Nighttime Shooting: How To Take This Shot

Balance Rock & Orion

Shooting at night opens up a completely different world to photograph. And it is loads of fun. But it requires some advance planning to make the experience fun and enjoyable. Here are some of the things I needed to take into consideration in order to get this image of Balance Rock and the constellation Orion in Arches National Park in November.

Equipment You Will Need

You will need a wide angle lens, the widest you have. For this shot I used a Rokinon 14mm fixed lens. This is a fairly inexpensive lens but it is very sharp and a good value for the price. I shot with a full frame camera on a tripod. You will need a tripod for sure. A cable release is nice to have but it is optional. Take your widest angle lens and your tripod. And warm clothes as you may be standing around for considerable amounts of time.

Before You Go Out To Shoot

How long to expose? There are some things you should know before you go. First, if you want sharp images of the stars there is a formula to follow called the rule of 600. Some photographers follow the rule of 400. It will be up to you which rule to apply. Basically, the rule states if you want images that do not have obvious star trails, divide the focal length of your lens into 600 and the result is the number of seconds you can expose an image. A 20mm lens could expose for 30 seconds without obvious star trails. 24mm for about 25 sec. My Rokinon 14mm about 40 seconds. If you use the rule of 400 you just divide into 400 instead of 600.

What aperture to use? f/4 is a good starting point. If you have a wider aperture, say a f/2.8, you have the option to use it but you may be sacrificing Image sharpness at the wider aperture. So you can start with f/4 and adjust from there.

What ISO to use? The ISO you choose is going to depend a lot on your camera’s ability to handle high ISO settings. The higher the number the more light you are letting in but you may sacrifice quality. Start at ISO 3200 and see what you are getting, then adjust accordingly. If it is too noisy try lowering the ISO and open up the aperture (if you can). I find it is not unusual to work up to 5000 ISO.

What to focus on? Set your focus at infinity and leave it there. Do this before you go out at night. If you forget to do this you can focus on the moon if it is up, but often night shooting is done when there is no moon. Or you can focus on a distant light or use live view and magnify on the stars and then set the focus manually. But these methods are fraught with difficulty so set your focus before you leave for the shoot. Then turn off automatic focus on the lens and set it to manual focus. Next tape the focus ring to the body of the lens so it won’t move. And if you want to do it really right, place a piece of tape on the focus ring, one on the lens body, and draw a line from one to the other. Then if the focus ring does get moved, you have a reference to set the focus back at infinity.

At The Shoot

If your focus and other settings are set up ahead of time then you are almost ready to shoot. Place you camera on the tripod, compose, plug in your remote shutter release (or use your 2 sec timer) and take some shots. Check to see what you are getting and make adjustments accordingly. My own preference is to know my camera so I never have to turn on my light to make camera adjustments. Light from your flashlight, even if you have a red lens on it, will mess up your and/or your neighbor’s shot. So learn your adjustment buttons well enough that you can use them blindfolded. It will make for a much more enjoyable shoot for both you and your shooting buddies.

A Couple More Night Shots

This is a single shot taken in the White Mountains of California at f/2.8, 16mm, 25 seconds at ISO 3200. This image and the one below were both taken in the month of August which is a good month to photograph the Milky Way.

This is a vertical panorama with the first shot being the lower half of the image. Then another shot was taken to capture more of the Milky Way and that image was stitched to the lower image to make the single image above. Settings were at f/2.8, 16mm, 25 seconds, ISO 3200.

White Tailed Kites - A Family Affair

Perhaps you have seen birds fluttering in one place in the air. I have seen Northern Harriers do this as well as kestrels. But most commonly it is the white-tailed Kite. Three years ago there was a family of them in the Laguna De Santa Rosa and I had the privilege of witnessing their behaviors and capturing some of it with my camera. This first picture (above) shows a juvenile in flight and an adult on the branch. The juveniles are distinguishable by the brown markings. This Kite family had three juveniles and one adult, perhaps two adults but I only saw one at any given time. Late one evening I saw this scene with the adult holding a gopher or vole while the three juveniles gathered. I was particularly taken by the orientation of the juvenile's body on the bottom left. As it turned out I got several shots of juveniles in unusual positions. On one occasion I photographed one of the juveniles doing a somersault in mid air (topi...

The East Side of the Sierras is Beautiful

Why “Notes to My Mother”? My mother was the one person in my life who was always interested in what I was doing, what I had to say, who I was. She was never too busy to listen and take an interest. Never critical, always accepting. Even when I was wrong or misguided, there would still be a gentle interested listener present. Though she has been gone over 6 years, I still get the urge to write or call her, to share an image I am proud of or share my latest adventure to some beautiful place. I know she would love to hear about it. My mother was an artist. She painted most of her life, right up to her passing at the age of 96. When I was 4 years old we lived on the east side of the Sierra Nevada Range. She would take me out to paint with her - she with her easel, me with mine - and we would sit together creating our art. While I gave up on the medium she kept at it. Then, in the year she passed I picked up a digital camera and began my adventure into the world of landscape ph...

Aurora Borealis May 10: A Northern Lights Extravaganza

As a quick update: All of these images were taken on the night of May 10-11, 2024. on San Juan Island WA. We were taken by surprise in the middle of our vacation when it was announced there was to be an aurora display that would likely be visible from our location. What an understatement! What we witnessed was simply out of this world. We saw colors I did not know existed in the auroras, especially the light pinks and, of all things, orange (neon). There were four of us on the grounds at the Trumpeter Inn during the "show". I was the only one with a DSLSR camera so the others would see something interesting and I would point my camera in that direction and take a timed exposer. Most were in the 15 to 20 second length. At one point, Jan looked up straight overhead and saw something that was quite unusual; it looked like some kind of convergence. I pointed the camera overhead and took this picture, which I find startling....

Notes To My Mother

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