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Shooting the Milky Way at the City of Rocks

Posted by nbanjogal, 28 August 2016 · 2,291 views

Wow—it's been a little over a year since I last wrote a blog post! And my last blog post was also about photography at the City of Rocks National Reserve in Idaho—that wasn't intentional.

As I said in the weekly best photo challenge, it was my birthday this weekend, and my husband wanted to get me some photography gadgets or a new computer or some other such thing, but I told him that what I really wanted was TIME for photography (new job keeps me busy for about 50 hours a week). So on Saturday we headed up to the City of Rocks National Reserve to do some Milky Way photography.

The last time I went to the City of Rocks, I lamented the fact that I didn't have time to scout locations ahead of time, so for this trip we made sure to arrive early enough to do so. . . which still presented some challenges because a) it's hard to find rock formations in pitch black darkness, even when you've seen them beforehand, and b ) I misjudged where the Milky Way would be in relation to some of the formations were interested in photographing. We still managed to get some of the shots we planned, along with a few others we weren't planning.

I still need to work on lighting techniques for this type of photography. We mostly relied on a small pen light with an opaque white plastic cup over it...or sometimes my husband's yellow t-shirt. Occasionally we were able to use ambient light (as with the wagon) or the light of a passing car. And sometimes we didn't light the foreground at all.

All of these images were shot with the Rokinon 14mm 2.8 on my D600. Settings were ISO 3200, f/2.8, 20 or 25 seconds exposure time.

This wagon was at a visitors center down in Almo, a small town just outside of the City of Rocks. Across the street is the lone inn in Almo, and the ambient light from that inn provided the lighting on the wagon.

Posted ImageAlmo, Idaho by Nicole Fernley, on Flickr

The lighting in this one was provided by the headlights of a car driving to a campground between the rock formation (one of the "Bread Loaves") and a hill. This image is one where I had misjudged the location of the Milky Way—I thought it would be a bit closer.

Posted ImageCity of Rocks National Reserve by Nicole Fernley, on Flickr

Just a random vignette of rock and trees on the side of the road... Lighting provided by a pen light shining through a t-shirt.

Posted ImageCity of Rocks National Reserve by Nicole Fernley, on Flickr

My husband thinks this one looks like a turtle head. I think it looks more like an alligator. Lighting was pen light shining with a plastic cup over it.

Posted ImageCity of Rocks National Reserve by Nicole Fernley, on Flickr

The position of the Milky Way at this time of year (very up and down) makes me want to shoot in portrait orientation. Here's one of the few landscape-oriented images—silhouettes near the Twin Sisters formation.

Posted ImageCity of Rocks National Reserve by Nicole Fernley, on Flickr

And of course we had to do the obligatory torch shot (the only reason we haven't done the cliche lit tent shot is because we don't have a cool enough tent!). He is holding a 550 lumen spotlight from Cabela's, and I did a quick flash of light with the pen light to add a bit of light to the foreground (lots of sagebrush, eh?).

Posted ImageCity of Rocks National Reserve by Nicole Fernley, on Flickr

I still feel like I didn't do justice to this landscape—the City of Rocks is a striking place that I need to return to often. Right now we're still at the "getting to know each other" phase.

Milky Way season is winding down (that spectacular central bulge will be setting earlier and earlier), so next I'm thinking it's time to focus on lightning photography during the upcoming fall storms.




Lovely photos.

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i love these. Still something i havent tried.

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The photo with the wagon is stunning

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