“Click” “Click” “Click” “Click” The cold and still air was disturbed by the rattling of a camera shutter. The soul of a giant beast was unknowingly captured forever. Grazing on the sparse and frozen grass, the buffalo (bison) in the snow went about its business without a care as if it was living in a different world, and everything else around it but was a dream.

Red-cheeked, cold, and brimming with enthusiasm, I had just captured an image of a fantastic animal, a buffalo in the snow picture, surviving in its frozen surroundings

Driving and walking about in the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Wildlife Refuge outside Denver, Colorado, you can find many opportunities to find creatures in their habitat. Buffalo, badgers, deer, eagles are some of the many you may find

I set out to visit the refuge after there was a snowfall the previous night. I felt a little cabin-fever and wanted to get out, plus I knew the snow on the ground could create some nice compositions for photographs. So I drove some sixty miles from my home with an early morning start to reach the refuge at sunrise when the wildlife would be the most active.

When I approached the refuge, there was a thick fog that was lying on the ground. I thought this might be a bust for photographing anything interesting, but I was here and decided to enjoy it

I slowly drove on the paved roads laid for visitors to follow and kept my eyes open for any wildlife activity. Approaching an open field, I noticed a large, dark mass. As I got closer, I noticed some movement. My heartbeat started to increase! It was a solitary buffalo in the snow trying to graze on the sparse grass that was protruding in the snow

What do you grab when you only have a few minutes before it disappears? Your camera, of course! I reacted to the moment and grabbed my camera to jump outside of my vehicle without thinking about the other essentials, such as a coat and gloves.

I fired off a few clicks on my camera’s shutter. Moved. Shoot. Moved again. All while continuously firing off my shutter like a soldier with an automatic weapon in battle. I continued this until the buffalo became annoyed with my activity and rattling of shutter clicks, and it decided to leave.

I lowered my camera from my eye. My arm extending to my side while holding the camera. I paused for a minute to embrace what I had witnessed and felt thankful for the opportunity given to me. Alas, that moment was short-lived because the pain in my hands and fingers, and the chill on my chest and back, reminded me that I had forgotten my gloves and coat!

I continued to enjoy the refuge a while longer before heading home. But I knew I had captured something special, so a smile stayed on my face the whole time!

Since nerds like nerdy stuff, here are the nerdful techy details of the image!
Nikon D500
f/2.8,1/800, ISO 3200
Nikkor 400mm f/2.8 lens

Every year, there is another season that is not as common as the normal four, the Milky Way Core. The Milky Way season is when the core of the Milky Way galaxy is visible in the northern hemisphere night skies, and it occurs from March through October. Many photographers wait all winter for this season to arrive, scout locations for possible compositions to photograph, and plan a time near a new moon with the hopes of clear weather

Months in advance, I laid plans to shoot the Milky Way with the Royal Gorge and Royal Gorge Bridge from the northern side near a spot that is known as Point Alta Vista. There is a private property at the location I wanted to shoot from, so I secured access rights with the owner and set a date in early March 2020 for when I wanted to try it.

Early in the season, the Milky Way galaxy and its spiral arms are more parallel to the horizon, and later in the season, it is more vertical. I wanted the Milky Way to appear closer and flatter to the bridge and gorge, so I chose an early date. The downside to the early season is that the core is only visible for a short time in the early morning hours (around 4:00 to 5:00 AM).

I shot Milky Way core images successfully at other locations in the past. With each shoot, I refined my technique. You need a lens with a wide field of view and the widest maximum aperture to capture as much light as possible. I planned to use my Sigma 35mm f/1.4 lens that I knew would cover this requirement, and also from past experiences that it provides a sharp image with little coma aberrations from corner to corner.

My lens choice – although, it has a high image quality – is a bit short on the field of view I wanted for the Milky Way and gorge. I knew that I would have to create a multi-row panoramic image to capture my desired outcome. For this task, I needed to use my Really Right Stuff multi-row panoramic tripod head. I also decided to use my Nodal Ninja RD16-II rotator that has notched indexing for the focal length that I am using. The RD16-II is a key tool to use for panoramic image capture at night because the indexing tells you where to stop during rotation without having to determine the degrees to turn to for the position of the next frame.

Arriving early in the evening when there was still light, I drove in the property as far as I could. The rest of the way to the location I had to hike in (~1 mile), so I needed the remaining daylight to more easily navigate to my desired shooting spot. I have an F-stop Tilopa 50L camera backpack that I loaded my camera, lenses, tripod, supporting accessories, drink, food, folding chair, and sleeping bag; all weighed about 30lbs. Fortunately, there was a mostly flat trail on the property that took me to the edge of the gorge. However, the last quarter mile I had to bushwhack through thick junipers, cactus, and yucca to climb down into the gorge to reach my shooting location. Once I arrived, I set-up my camera rig, sat in a portable chair, ate some granola bars, drank some warm tea from a thermos, and proceeded to wait for the moment I could shoot.

Learnings from previous experiences, one problem with shooting night photographs of features like the gorge is that there are many dark shadows. Without directional lighting on the gorge to cast form from the shadows, the gorge wall features tend to blend into each other. By shooting at nautical dusk, about an hour after sunset, I hoped that the last dim glow at the western horizon would provide just enough light to reveal the gorge’s beautiful shapes.

I proceeded to shoot the frames needed to capture the foreground, which was the gorge and the bridge. I set my camera in manual mode and took test shots to get the desired exposure (f/8, ISO 1600, and 25 seconds). To get the highest quality and detail possible, at each notch and elevation of the rotator, I shot 3-4 frames to do focus stacking later during post-processing. I panned right to left for 6 indexes, changed the angle elevation on the panoramic head, shot 6 indexes left to right, elevated again, and then 6 more indexes from right to left. Overall, about 115 frames were captured in a 3×6 matrix just for the foreground.

The Milky Way core would not be visible for several hours later. I pulled out and unfolded my chair, and also detached the pad and sleeping bag I packed in with my camera gear. I sat in my chair, poured some hot tea, ate a snack, and enjoyed the beauty and solitude at my location. Around 10:00 PM, I laid down to rest since the core of the Milky Way would not begin to become visible until about 3:00 AM. I set the alarm on my smartphone and slept until it was time to get up again.

When it was time, I got out of my bag and off the ground. My tripod and camera had not moved, so it was ready to begin the night images. The core of the Milky Way was just beginning to appear, so I took the time to focus on the lens and to take test shots to find the exposure I needed. With the 35mm lens, I knew that I did not need a very long exposure. I used the Photopills app for the Spot Stars feature, plugged the lens details into the app, and chose the NPF rule (the 500 rule is the classic, but NPF takes in the megapixels of the camera and is more accurate). The app calculated that my max exposure time would be 6 seconds. While still in manual mode on the camera, I dialed in 6 seconds and did a test shot. After a few shots, I determined my best exposure to get detail of the Milky Way without getting star trails was f/2.0, ISO 4000, and 6 seconds.

Similar to the way I captured images for the foreground, I planned to shoot frames for the night sky in a matrix to get the view I desired that the lens field of view could not capture. I determined that a 2×6 matrix would cover the area needed.

I like to do stacking when I capture night sky images. The stacking process is where you take several frames in the same spot, and then stack these together into one image using software on a computer. The result is a reduction of noise in the image that provides greater detail. An alternative to stacking is to use a tracker, but I did not have one with me because it would have been too much weight to pack in. At each determined frame for the matrix, I took 10 shots each. For the sky alone after I completed the matrix, I took 240 frames that would be processed into one image later.

When I finished capturing the images I needed (about 4:30 AM), I began putting things away. I packed my bag up and proceeded to climb out of the gorge.

Walking in the wilderness in the wee hours of the morning does come with some risk. Not only is it still dark, which makes navigating through rough terrain with a pack using a headlamp more challenging, but there is also the risk of predators. The gorge is known to have mountain lions, and they do like to hunt in the early morning. I was prepared for this risk, though. I carried bear spray, which I had in my hand, and made sure I made lots of noise. Predators are less likely to attack if you are noisy and waving your arms a lot, and the bear spray was in case the animal got more curious.

As I was climbing out of the gorge, my biggest fears came to fruition! I was panning my head from left to right with my headlamp on as I walked, not only to find my path but to also scan for any wildlife in the bush. Sure enough, I saw what looked like eyes reflecting from within junipers! At first, I thought it might have been a reflection from the rocks, trees, or something shiny, but then I saw this reflection blink! My adrenaline rose quickly, as you can probably imagine! I began yelling and waving my arms while I had the bear spray in my hands in hopes that my noise and actions would ward this creature off. I continued climbing out while watching these eyes. The eyes were following up the slope, too. I thought that if I kept doing what I was doing and walking up the slope that eventually the creature would go away, but it kept following!

At one point, I accidentally discharged the bear spray which blew back in my face. At this point, I exclaimed loudly every expletive I knew while I was trying to clear my eyes! I thought for a moment that this would be a time the creature would get me because I had to stop in my tracks.

Eventually, my eyes cleared. I panned my headlamp in the direction I last saw the eyes. There was nothing. “Great! Now it could be approaching from anywhere around me!” I thought. I looked all around, but there was no sign. I started climbing out again but would pause more frequently to look all around me. The creature behind the eyes no longer appeared so I determined that it must have decided to move on and away from me. However, I was still at full alert and taking every step with much caution; scanning the trees for anything that may show before I proceeded.

Eventually, I made it back to my car. The eyes never appeared again. I thanked God for allowing me to live one more day and not become a meal to nature! I was exhausted but at the same time fully awake. I loaded the car and drove home.

All told, I shot 355 frames that I hoped would contain not only great detail of the gorge and bridge but of the night sky, too, with the Milky Way. After I returned home, I spent a full day sifting through the frames and began processing them. I first combined all the foreground images – stacked each segment of the matrix for a focus stack – and then used PTGUI to stitch the images. I then processed the night sky images, but used Sequator for the stacking (similar to Deep Sky Stacker), and then stitched the images together once again in PTGUI. The final step before beginning the fine-tuning steps in PhotoShop to get my desired outcome was to blend the night sky image with the foreground. After days in the digital darkroom, Royal Gorge Point Alta Vista Night was finally complete.

I hope what I shared for this image was not only entertaining, but possibly useful to you, too!

Can you get a great picture from a smart phone that is worthy to hang on a wall?

Many times I hear complaints, “I wish I had my DSLR when I got this snap.” Granted, I would lean for my DSLR (or mirrorless with exchangeable lens), too, if I had a choice. However, the answer to the above question is, YES!

The technology and software for cameras on smart phones is getting better and better. Amazingly better, in my opinion! The images that a smart phone can produce are stunningly good for such a small sensor! Some of today’s smart phone cameras are capturing amazing low-light and night images that was a huge challenge only a few years ago.

Will a smart phone camera ever be as good as a DSLR or mirrorless? Currently, no. The details that a DSLR or mirroless camera can capture with the larger sensors greatly surpass what the wizards of smart phones can design. There is much much more a DSLR and.or mirroless can do that smart phones can’t touch yet. However, it is hard to say for the future because the gap between these two technologies has been decreasing.

“Then, how good of a picture that is worthy to hang on a wall can a smart phone get.” You may ask. A great one, in my opinion!

Let’s take the below image as an example…

I captured this image with my Google Pixel 3A. The camera on this phone is rated high among many users, so I knew what I captured will put me in a good starting place for my final image.

This picture is not a single image, but is several vertical images that were stitched together to make a panoramic image. My Google Pixel 3A has the ability to capture images in RAW format. I always shoot in RAW because this will give me the most information from the sensor that will help me work the image in post processing software, such as Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop. I captured all the vertical images in this image in RAW as DNG files. I got low to the ground at and centered myself in front of the trestle. To avoid any possible parallax – an error that happens in stitching and cause elements in an image to shift – I rotated the phone from a center point in my hand while holding it vertically. Parallax happens when the camera is front of the rotation axis point. More on this in a future post.

I downloaded the images on my phone to Lightroom and used its panoramic stitching algorithms. Once I had my base image, I began the process to create my final image.

I decided that I wanted to make this image into a black and white. Many fine images that are produced in black and white have a high contrast between these tones. Look at any image from Ansel Adams and you will see what I mean. To achieve the desired contrast in my image, I adjusted the saturation and luminosity of the colors present in the image, and then used the software in Lightroom to convert it to a gray scale to make it a black and white image. I then provided some additional adjustments to the image to get the view I desired.

When I completed the process for this image, I checked for the print-ability of it. If I were to print this image at 100%, then it would be a size of 20″ x 24″! In fact, I had printed this image on 17″ x 22″ paper, which I had gave to my client (owner of the land), and it looked fantastic! Thw receiver of the images was very pleased!

Can you make a great image with your smart phone? You sure can!

Want to learn more tips and tricks? Then check out this…

Capture Lightning During the Day? You Bet You Can!

If you live or ever have been to Colorado’s Front Range and near Pikes Peak in the summer time, then you know there are frequent afternoon/evening thunderstorms! I captured this lightning image from a couple of weekends ago while viewing from a window at my home. I gave it a name, “Thor’s Dance.”

The image you see did not happen in a single instance. This image is actually a blend of several images. In this case, six images were used. Most very dramatic lightning images with multiple strikes you may have seen in social media have been created this way.

I always shoot in RAW format, so I first pulled these images into Adobe Camera Raw, adjusted for tone, and then opened these as layers into Photoshop. After I decided on my base layer, the other layers above were switched to the blending mode of “Lighten”to only let the brightest parts of those images show. I then used layer masks on each of the Lighten layers to mask out bright areas that I did not want in the final image (the image looked very blotchy and weird in the clouds if I didn’t do this step).

The other image is of the gear set-up I used to get the images. The rectangular shaped object on top of the camera is a lightning trigger. This trigger is very useful in that it only fires the shutter release when it detects a lightning flash. Without this device, then you may be lucky to capture a lightning bolt by manually pressing the shutter, or putting the camera’s shutter to automatic and it will capture hundreds of images where most will be throw-always. The lightning trigger is easier on your camera and gives you more successful lighting shots!

I captured the images in the afternoon so it was still fairly bright. I needed to keep a slow enough shutter speed to capture the lightning strikes. In this case, about a half a second is what I needed to capture the lightning strikes, but not over expose too much. To achieve that shutter speed, I needed to use a neutral density (ND) filter to stop down the exposure – square thing on the front of the lens. Here, I used a ND-8 filter (8 stops). A tripod is a must to maintain a sharp image at this speed.

This isn’t just a set-up and go do something else until the storm passes. As the storm passed over, the light was getting dimmer, so I had to frequently check my exposure and adjust the ISO to maintain my desired shutter speed and aperture.

The camera and lens I used is a Nikon D850 with a Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8. The base and ball-head you see in the image was not used for the lightning strikes and is only shown here to show the gear setup.

You don’t need a camera like mine to get great lightning shots. Most DSLR or mirror-less cameras that have a hot-shoe and/or a remote trigger plug-in port and a lens with filter thread will work, too

This image is at Antero Reservoir in Colorado that I captured on June 20th, 2020. On the other side of the lake is the campground where there were several RVs and campfires.

I primarily went to this area to take my son out with his telescope because there are fairly dark skies in this area. My son has a 12″ diameter Dobsonian telescope which can show amazing things in the sky! We had a clear view of Jupiter (bright dot on the left) where we could easily see the rings and red spot of this planet. Saturn was amazing, too, and the rings were clearly seen. Then we saw several galaxies, star clusters, and the Ring Nebula

There was quite a bit of air glow in the sky (green streaks), which is charged air particles from solar radiation. I am not going to get into the details of what air glow is, but there is plenty of information on the Internet if you want to know more about it. While this adds to the challenges for seeing things in the telescope, it does have a pleasant affect in images.

Since my son and I went to this area primarily to look through his telescope, I had not planned anything exciting for photography. However, I did bring my gear and decided that it is always good to stay in practice, as well as experiment a little. Anyway, this “practice” image is the result I got from that night.

To get this image, I armed myself with my Nikon D850 that had a Sigma 35mm Art lens attached to it. I also brought a Tiffen Double Fog 3 filter (more on this later). For long exposure photography such as this image, it is a must to have the camera/lens mounted to a tripod because there are several seconds when the shutter is open and you will need the camera to be steady for a sharp image. I also brought a remote shutter release to minimize any vibrations that may occur from manually depressing the shutter button on the camera.

I turned my camera on for Live View (LCD screen on the back) to compose my image (how I want to the image to appear in the frame), and then made my adjustments for the desired exposure. After a few test exposures, I manually set my camera for shutter, aperture, and ISO ( 6 seconds, f/ 2.0, and ISO 6400).

I think here is now a good time to note about sharing exposure data (i.e. EXIF). Many times I am asked what exposure settings I used for the image. While this may be helpful as a baseline for someone to get started, it is never a, “one recipe fits all!” Unless you have the exact equipment I have, and are shooting in the same conditions, the exposure settings I share very rarely will look the same on your camera.

For the lens I used, the Sigma 35mm Art f/1.4, there are certain criteria ranges that I need to follow to get my desired image. This is a fast lens with a wide aperture at f/1.4. I rarely shoot starry night images with aperture wide open on this lens because there coma aberrations in the corners of the frame. Coma aberrations are an affect of certain optical designs due to imperfections in the lens that results in an off-axis point such as stars to appear distorted (have a tail like a comet). Some of the coma affects can be minimized by dialing the aperture down to let in less light (stopping down). This lens I used does have a fair amount of coma. For this image, I still wanted to let in enough light in, but also wanted to minimize the coma, too, so I chose an aperture of f/2.0. This was clearly not enough because the coma aberrations can be seen in the upper right and left corners of this image.

On a side note, the Sigma 35mm Art lens is great for portraits, or other dark scenes. However, I have found that this lens has not been the best to use for star images because of the coma problems. There are methods to remedy against the coma problem, such as taking a panoramic (frames to the left and right of the main image), and then crop out the coma areas. However, that is a lot of post-processing work. I normally use a Nikkor 14-24mm which is incredibly sharp, but the filter I wanted to experiment with only fit my 35mm.

The shutter speed is also important because you will need a long exposure to let in enough of the faint star light, but also minimize star trails. Star trails occur because you are on a fixed point on Earth, yet the planet is turning, so the stars appear as streaks. Depending on the lens that is used, there is a limit to how long a shutter is open before star trails start to occur. For the 35mm lens I used, 6 seconds worked the best to let in enough light and not have star trails.

Lastly for exposure, I chose an ISO of 6400. ISO is something you want to take in careful consideration. A high ISO can amplify a lot of light or signal coming in on the sensor, but that comes at an expense as noise (graininess). The amount of noise introduced by ISO depends on the size and quality of the camera’s sensor. My D850 handles high ISO well, but 6400 worked best as it amplified enough signal without introducing heavy noise that will need work in post.

When I capture starry night images, my preferred method is to take several frames and then stack them together. Stacking is a method that is very common in astro-photography and it is used to gain a greater exposure while reducing noise. Some people chose to use a tracker (a device that rotates at the same speed as the Earth), with a reduced ISO and greater exposure time, but that is more gear to bring and takes time to align to Polaris (the North Star). However, with my short shutter speed, stacking takes less time and achieves the same, or sometimes better, results.

Once I have collected my frames, I used the program called Sequator that stacks the images into a Tiff file which I can edit in a post-processing program such as Adobe’s LightRoom or Photoshop. For this image, I collected 10 frames, so it is the equivalent of a 60 second exposure. By the way, I only shoot in RAW format so as to keep all the image data.

I was also experimenting with the Tiffen Double Fog 3 filter. This filter has the affect of causing a glow around bright objects as if there was fog the light was shining through. I captured one frame with the filter on. By itself, the image is far to blurry on its own to be usable. However, when it is stacked with the previously stacked image, the brighter objects gain more glow while details are not lost.

Once I had the completely stacked image, I brought the file into Adobe Camera Raw and made minor adjustments for tone (light and dark), and white balance (color). I then opened the image into Photoshop where I used Topaz’s Denoise AI, and also did some minor curve adjustments for color ( a future blog article).

Anyway, I do hope the steps I listed above are helpful to similar images you may want to create. Please, feel free to comment on this post!

Glenn

Welcome to my new Web site!

My main goal for this Web site is to share ideas and things I have learned over the years in regards to photography. I also have a store from where prints of my work can be purchased.

This Web site will be ever evolving, so please feel free to give any feedback.

In addition, please feel free to comment on any post I have on my blog. I am also a constant learner, so you may having something that I may learn from you!

Enjoy!

March through October is the best time to see the Milky Way galaxy’s core from Earth’s northern hemisphere. Early in the season (MAR-MAY), the core and arm are lower to the horizon. When you see images that show the Milky Way as an arch, these are typically captured in the early season. However, the window to view the core in the early season is shorter because it is visible shortly before nautical dawn (3:30 AM to 5:30 AM). Later in the season, the galaxy’s arm becomes more vertical, and earlier in the night, the core will be become visible (around 10:00 PM in September). The below post is the story of how I created a multi-row panoramic starry landscape image and I am sharing may help you produce your image creation with this amazing night sky object.

Typically, before I go to a location where I want to capture the Milky Way, I search for exciting areas using Google Earth. Google Earth is my favorite tool for doing digital scouting because of its 3D rendering and the ability to view from different perspectives. I always plan for 2 to 3 locations in case one of these does not work out.  Once I have a few desired places in mind, I check how much light pollution will affect the Milky Way’s visibility. I use the application from lightpollution.info to see how much radiance from nearby cities will affect the night sky. Maps in the light pollution application are color-coded to show the bright and dark areas; red for bright, and blue or black for dim to dark. If the light pollution information meets my needs to the locations, I plan for the evening for the trip, typically during a New Moon. I also use an app called, PhotoPills, which gives me details when the core is visible and overlays my desired locations to give a virtual view of the sky. These tools greatly help in planning compositions, such as starry landscapes.

I made plans for mid-March 2019 to travel to a primary in Colorado, known as South Park. I also had a secondary location in case the primary did not work out. South Park is a large grassland flat within the basin formed by the Rocky Mountains’ Mosquito and Park Mountain Ranges within central Colorado. This high valley ranges in elevation from approximately 9,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. I chose mid-March because I knew from experience the Milky Way core and its arm would be closer to the horizon, which would make a lovely arch when doing panoramic photos. Before my departure, I checked the weather forecast and how clear the skies would be using the information found at Clear Sky Charts; all were good. To get to the locations from my home in Colorado Springs would require a 1.5-hour drive in the dark of the night, and the Milky Way core would not appear until 4:00 AM, so I departed around 1:30 AM. 

On the weekend before the date I chose for my trip, a weather event known as the Cyclone Bomb Blizzard had hit Colorado. A bomb cyclone is a meteorological phenomenon that describes a storm with plummeting atmospheric pressure. Low-pressure storms like this are rare in Colorado and are known for creating fierce winds and intense snowfall. This blizzard’s timing was perfect because I wanted to capture the Milky Way image with snow on the ground. Unfortunately, this also meant the temperatures would still be far below freezing.

I also wanted to do a nighttime image because I had just acquired a new Nikon D850. Before I purchased this camera, I knew that it had many capabilities, so I wanted to see how well it could do starry-landscape images.

I arrived near my first proposed location with a derelict ranch house and barn in South Park at about 3:00 AM. Unfortunately, the ranch house route was over a rugged and unmaintained dirt road with much snow cover and large drifts. Not taking the risk of getting stuck, I aborted my plans and then drove to my second location, Elevenmile Reservoir. I arrived at the second location about 30 mins later, but it still gave me ample time to grab my gear, hike a short distance, and set-up my camera and tripod. I noticed the temperature reading from my truck indicated that it was -3 degrees F, so I grab my extra layers of clothing, too.  There was a slight breeze, too, which gave lower temperatures with the wind chill factor. I had to hike through the snow to get to the shoreline of the iced-over lake. I noticed some ice fishermen and set-up a tent on the ice not too far from where I stood on the shore, and they had a lamp glowing inside. Of course, I was excited because I thought this would make a great composition! I walked further along the lakeshore to position myself at an angle where the glowing tent would be with the Milky Way.

I decided to use my Sigma 35mm Art F1.4 lens with the D850 and put the camera on a Really Right Stuff multi-row panoramic gimbal tripod head. The 35mm does not have a wide enough field of view to capture what I had envisioned, so I knew I had to do a panoramic. Plus, to get the arch of the Milky Way, one must create a panoramic image. To get the complete 180-degree view with the sky and ground, I had to develop my panoramic in a 2×7 matrix (2 rows of 7 frames) – going right to left for the sky, and then left to right for the ground with about a 25%-30% overlap of each image. The RRS head quickly allowed me to pan the camera for the two rows of images. In addition to taking several frames for the panoramic matrix, at each frame, I captured several images for stacking (10 images for each sky panoramic frame, and five images for each of the ground). Since I was using a high ISO to capture detail at night, the camera’s sensors have limitations and create noise. Stacking the images together helps to reduce the sensor noise created on the image. I had set the ground at a lower ISO, and longer shutter time, so I did not need as many frames to reduce noise.

Why did I choose a 35mm lens over a superwide like a 14mm or 16mm? That would have certainly reduced the number of images I needed to capture! There will be less barrel distortion I would have to correct on the 35mm on wider lenses, such as the 14-24mm I normally use for landscapes. Plus, the Sigma 35mm Art has outstanding image quality with shape corners with low coma aberrations.

I also try not to shoot wide open apertures and crank it back a 1/3 to a full stop to reduce the coma aberrations in the corner of the image (this is where your stars look like little UFOs in the corners of your frame). Stopping down the aperture reduces the rays entering from the lens’s lateral edge to reduce the coma. Using the NPF rule, I determined that my shutter speed was 6 seconds for my lens and aperture setting. The result is that I would have sharper stars in every image.

Many times during the shoot, I had to slip my fingers out to operate the camera. I stood on the ice and snow for about two hours with no wind protection before I finally finished capturing images. I began to lose feeling in my fingers despite getting them in the glove more and vigorously moving them. Frost kept forming on the camera and lens and operating the camera increased in difficulty. When I was done, I grabbed my tripod and camera, threw them onto my shoulder, began walking back to my truck and feeling glad that I was moving to expel some energy to warm up. 

The wind had decided to pick up more, so blowing snow became a factor that made seeing my path more challenging. I had a good general sense of the direction I needed to walk, so I kept moving forward. I did get off course, but I eventually found the road I drove on and kept walking towards my truck. Calculated that I was a good quarter-mile off course, adding more time to my walk in the cold temperatures with wind chill and blowing snow.

I slowly opened the truck with my numb fingers and hands and put my gear in the back. Climbed into the car and started the engine to begin warming it. At this point, I was still feeling frozen but glad to be out of the wind. Eventually, the heater started to blow heat instead of cold air. My hand and fingers were still too numb to drive safely, so I spent the next 15-20 mins trying to warm them up with the heater. If you ever had your hands this cold, then you know that this can be painful! Days later, after the shoot, my fingers were still hurting, so I had some minor frostbite, but eventually, this pain went away.

The result of all that shooting was about 100 images that were stacked and then stitched together. I used Sequator for the image stacking (similar to Starry Landscape Stacker for Macs) and Microsoft ICE for stitching. Even with these two powerful software tools, I still had to manually blend the rows for the sky with the ground in Photoshop. Partly because I had changed the ISO and focused on the ground images, there was no perfect alignment of the background mountains. The PTGUI program would probably handle that problem more effortless, but I did not have a license at this time. I used a computer that I have custom-built to process large files and lots of calculations to create the image, but this image was still tasking it somewhat hard! The size of the file after completing the stack, stitch, and edit is about 1.25 Gb! If I print this guy at 100%, it would be an 80″x50″ monster!

The final image and the process I took was mostly for me to try the D850 with my lens and pano rig, see the results in the images I captured, and learn what is possible in this system. I had not used the D850 for starry night photography before this evening, and I became very impressed with its capabilities. The D850 is one helluv-a camera body, IMO! However, I did manage to create an image that is worthy enough to hang on a wall!

Do you need the same type of gear I used to create wall-hanging worthy images? No, but it doesn’t hurt! You definitely can use the same tools I did for planning your shoot, though. Knowing your camera and its limitations are the best place to start, and then experiment doing night images with it. You may find that your camera is quite capable of creating start sky images. As a matter of fact, the recent technology in phone cameras has increased dramatically to where some are capable of capturing starry skies. If you have one of these amazing devices, give it a try sometime and share what you learned!

Panoramic images are fun in the way I created mine, but make sure you have enough storage space for the files and an excellent processor to crunch through the processing! I spent maybe a good 16 hours on this image, but I am also a perfectionist and may have spent more time than what it should take. Give panoramic images with your camera a try, learn from it, and above all, have fun!

Your methods may differ from mine, and that is OK. If so, share your techniques in a post! The above worked out for me, so if anything, I hope what I shared taught you something you can use for your creations.

Posting photos on social media is fairly easy if you have a mobile device. Most social media platforms are built to work on both smartphones and PC or Mac desktop/laptop, except for one: Instagram. You may ask, “Why upload from a desktop/laptop at all?” Well, for many us, a DSLR is our top choice of camera to use and we download images it captures to our machine.

There are apps you can use that can aid you to upload pictures from your desktop/laptop. Some of these are free, some there is a fee, and others are questionable as to their security. However, there is another way you can upload pictures to Instagram from your desktop/laptop, but it is not immediately obvious. There are four steps I’ll describe that you can do if you have Google Chrome Internet browser on your machine.

1. Open Instagram in Google Chrome on your personal computing machine (desktop/laptop). and press your F12 key, or right click on the Instagram page and choose “Inspect.” This will split your screen so that you will have the Instagram account on the left and the code base inspector on the right. Ignore most of that content in the right pane and look at the top left of that Inspector window, and you will see a little icon that resembles a tablet and a phone. After clicking that tablet/phone icon, you will immediately see the left side of the screen change.

2.  At the top of the left pane where your Instagram account is at, you will see that it shows “Responsive” as the selected choice. Click that and the drop-down menu shows several phone or tablet options. Pick the one closest to your device.

3. My screen size shows 100%; however, click that dropdown with the number that has “%” and it will show  “Fit to Window” option. Select that. Each time, your screen may shift slightly, but that is normal. If you do not select a smaller option, your screen may not show the bottom of the Instagram app screen and there is no way to scroll from this “Inspect” developer window.

4. At this point, you should see a screen that closely resembles what you see on your Instagram mobile app – with the usual plus (+) sign at the bottom that allows you to take or select a photo from your phone gallery. If you click it here in Chrome, it will open a dialogue box to open a folder on your computer where you can select the photo and upload it. Then you will see the remaining standard Instagram screens – the edit screen where you can move the image and select the part you want to use. After clicking “next,” you will land on the share page which allows you to add “write a caption” (or not) and click share. If you do not see the plus (+) sign at the bottom, as you do on this screen, simply refresh the browser window (F5 on a PC keyboard) or the reload button to the left of the address bar. This usually reveals it for the times when it does not appear instantly.

That’s it! You are done! These four steps are all it takes to upload photos to Instagram from your PC or Mac desktop/laptop using Chrome.

I am going to try something new with my page starting today, and then will be every Sunday (at least try). I have been a user of Photoshop for many, many, many…well, let’s say…(moons)^Nth..(i.e. moons raised to the Nth degree), and I have gained a lot of knowledge of the tool during that time. Thus, I have decided to share some of that knowledge with you!

Given the above, here is the first tip!

Photoshop Tip:
While in Photoshop (PS), you can put a grid overlay over the image you are editing (Mac: CMD H or PC: Ctrl H to toggle the view on and off). The grid overlay helps in making alignments in the image, such as straightening out horizons.

By default, the grid overlay is set where many lines are visible, which does make it harder to view the image. However, you can set the grid view to be more usable, such as setting to have a “Rule of Thirds” guidelines! “Rule-of-Thirds” is a composition principal which is common in art, and a subject for another day (search the Internet for more details on ROT principal).

In Photoshop, press “CMD-K (PC: Ctrl-K)” to open your Preferences. Click on “Guides, Grid & Slices” from the list on the left and change the settings for the “Grid” section as follows: Gridline every 100 percent, Subdivisions 3, change the grid line color to one of your choice (default is white. I like to use green) and click “OK.” This creates a grid that divides the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. You can then turn on the grid by pressing “CMD H” (Mac) or “Ctrl H” (PC), and a “Rule-of-Thirds” grid will be superimposed over the image.