Mt. Rainier under the Stars

coscorrosa · July 17, 2010

All seasonally closed roads to Mt. Rainier National Park are now open, but most mountain trails are still covered in snow. Until the snow melts and the wildflowers bloom in 2-4 weeks, it's a great time for night photography, especially when the forecast cooperates as it has this last week (perfectly clear skies with little to no moonlight).

The other good thing about night photography is you don't have to worry about crowds or take time off work (just time off sleep!)

Awais Yaqub · July 17, 2010

Rain of stars.. lovely photo

snowman1 · July 17, 2010

Nice photos

Doug

http://dougsphotos.smugmug.com/

redleash · July 17, 2010

Great shots, Ron. I like the pastel shades of the sky in #1, but the star trails in #2 are eye-catching.

Alpha_Plus · July 17, 2010

They are brilliant Ron. It seems you know exactly when to head out that direction. You got much better weather than what I got when I was there last week.

Well done!

coscorrosa · July 17, 2010

Awais Yaqub wrote: »

Rain of stars.. lovely photo

Thanks Awais!

snowman1 wrote: »

Nice photos

Thanks Doug!

redleash wrote: »

Great shots, Ron. I like the pastel shades of the sky in #1, but the star trails in #2 are eye-catching.

It's amazing how colorful the milky way can be especially with a long exposure (around 20 seconds in this shot). I want to try a few more star trails shots from south of the mountain in a few weeks when the trails open up. This shot was about 2 hours (25 5-minute exposures).

Alpha_Plus wrote: »

They are brilliant Ron. It seems you know exactly when to head out that direction. You got much better weather than what I got when I was there last week.

Well done!

Webcams and hourly forecasts

Also, you have to be prepared to come back with nothing which I do plenty of times!

kdog · July 18, 2010

Pretty awesome shots, Ron. I can't believe the colors in the sky in the first one!

The milky way looks like steam coming of the top of the mountain. Wicked cool.

dadwtwins · July 18, 2010

Spectacular shoots.....just love them

AndMan · July 18, 2010

kdog wrote: »

Pretty awesome shots, Ron. I can't believe the colors in the sky in the first one! The milky way looks like steam coming of the top of the mountain. Wicked cool.

redleash · July 18, 2010

Ron - How do you process those 5-min exposures into one image? How long a gap was there between each 5-min exposure? I assume you need to allow enough time for some earth rotation to occur? I've seen these star trail shots but never read how they are achieved. Thanks, Lauren

CWSkopec · July 18, 2010

Awesome images, Ron!

Looks like you caught a couple groups of climbers heading up the mountain in the star trails shot. I would think it would be better (safer) to climb during the day, but then again I think it's best to leave a perfectly good mountain alone and hang out on my couch too!

coscorrosa · July 18, 2010

kdog wrote: »

Pretty awesome shots, Ron. I can't believe the colors in the sky in the first one! The milky way looks like steam coming of the top of the mountain. Wicked cool.

Thanks! In a few weeks I should be able to get it coming directly out of the top of the mountain once the trails open up a little bit more.

dadwtwins wrote: »

Spectacular shoots.....just love them

Thanks!

AndMan wrote: »

Thanks!

redleash wrote: »

Ron - How do you process those 5-min exposures into one image? How long a gap was there between each 5-min exposure? I assume you need to allow enough time for some earth rotation to occur? I've seen these star trail shots but never read how they are achieved. Thanks, Lauren

My process for star trails:

1) Confirm the focus, by shooting at ISO 6400 wide open (f/2.8 for this lens). It usually takes about 5 shots or so before I'm sure that I have the focus nailed. I do this for any night shots, including milky way shots.

2) Confirm the composition, usually by taking a 5-6 minute exposure to verify the stars are moving as I expect and polaris (the north star - the one that appears in the middle of the star trails) is in the correct spot to have star trails on both sides.

3) Set the remote timer to continuously fire off 4-6 minute exposures with no gaps in between (setting the ISO and aperture as appropriate, in this case it was f/2.8 at ISO 500 for 5 minutes).

4) Set the alarm on my phone for a two hours. Usually you'll want at least an hour for shots with polaris in them. You could have the timer stop firing after 12 (or 24) exposures, but I prefer to let it fire continuously, in case some "event" happens (such as an airplane, or unfortunate headlights, etc.) all I have to do is reset the alarm on my phone and not have to adjust the timer again.

5) In post-processing, after raw adjustments (same adjustments made to every exposure), I import each raw file as its own layer in Photoshop and blend them together using the "lighten" blending mode (more or less, in actuality I do a screen/lighten combination as described here: http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/725769/0).

Some people prefer doing a single long exposure (this is what they used to do with film). I prefer shorter exposures that are blended for several reasons, the first being noise (long exposures are excessively noisy on DSLRs). There are other benefits too, for example, if your lens fogs up half way through you can still end up with a usable shot, or as I mentioned previously if an airplane flies through your shot you can find the longest uninterrupted by airplane sequence, or if your battery runs out you can still come away with something.

I've had the lens fog up on me a few times doing this, my last attempt I rubber-banded hand warmers to both sides of the lens and covered the camera body with a towel. That kept the camera body warm enough so that condensation didn't form on the front of the lens (your camera starts off at normal temperature, and about 30-45 minutes in, it's colder than the air around it causing that warm air to condense on the cold camera body). If that didn't work I was going to get a portable hair dryer or resort to some other drastic measures to warm up the camera

Obviously this situation is more prone to happen with cold temperatures.

CWSkopec wrote: »

Awesome images, Ron!

Looks like you caught a couple groups of climbers heading up the mountain in the star trails shot. I would think it would be better (safer) to climb during the day, but then again I think it's best to leave a perfectly good mountain alone and hang out on my couch too!

I hear ya! The mountain swallows climbers every year, but only affects couch potatoes every thousand years or so with an eruption

They climb at night all the time, especially when it's clear, I'm not sure why, it might be an easier climb (except for the darkness) because the snow/ice is more packed than in the middle of the day when it starts to melt a little.

redleash · July 18, 2010

Thanks for the details, Ron. It sounds like you have the process nailed down. I hope you'll post more star trails for me to enjoy . . . doesn't sound like something I will be trying anytime soon. But I will save your message in case I do give it a try. (Note to self: don't forget the hair dryer!)

schmoo · July 19, 2010

You're hardcore, seriously. Hand warmers strapped to your lens?!

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Andy · July 19, 2010

and, thanks for the explanation, awesome stuff for the community.

Tango · July 19, 2010

Nice Ron! I alway like to see the climbers in the long expos...

jamesl · July 19, 2010

Awesome! Thanks for the technique explanation!

aktse · July 19, 2010

Fantastic!

NorthernFocus · July 20, 2010

Great stuff. That first shot is awesome

coscorrosa · July 20, 2010

redleash wrote: »

Thanks for the details, Ron. It sounds like you have the process nailed down. I hope you'll post more star trails for me to enjoy . . . doesn't sound like something I will be trying anytime soon. But I will save your message in case I do give it a try. (Note to self: don't forget the hair dryer!)

After 30 years I've never used a hair dryer, it would be funny if the thing that finally pushed me into purchasing it was to keep my camera warm at 2AM rather than dry my (disappearing) hair!

schmoo wrote: »

You're hardcore, seriously. Hand warmers strapped to your lens?!

Beautiful, just beautiful.

Thanks - I was tired of having only 30 minute star trail shots. I don't know if the hand warmers solved the problem or if I was helped by the warmer outside temperatures.

A few days before I tried a similar shot but the lens got fogged over after 6 exposures:

Andy wrote: »

and, thanks for the explanation, awesome stuff for the community.

Thanks, if you learn from your mistakes, I should have done a lot of learning by now

AaronNelson wrote: »

Nice Ron! I alway like to see the climbers in the long expos...

Yeah those climbers are nuts! I actually cloned them out of the milky way shot but left them in the star trails shot.

jamesl wrote: »

Awesome! Thanks for the technique explanation!

No problem!

aktse wrote: »

Fantastic!

Thanks!

NorthernFocus wrote: »

Great stuff. That first shot is awesome

Thanks! It's always really cool to be at a place where you can see the milky way so clearly.

Eia · July 20, 2010

The sky in the first - just beautiful...and then to see the star trails in the second....awesome! Thanks for the information!!!

Robbug · July 20, 2010

My boss recently just climbed Mt. Rainer - they have to start a day early to get to the acclimation site. Then on the day of the climb to the peak they have to start at 2300 to be able to reach the peak and get back down to the base camp in one day.

He said hiking up the mountain was painfully slow. A step every second or so due to having to break a trail through the snow or using his ice axe.

I am gonna give this a shot this weekend as I have been wanting to do some night shots for a very long time. Hope to see some of you up there

I'll be the clueless dude cursing at his camera.

Oh and as to the hair dryer idea - thats what many astronomers use to keep the dew off the objective. I use a dew shield for my telescope. Unfortunately you can't do this with a camera as you would get a lot of vignetting on the wide shots.

They do sell electric strip warmers that could be attached to the lens to prevent dew buildup. Here is a site that sells a control unit but has some other good infos - http://www.dewbuster.com/

One thing I have learned - any hobby that involves optics is stupid expensive. My other hobby is amateur astronomy which lead me into photography. Out of the frying pan and into the fire I suppose.

coscorrosa · July 20, 2010

Eia wrote: »

The sky in the first - just beautiful...and then to see the star trails in the second....awesome! Thanks for the information!!!

Thanks!

Robbug wrote: »

My boss recently just climbed Mt. Rainer - they have to start a day early to get to the acclimation site. Then on the day of the climb to the peak they have to start at 2300 to be able to reach the peak and get back down to the base camp in one day.

He said hiking up the mountain was painfully slow. A step every second or so due to having to break a trail through the snow or using his ice axe.

I am gonna give this a shot this weekend as I have been wanting to do some night shots for a very long time. Hope to see some of you up there

I'll be the clueless dude cursing at his camera.

Oh and as to the hair dryer idea - thats what many astronomers use to keep the dew off the objective. I use a dew shield for my telescope. Unfortunately you can't do this with a camera as you would get a lot of vignetting on the wide shots.

They do sell electric strip warmers that could be attached to the lens to prevent dew buildup. Here is a site that sells a control unit but has some other good infos - http://www.dewbuster.com/

One thing I have learned - any hobby that involves optics is stupid expensive. My other hobby is amateur astronomy which lead me into photography. Out of the frying pan and into the fire I suppose.

Those climbers are pretty crazy, it makes sense that they have to spend awhile getting acclimated as the elevation change is noticeable even as low as 6400 ft (considering there's still 8000 more ft to go to the summit!).

I never thought of using astronomy equipment, but it makes a lot of sense, they're the only other people crazy enough (along with climbers and the occasional photographer) to be out at 2AM looking at the heavens, and all the little problems I run to have obviously had to have already been solved by them. Rubber bands and hand-warmers is a little ghetto, I'll definitely look at the electric strip warmers, thanks for the tip!

Robbug · July 20, 2010

coscorrosa wrote: »

Rubber bands and hand-warmers is a little ghetto, I'll definitely look at the electric strip warmers, thanks for the tip!

No not ghetto because no one really cares when the image comes out perfect! I would use the same stuff. Got me a nice pack ready to go!

I may even bring my scope to just kill time. Hmmm.

ivar · July 27, 2010

Ron, thanks so much for writing a tutorial on how to get star shots

squirl033 · July 28, 2010

the star trails are striking, but personally, i prefer the ephemeral beauty of the night sky in # 1... you could easily sell that shot!! excellent work, Ron...

Brody · July 28, 2010

Your posts are a treat... Not only do I get to see terrific images, but the quality of your discussion of process and technique is exceptional. I feel like I've just attended a mini seminar and I'm all jazzed to give that type of shot a whirl.

Thanks for all of it, John

.

coscorrosa · July 28, 2010

Thanks everyone!

RandallC · July 28, 2010

Can't really add to what others have said -- these are amazing shots!

pathfinder · July 29, 2010

I want to add my thanks to Ron for his tutorial, I think it is stellar

rofl and very much appreciated.

Mt. Rainier under the Stars

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