark II at the high ISO's needed for a "nightscape" like this (ISO 5000 • f/2.8 • 30 seconds).

In order to show the walls of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River by starlight, it is necessary to produced a second exposure (4X or 120 seconds) and combine it with the sky exposure.

Here's a panorama of my camera position, taken with my iPhone 4s, two hours later.

Sand in sleeping bag from night storm

Photographing the Milky Way from the bottom of the Grand Canyon was a dream fulfilled when Western River Expeditions asked me to photograph one of their 7-day trips down the Grand Canyon. Preparing for this trip took considerable planning since all equipment had to be protected from the sand and water using small plastic bags, dry bags, and Pelican cases. (Changing lenses during a sand storm is NOT a good idea.) All my batteries had to be recharged several times, so a portable power station had to be devised. Here is some of the key equipment I took on this trip.

Grand Canyon Night Photography - Part One

River runners around campfire with moonglow & stars behind granite cliff in the Grand Canyon ~ © Royce Bair

I just recently returned from a 7-day assignment to photograph a Western River Expeditions trip down the Grand Canyon. Unlike John Wesley Powell's expeditions in 1869 and 1872, my mode of transportation into and out of the canyon (the plane ride and the helicopter air lift) was much easier.

My 127 lbs. in four cases

Hillers with 1,000 lbs.

1872 vs. 2013: This photo of John K. Hillers shows some of the photographic equipment necessary to record an expedition, such as Powell's Grand Canyon surveys in the 1870's. Those were the days before it was possible to make photographic enlargements from negatives. A large photograph could only be produced by a large camera. Additionally, the wet-plate process of taking and developing photographs was unwieldy—requiring Hillers to bring some 1,000 pounds of equipment on his trips.

Unlike Powell's photographer, John K. Hillers, I carried only 127 pounds (located in the three Pelican cases and one large dry bag there on the tarmac). Like the other 17 guests that went on this trip, I also carried about 25 pounds of personal gear. Still, my 152 pounds amounts to about six times more weight I had to lug around than the average guest—all of which had to be loaded and unloaded from the boat each day. Even so, Western River Expeditions makes the process so much easier than Powell and Hillers had it. It was more like a 7-day picnic that included a great boat ride!

KEY GEAR used on this expedition:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark III (A great full-frame camera. It is excellent for low-light, high ISO stills & videos. I use an older, Mark II as a 2nd body, which acts as my time lapse camera when I'm shooting stills and video at the same time.)
• EF 24-70mm f/2.8L II USM Zoom Lens (great all-around lens with constant f/2.8 aperture).
• Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 (ultra wide lens with coma correction for my signature NightScape photography—I shoot this lens wide open).
• Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 (This is a super fast, wide-angle lens with coma correction for starry night landscape photography. I shoot this lens wide open, which allows me to lower my ISO from a normal of ISO 6400 for Milky Way shots, down to ISO 1600!)
• Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 3-Section Carbon Fiber Tripod (I use 2 of these light-weight tripods because I often have two cameras going at the same time—one for regular night photography and the other for time lapse. One tripod has just a ball head on it, and the other has a geared head for fine adjustments and doing panoramas.)
• Manfrotto 496RC2 Compact Ball Head (see above for details).
• Manfrotto 410 Junior Geared Head (used on 2nd tripod—see above).
• Joby Gorillapod Focus/Ballhead X Bundle (This is a pro version that is capable of serious use in low positions and in all kinds of hard-to-get positions. It can be a real life saver, and it supports as much weight as my big Manfrotto tripods and heads.)
• GoPro Hero3 Black Edition (a great sports camera with waterproof housing -- very sharp 12MP stills and HD 1080p video @ 30 fps or 60 fps, or HD 720p @ 120 fps for great slow motion).
• Steadicam Smoothee Kit for GroPro Hero (enables smooth, handheld video with the GoPro and your iPhone 4, just like the Hollywood big boys).
• Vagabond Portable Power station (I used this 120VAC portable power source, with 2 extra lithium batteries to recharge all my camera batteries, including my iPhone).
• Pelican 1510 Carry On Case (I used 3 of these rugged, waterproof, and sand-proof cases. I think the 1510 has the best capacity for the money, and a single unit qualifies as the maximum size airline carry on, even with the wheels and handle. The 4th case I use on this trip was not a case, but a "dry bag" that stored my tripods.)

Last rays of sunlight on the canyon walls at one of my favorite beaches ~ © Royce Bair

This crescent-moon shaped sandy beach was my favorite campsite on our Western River Expeditions trip down the Grand Canyon. The rich orange and red granite cliffs along this portion of the Grand Canyon are amazing, and much different than the typical sandstone layers (sedimentary) that are higher on the canyon walls. Because of these harder igneous and metamorphic layers, the canyon walls are much steeper and sandy beaches like this one are much harder to find—making this site even more special.

The campfire scene (at the top) was photographed using a Canon 5D Mark III with 14mm Rokinon lens @ f/2.8, 8 seconds, with an ISO of 3200. The quarter moon was just about to rise above the granite cliff.

Please come back every few days and see how I photographed the Milky Way and other starry night skies in this amazing canyon. (BTW, I found out today that Western still has some openings in their July and August trip schedules!)


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