Up Above
My first real attempt at astrophotography I took on a camping trip.
My first real attempt at astrophotography I took on a camping trip.
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Jan, 2016Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park while on a camping trip over the summer. Before discovering this location I had been looking all day around the campsite for places that would have a nice wide open view of the sky and spent hours doing this because there was such a dense population of trees. Dissappointed I wandered around near the campsite and found a hill with a log placed in the center and was perfectly angled above the treeline on the otherside. Looking at the results I was overcome with extreme joy because the view I had been looking for all day was only 30 feet from the campsite.Time
This photo was taken on a moonless night around 10:00pm because if the moon is in the sky it will block out a lot of them out from all the light that it is reflecting from the sun and there will be less stars visible in the sky.Lighting
For lighting for this photo I did not use any external lighting such as a flash or a flashlight to light anything up.Equipment
My equipment that I had used to take this photo was a Canon T5i with a 18-55mm kit lens on a very sturdy tripod with a remote intervalometer.Inspiration
I was inspired to take this photo because I had just recently started to take my photography to the next level when I was 16 years old and am currently 17 at the moment, by moving from a GoPro to an SLR camera I had borrowed for this camping trip. I have been camping my whole life with my family but everytime we had gone a forest fire would happen creating smoke blocking the sky, a storm would bring clouds, or a full moon would be present. Knowing this would be the first time I would see the night sky with zero light pollution I spent months before the trip researching and spending hours reading and learning everything I could find on the subject of astrophotography. I wanted to show people when I came back what the night sky should really look like without the bright city lights and maybe create a spark in someone that would make them want to see the Milky Way in person for themselves.Editing
For post-processing of this image I used Adobe Lightroom and had previously before only edited pictures on my phone and never used an editing program on the computer. So for this picture I looked up tutorials online on how to use Lightroom especially for astrophotography and was overwhelmed at all the different techniques until I found videos on how to edit photos of the night sky and used techniques from many videos and combined them into this single exposure image.In my camera bag
The equipment I always have in my bag when I go out to do astrophotography currently is a Nikon d3300, 18-55mm kit lens, sturdy tripod, intervalometer, and a microfiber cloth to wipe the lens.Feedback
My advice for if you are trying to capture the night sky is be prepared to stay up all night or wake up at 1:30am and knowing you will be up for hours taking pictures after a long day of hiking when its 40F and have your fingers frozen because astrophotography is a very challenging thing to do. But if you are willing to get outside and no matter how tired or cold you are and you put the time into practicing the pictures you want will eventually come.
