13920013_10153963755485326_910689498076978029_o
Aug, 2016Views
78
Likes
Awards
Creative Winter Award
Curator's Selection
Legendary Award
Summer 2020
2020 Choice Award
Great Shot
Member Selection Award
Top Choice
Peer Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Outstanding Creativity
Superb Composition
Top Ranks
Top 30 rankTop 30 rank week 2Top 20 rank week 1
Top 30 rank
Top 30 rank week 2
Behind The Lens
Location
Lassen Natonal parkTime
This was taken at ~2AM. We( my partner and myself) had to scout a great place in the day time atop a hill and we settled there before it was completely dark. when we saw a couple of shooting stars, I kept taking continuous shots to get this one.Lighting
This was more of a lucky shot than perfect timing/lighting. I thought having the lake below with the milky way on top would be awesome, but the meteor was a cherry on the cake.Equipment
This was shot on a D600( regularly cleaned sensor:) ) and coupled with a Rokinon 14mm f/2.8(cheap manual lens) on Manfrotto 190x tripod with manfrotto 3 way head. ofcouse triggered by remote with Mup to help the long shutter.Inspiration
I've always wanted to shoot the milky way and I live close to a major city( sacramento) where the light pollution is high. The closest places to shoot the nightsky were Joshua Tree National Park and Lassen National park. The last time I went to Joshua it was winter and the milky way was not visible from there. This time I picked Lassen as it was closer. I had to time it close to new moon day so that the light pollution from moon is close to zero.Editing
Milky way photos are usually heavily processed to bring out the layers in the core of the galaxy. for this snap, there was not much required as the exposure came out well in camera. I had to bringout the shadows a little bit and increase the sharpness. certainly the WB was adjusted, to make it cooler, because I shoot raw and in auto WB( unless I shoot portraits, where natural color matters a lot.) This image was only edited with LR and only the above adjustments were made. I also remember using a radial filter for the core to enhance the details.In my camera bag
the following things will be pretty much always in my bag for landscapes D600, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 Nikon 16-35 f/4( got this recently from my friend) Nikon 24-85 f/3.5 - f/5.6 Nikon 50mm f/1.8 B+w ND bigstopper B+w CPL FLW filter for sunsets Other purposes I carry these Nikon 105mm f/2.8 Micro ( also bought recently from my friend) Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR2 Nikon SB700 flash. 3rd party flash eqv to SB900Feedback
Capturing milky way is quite easy and it just needs some dedication. Scout for a place where the light pollution is minimum, online tutorials and tools can help here to get areas where the light pollution is minimum. Use a sturdy tripod for stability, use extra weights if windy. a full frame camera helps in low light, but its not a definitel requirement. Fast lens, at least f/2.8 is quire necessary to capture the depth of milky way. try to keep the lens as open as possible.( lesser F number) use a reasonably high Iso( like 2000 or 4000) depending on metering. Focus using manual focus and the Live where. point to the brightest start and zoom in to adjust focus to get a dot in the screen. with 20+mm this is easy as the less than max digital zoom on screen will still give you scope to see clearly. with 14mm I would rely on putting the focus ring to infinity and turning slightly inwards to get a couple of test shots and adjust accordingly before moving on to the main shots of the day. Keep taking more photos to see different event happening around. try to set a foreground object, in my above case i missed but the meteor helped. Good luck!!!
