VLA - North Arm
The north arm of the VLA Radio Telescope. The tracks are used to move the dishes into various configurations. The night that we visited the site the array was ...
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The north arm of the VLA Radio Telescope. The tracks are used to move the dishes into various configurations. The night that we visited the site the array was set to it's widest setting. The rising moon provided a main light.
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Jun, 2014Views
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akhtarkhan
July 22, 2014
Fantastic lighting, nice detail......great capture. Congrats on the feature.
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EdwardChopuryan
July 23, 2014
This is really nice shot. But could you pleas tell me what was the exact time of this shot? Thanks, Ed.
dancress1967
November 08, 2014
I have been here many times and have several shots but none as good as this one.
A majical place! Nice work.
A majical place! Nice work.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
Just off New Mexico highway 60 north of the main complex of the Very Large Array 34° 6'15.87"N 107°37'14.52"WTime
9:55:37 PMLighting
The moon was rising out of view camera left.Equipment
Canon EOS 1Ds MKII bulb mode with a cable release Canon 14mm f2.8L II lens ISO 100 f5.6 @300 seconds (5 minutes)Inspiration
The VLA was configured at it's widest arrangement. This allowed me to isolate one of the antennas in the array. If you look deep into the image you can see other antennae in the array.Editing
Minimal processing. Dust removal. Slight contrast boosting.In my camera bag
My "bag" is my 2000 Toyota Land Cruiser Digital: 1Dx, 5DMKIII, (2) 1DsMKIV, 1 1DsMKIII converted to Super Color IR, and a 60Da Film: EOS 1N, Voightlander Prominent, Sinar F2, and a Sinar Norma 5x7 Numerous lenses: Canon- 600f4L IS, 300 f2.8L IS, 200 f2L IS. Zeiss- 21mm Distagon T* f2.8 and 15mm Distagon T* f2.8. Rokinon- 21mm and 15mm CINE lenses A couple of Gitzo tripods, one with an RRS B-50 and one with a Wimberley mount Misc mounts with varying RRS ball heads Dynamic Perception Stage 1 timelapse dolly with MX3 motion controller and Stage R third axis (3) Canon 600 EX-RT flashes, misc triggers, gels, and remote mountsFeedback
If you want start trails it's easier to shoot much shorter exposures than I did and stack the images. Todays cameras are easily capable of 15s exposures at ISO 800-1600 and f2.8 for scenes like this one. Personally I think the Zeiss T* Distagon 21mm lens is perfect for night work. It it is a manual focus lens that has a true infinity stop. Focusing for pinpoint stars is as easy as rotating the focus ring to the Infinity mark. Color and brightness with this lens, especially when the lens profile is applied, is markedly better than any of the other lenses that I own. However, if you are on a budget, the non-CINE Rokinon lenses are surprisingly sharp. Use live view X10 to focus and be careful not the bump the focus and you can create very nice images. DSLR's love the night. If you haven't tried it I encourage you to go outside, put your camera on a good tripod, find Sagittarius (use the web or an app if you don't know where to look), and point your camera in the general direction of the constellation for some beautiful Milky Way images. Be sure to put something interesting in the foreground. Start at ISO 800, wide open (f2.8 if you have it), and 15s. If it looks too dark, raise the ISO or slow the shutter speed down. It's digital. You have nothing to lose.
