The Ethereal Pillar
This is an ice climb known as The Drool in Redstone Colorado. This image is created with a 2.5 hour stack for the stars composited with the ice back lit with a ...
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This is an ice climb known as The Drool in Redstone Colorado. This image is created with a 2.5 hour stack for the stars composited with the ice back lit with a small system strobe.
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Jul, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
On the outskirts of Redstone Colorado.Time
This image was created throughout a moonless night. 3 hours of it to be precise.Lighting
The image was lit using a small system strobe (canon sb580). The frozen waterfall was backlit to make it glow and to bring out the naturally occuring colors.Equipment
This image was created with Canon 7d Mark 1with a sigma 10-20 mm lens. I think the tripod was a hakuba with a manfroto pan/tilt headInspiration
This was actually a blueprint/ test shot for a concept I had during college as a photo student to combine action sports and star trails/long exposures.Editing
Yes, I did a bunch of post processing. I shoot raw files which are very dull and flat right out of the camera. I started by stacking the stars, and enhancing their color then do an edit to combine and optimize the other foreground elements. Once that is done I put the 2 together and do a final process to optimize the entire image. I have over a day into the processing alone.In my camera bag
Sturdy carbon fiber tripod. Panorama head, pan tilt head, intervolometer, canon sb580ex small system strobe, sigma 10-20mm f4, canon 50mm f1.8, canon 85mm f1.8, canon 70-300 f4, tamaron 18-80 f3.5. Phottix odin wireless flash trigger. (now I carry a 5dsr and a 6d with Canon 24-70 2.8 ii rokinon 14 2.8 and rokinon 35 1.4, astrotrac, tracer 12 v 14 ah power supply. Way too much stuff to hike around with but I don't want to drop the ball.Feedback
Shooting at night is a real challenge sometimes, it takes real dedication and persistence to achieve optimal results. I had many failures before I started succeeding. You have to want it bad. I often risk my own safety hanging out alone in the woods where I have seen mountain lions. This shot had that, I saw a mother lion and 3 cubs within a week of this shot within a mile of the location. Not to mention being able to endure the elements. My advise is hone in technique and prefered settings in friendly locations so you won't be as devastated by failure. It takes time learning what an ideal exposure looks like, what settings achieve that outcome during different lunar phases, and how you intend to light the scene which can and should be dictated by lunar phase. Hint, I usually stay between f4 and 5.6, my shutter speeds vary from 30 seconds to 3 hours, and iOS is usually in the 400-1600 range. Learn about euivalent exposures and memorize your full and half stops. Also 1 second at iOS 12800 is equivalent to 1 minute at iOS 100 (on my camera atleast), one minute equals 1 hour etc. This can ease the time wasted testing exposures. Once you figure the basics out you can take it to the desired location but make sure you have everything you need. I have had to trip and lock my shutter in bulb mode with a lighter safety in my intervolometer plug in port, or taping a rock to the shutter when my intervolometer batteries are dead and not standard (sometimes hard to find cr2 batteries which I don't always have a back up for). I can do it with my antiquated camera so can you!
