'Through the Mist' by Chris Williams

"Through the Mist" - Haceta Head Lighthouse Beach, Oregon Coast, USA ~ © Chris Williams

Chris Williams took our Photo of the Day at the Haceta Head Lighthouse Beach on the Oregon Coast. This rugged beach has a number of tide pools and amazing rock formations that can be accessed at low tide. The image is comprised of two exposures taken some hours apart. The landscape portion of the image was shot utilizing a 10-stop cold ND filter and was shot in the early evening while stubborn fog prevailed along the coast.  The stars were captured several hours later when the weather finally broke a bit along the coast.

Landscape Portion EXIF data: Canon EOS 5D Mark II • Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens @ 16mm • 8 secs • f/16 • ISO 100 • using a FotodioX Wonderpana 10 stop cold ND filter over the lens.
Star Portion EXIF data: Canon EOS 5D Mark II • Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens @ 16mm • 30 secs • f/2.8 • ISO 3200

Chris hand blended the two RAW exposures in Photoshop CS6, with final touches added in Lightroom 4.  The blue hues that are present are mostly due to the "cold" nature of the ND filter that he utilized for the landscape exposure.  "I decided to work with this as opposed to going against it in post processing."

Challenges: Shooting on the coast can be extremely problematic due to the fickle nature of the weather. This often leads to more hours of frustration and waiting than actual shooting time.  Chris has fond memories of this rocky coastline and the surrounding tide pools as a child. "It’s funny how that whole concept changes when you’re carrying all of that expensive camera gear around. Those rocks were slick! The tide was also on its way back in so I also got to play dodge the waves," says Chris!

Satisfaction: "This entire area really holds a special place in my heart as I’ve been coming here since I was a little boy.  Being able to come back here as a photographer for the first time was very inspiring, and I’m looking forward to returning in the coming years," says Chris.

Chris Williams is a 27 year-old biologist and Seattle, WA area based landscape photographer with a serious passion for the outdoors. Whether it’s climbing, hiking or snowboarding, one can always find him in the mountains or on the water. He always loves to share his experiences and stories with others, but sometimes words fail to describe some of the breathtaking scenery he's had the privilege to see here in Washington and abroad. That’s where the photographs come in. "Landscape photography has allowed me to share some amazing experiences and stunning landscapes with others and gives me a sort of satisfaction that is second to none," says Chris.

You can see more of Chris' images on his Facebook page, and his Exploration Photography website.

Royce's 2014 Workshop, Lecture & Video Conference Schedule: NightScapeEvents.com
   -  25% OFF savings on select "IMAGE10" workshops booked before April 1, 2014  -

Mike Cooper's Nocturnal Kansas

"Vermilya-Boener" - a limestone Italian Villa style house built north of Lawrence in 1868 ~ © Mike Cooper
(Click to enlarge and read more info, including light painting details.)

W. S. Kelly Gas Station

Mike Cooper's nocturnal, photo documentation of rural Kansas began almost four years ago. Mike had never had any formal training in photography, let alone night photography. "I had seen some [night time exposures] online that looked pretty cool so I decided to give it a try.  I spent evenings sitting in my wife’s sewing room researching on the internet to figure out how it was done.  [As] an insurance adjustor by day, I drive about 450 miles a week through the rural areas of Kansas so I knew I could probably find some combines or tractors to use as subjects.  I really didn't want to invest much money in equipment if I wasn't going to like it. I already had a basic DSLR, so I bought a used Streamlight Stinger flashlight and cheap shutter-release cable off of eBay, as well a few lighting gels [to get started]."

Above photo taken with the Sony A350. Exposed for 74 seconds. Light painting with red, blue

and purple gelled flashlight; sodium vapor lighting to the right side of the building. One of Mike's

earliest night photos, before his focus was on rural Kansas. Abandon station is located in Cogar, Oklahoma.

Mike describes his style of night photography as "bright" —he likes his photos to be very “light,” especially through the use of the colored light painting. He enjoys night photography because of the unusual conversations that come from the property owners, as he tries to convince to them to let him onto their land. He usually carries some prints to show his past work. "They argue with me that [their property] can’t be taken at night," says Mike. He is amused when they can't believe that their abandon building will ever be as bright as the examples in his prints!

"District 34" - The one-room, Bichet School, built in 1896 ~ © Mike Cooper
A 182 second exposure with the Sony A560, using a blue gelled flashlight.
This is a good example of Mike's "Bright" night photography style. 

"The Drunkards' Masterpiece" - Stone house in the Flint Hills of Kansas (built circa 1840)  ~ © Mike Cooper
The story passed from father to son was that the two gentlemen who built it were drunk more than
they were sober. 180 seconds exposure with a Sony A560, during heavy cloud cover and
a lot of wind. Light painting with Protomachines set to violet and soft white.

"Abandoned II" - an abandoned gas station alongside I-35

Challenges: Because Kansas is a fairly large state, it is not unusual for Mike to drive 2+ hours one way to a location, photograph into the night, and still have to drive home in the early morning hours.

But his biggest challenge has been trying to figure out who is the right person to ask for permission on various abandoned sites. "I became a little pickier about trying to get permission after a run-in with a county sheriff that ended with me in handcuffs," laughs Mike. He thought he was going to have to call his brother-in-law to bail me out of jail. It should be no surprise that he hasn't taken any pictures in Harvey County since that night!

Equipment and software: Mike recently upgraded from a Sony A560 to a Nikon D800 and a Nikkor 14-24mm lens.  (All of the photos shown above were taken with the Sony A350 or A560.) He's using his Gitzo Explorer tripod and Arca Swiss ballhead that were purchased from eBay, but he originally started out with a cheap aluminum tripod.  Last year for Christmas, his wife got him a Protomachines flashlight and it has been a fantastic upgrade:  "I used to carry multiple flashlights, gels and as well as numerous miscellaneous handmade attachments for the flashlights to hold the gels or focus the beams.  Inevitably I would drop a flashlight and have to spend 30 minutes or more searching in the dark for it. [That's] no longer a problem now that I keep a Protomachines hung around my neck."

"District 88" - one room schoolhouse in Osage County, Kansas ~ © Mike Cooper
150 seconds exposure with Nikon D800. Light painting with Protomachines set to gold & soft white.

Mike uses the timer on his iPhone to keep track of how long the shutter is open. "My daughter found gloves that can work the touchscreen on my iPhone timer, so that is a big help in the Kansas weather."

He doesn't use the high-end Photoshop —just the very basic $100 Photoshop Elements on his MacBook for editing, and that is usually just to adjust white balance, adjust the fill light, level, and crop or remove an occasional power line from the image.

Mike Cooper on location

Mike Cooper currently lives in the northeast corner of Kansas with his wife, daughter, two dogs and two cats. He started doing night photography in January 2010, and has had no formal training in photography or post-processing.  None of his current pictures use any layers or blends of multiple images.  Mike enjoys making calendars of his pictures for friends and family, but as a general rule, he doesn’t sell his work because he would rather take pictures of things that interest him, instead of worrying about what other people would find interesting or attractive. More of Mike's work can be found on his 'Nocturnal Kansas' Flickr photostream.

Royce's 2014 Workshop, Lecture & Video Conference Schedule: NightScapeEvents.com
Featured Post: Shooting Stars eBook Review — How to Photograph the Stars and the Moon

Recognizing the Milky Way in a Light-Polluted Sky

Milky Way rising over Silver Lake near Brighton, Utah ~ © Royce Bair (click to enlarge).
Reddish glow on the left is light pollution from Park City, and on the right is from Heber City.

Last Friday, I participated in an evening photowalk with about 100 local photographers. With the help of a lecture I gave a few days before, I guided many on their first ever photographs of a starry night sky. For several, it was a dream-fulfilled to see and photograph their first Milky Way.

People from big cities throughout the world often write and tell me that they'd love to see and photograph the Milky Way, but it is too light-polluted in their region. For the most part, that's true. However, in almost any area of the world, you can still see the Milky Way if you're willing to drive a few miles and train your eyes to see the shape and features of our galaxy—viewed from the perspective of our planet.

The above photo was taken only 11 miles from the edge of Salt Lake City, and we are still in a 'orange' zone according to Dark Sky Finder's map of the area. Even after the Milky Way appeared at 11:00 PM, in the region that I had predicted, many still could not see it until I photographed it and showed it to them on my camera's LCD monitor:

Even this raw, unprocessed view is 4X brighter than the naked eye view, because of the
light-gathering power of a 20-seconds time exposure, a fast lens, and a high ISO.

It's not hard to recognize the Milky Way in the top, post-processed photo, but it takes some education, experience, and practice to recognize the features of our galaxy, especially in a light-polluted sky, where the contrast and colors of the stars are muted by stray, artificial light.

More light-gathering: The top photo is a double-exposure of the middle image and this 3X exposure to increase the detail in the landscape and the reflection in the lake water:

A 60-seconds exposure washes out the sky and blurs the stars, but adds detail to the landscape. Adding the post-processed sky (mainly contrast adjustments in Photoshop's 'Curves') from the middle image produces the final photo (top).

My '450' Rule to Stop Star Trailing

An 80-minutes star trail exposure vs. a 20-seconds exposure of the Grand Tetons ~ © Royce Bair

Longer exposures cause the stars to "trail"

Stars as Points of Light: My "NightScape" style of star photography endeavors to keep stars as points of light, rather than as star trails; and I also include a landscape feature in the photo. These two requirements make it necessary to keep my exposure times at 30 seconds or less—often much less. (I should mention that I also like to do star trail exposures, too :)

Equatorial Mounts: When astro-photographers take time exposures of just the stars, they use an equatorial mount and a tracking mechanism that keeps the stars in sync with the earth's rotation. Using this system, exposures can be extremely long without blurring the stars or causing them to "trail". If any of the earth's landscape is included in the photo, it is the landscape that would now become blurred during the exposure.

Sharp stars AND landscapes: Because astro-landscape or "NightScape" photos require both the stars and the earth to remain sharp during the time exposure, the length of the exposure must be short enough so that the stars do not appear to rotate or trail due to the earth's rotation.

The math to make it happen: Astronomers know that a normal lens views a smaller area of the sky than a wide angle lens, and a telephoto lens views an even smaller area of the sky. The narrower the field of view, the shorter time it takes for the stars to trail across the camera's picture area.

For this reason, lenses with a longer focal length (more telephoto) will have faster star movement or trailing than lenses with a shorter focal length (more wide angle). Using simple math, amateur astronomers developed a formula called the "600" rule to determine the maximum exposure times for various lenses mounted to 35mm film cameras. The 600 Rule formula says that 600 divided by the focal length of the lens (in millimeters) equals the maximum allowable exposure time in seconds. Example: a camera using a 24mm wide angle lens should use a maximum exposure time of 25 seconds (600 / 24 = 25).

< an 8-sec exposure and a 15-sec shot enlarged to 100% >
8"x10" prints look great using the 600 Rule, but not at 24"x30"

Going from 600 to 450: This old rule or formula is based on the image quality of a typical 8" x 10" enlargement. When images are enlarge to 16" x 20" and larger, more star movement or trailing is apparent, so I've adjusted the rule or formula to a base number of 450 in order to increase the image quality. The same camera using a 24mm wide angle lens should now use a maximum exposure time of 19 seconds (450 / 24 = 18.75).

A simple chart: Both rules or formulas are based on the full-frame 35mm (24x36mm) film format, so the chart below has a column for both full-frame sensor cameras (and their lenses) and a column the smaller APS-C sensor cameras (and their lenses). Users of the four-thirds (4/3) format should use the APS-C column. Instructions: Pick the column that describes your camera system. Find the number of millimeters that is closest to your lens, then find the maximum exposure time in seconds to the right in either the 450 (less star movement) or the 600 column. (To print this chart, select the blue text with your cursor and any instructions you want to include. Copy and paste the text into your favorite word processor. Change the text to a mono-space font, i.e. and "Courier", so the columns will be properly aligned, and print.)

                      "450"     "600"
                      Rule      Rule
   Full-Frm  APS-C*   Maximum   Maximum
   Sensor    Sensor   Exposure  Exposure
   Camera    Camera   Time in   Time in
   Lenses    Lenses   Seconds   Seconds

     8mm      5.3mm     56      75
     9mm      6.0mm     50      67
    10mm      6.7mm     45      60
    11mm      7.3mm     41      55
    12mm      8.0mm     38      50
    13mm      8.7mm     35      46
    14mm      9.3mm     32      43
    15mm     10.0mm     30      40
    16mm     10.7mm     28      37
    17mm     11.3mm     26      35
    18mm     12.0mm     25      33
    19mm     12.7mm     24      32
    20mm     13.3mm     23      30
    21mm     14.0mm     21      29
    22mm     14.7mm     20      27
    23mm     15.3mm     20      26
    24mm     16.0mm     19      25
    25mm     16.7mm     18      24
    26mm     17.3mm     17      23
    28mm     18.7mm     16      21
    30mm     20.0mm     15      20
    32mm     21.3mm     14      19
    35mm     23.3mm     13      17
    40mm     26.7mm     11      15
    45mm     30.0mm     10      13
    50mm     33.3mm      9      12
    55mm     36.7mm      8      11
    60mm     40.0mm      8      10
    65mm     43.3mm      7       9
    70mm     46.7mm      6       9
    80mm     53.3mm      6       7
    90mm     60.0mm      5       7
   100mm     66.7mm      5       6
   120mm     80.0mm      4       5
   135mm     90.0mm      3       4
   150mm    100.0mm      3       4
   175mm    116.7mm      3       3
   200mm    133.3mm      2       3

*Although the Canon APS-C sensor is slightly smaller than the Nikon APS-C sensor (1.6X factor vs. 1.5X factor), I did not feel the difference is significant enough to warrant a 5th column.

Notes: If your ISO is already to the limits, use the 600 column times, or go even a little longer if you have too (ugly noise is worse than having elongated stars). For the least star movement and highest enlargements, use the 450 column. Choose the shutter speed time that best fits your camera. For instance, if you're using a 24mm lens on a full-frame sensor camera, the 450 column says to exposure for 19 seconds. However, the closest setting on you shutter speed dial is 20 seconds. And, if you want even better enlargement quality (and your ISO isn't already max-ed out beyond your tastes), go one shutter speed setting lower to 15 seconds—you'll be surprised at the star movement difference, and the improvement in quality. Use some practical sense, too. For instance, many 15mm wide angle lenses made for a full-frame camera are "fisheye" lenses, with a view angle of 180º. Many 14mm wide angle lenses, made for a full-frame camera, have a view angle of 114º, making their view narrower than a 15mm! The 450 column recommends a maximum exposure time of 32 seconds for the 14mm, whereas the 15mm recommendation is 30 seconds. In reality, because the 14mm has a narrower field of view, an exposure time of 20 to 25 seconds will give much better results.

Normal and telephoto lenses: As you approach the normal and medium telephoto focal lengths, star movement becomes even more apparent. Although the 450 column says I can get by with a 9 second exposure (10 seconds on your shutter speed dial), the sharpness of the stars and planets in the photo below was greatly improved by going to only 5 seconds.

Morning twilight: Venus & Jupiter within the constellation Taurus (50mm f/1.4 lens @ f/3.5 • 5 seconds • ISO 5000)

Featured Post: Shooting Stars eBook Review — How to Photograph the Stars and the Moon

Dylan MacMaster: Pining away at the Stars

Anthony Lake, Oregon ~ © Dylan MacMaster

Dylan MacMaster is one of the best self-taught, amateur night photographers I know. Dylan is an engineer and currently lives with his wife and three children in Boise, Idaho.

Virtually all of MacMaster's nightscapes are single exposures. He rarely, if ever, produces a night scene where he's combined two or more images in post production. He works hard to get everything in one shot. The above photo is a good example of his technique.

The star trails were produced with one 30-minute time exposure, using a 17mm lens @ f/4.0 (ISO 200) on a Canon EOS 5D Mark II. During this exposure he did light-painting (for 45 seconds) on the little rocky island of pine trees with his LED headlamp.

Dylan ran a test beforehand to determine the light-painting exposure. Here's the 66-second version, which has a interesting, minimalist nature of its own:

66-second, light-painted test exposure for the rock island ~ © Dylan MacMaster

After this test, MacMaster decided to reduce the final light-painting time to 45 seconds (during the 30-minute time exposure that recorded the star trails). While waiting for the time exposure to record the trails, he sat down and wrote these words:

"The beauty of this night is almost impossible to put onto words. The stars shine above and the brightest wink their reflections in the glass-like water below. The sound of rushing water comes to me across the lake as the winter's snow-melt cascades down the mountain. A chorus of frogs creates a symphony in the night and there is just enough breeze so you can feel it, but not enough to disturb the pristine mirror that is Anthony Lake. This will likely be one of my most memorable nights out shooting."

 ...and it was...

Like Dylan, I've come to appreciate another wonderful world that awaits us under these starry night canopies.  It seems like our senses are heightened by the cool night air and the majesty of the infinite universe overhead.

Epilogue: Dylan entered the top photo into the Western Idaho State Fair last year and won 1st place in "Night Scenes" category.