Yosemite at Night
Moonlight is something that really sucks away the life of the Milky Way when you're trying to take shots of it. It makes the whole sky light up and makes it hard to see the Milky Way. That being said, the moon LIGHTS up the whole night, and can make for awesome and unique landscape shots. With astrophotography, you kind of just have to roll with the punches since you can't control the sky. I was blessed to be able to visit Yosemite during both when the moon was "gone" and when the moon was visible. I was able to get both great Milky Way shots the first night I was there, and then this shot the day before we left. Yosemite Valley and Half Dome are gorgeous during the day, but I think during the night brings out a whole new life to the area. It almost makes it into more of a painting than during the day, but that's just my opinion.
During the night, the Yosemite Valley area turns off all the lights to keep the light pollution down. Since Yosemite is roughly the size of Rhode Island, since the park policy is to turn off all the lights in the evening it is apparently one of the best skies in the United States to view the sky (at least that's what the park ranger told us). Truly some incredible views, and I'm counting down the days when I can go back.
As always, leave a note below with any questions or comments and I'll get back to you!
Holy balls dude, these are so surreal and incredible. Like, they make me feel things inside my body.
I'm scared to ask what things, but thanks! Come with me and let's go there!
Hahaha, this is an amazing comment...
You can probably guess the kind of adjectives I’d use to describe these shots. I really love the pearlescent glow to the mid-ranges. Do you have to do much in editing to get the colors to pop like that, or is it mainly in how you set up your camera at the time of the shot?
I want to know what adjectives! And if you have any extra adverbs I'd take a few! And really not that much editing for these shots, just making sure your colors are what they're supposed to be and adding some contrast, little tweaks here and there.
Adjectives:
spectacular, ridiculous, superlative, A+, transcendent, impressive
Adjective Phrase:
leave-em-to-posterity-so-posterity-thinks-we-were-cool-grade
Adverbs:
really, pretty, fairly, superlatively, brain-bogglingly
Very thorough! You have my upvote, as well as my sword.
Dude! Those are great shots... does that mean you were camping in Yosemite? It looks amazing... and definitively does look like a painting... I assume that's dude to the aperature being open for so long.
We might be camping in the Grand Canyon in a month, I'm looking to get a Canon 6D. Is there anything else I'd need to try and take shots like this... I'll be taking a bendy tripod too.
Thanks man! And yeah, did a backpacking trip for 5 days through there. Saw like 5 people total until the last day when we went to the popular parts and saw thousands of people.
The 6d is a great camera to have, cheap for the quality it has and basically just as good as most of the other cameras out there for pictures. I bought a Rokinon 24mm f1.4 off ebay for around 300 and it's perfect for astrophotography. It is a total manual lens, so it takes some practice with manual focus etc but definitely a great buy if you don't have extra spending money.
Some epic captures there. I am still yet to get to Yosemite!
Thanks! And yeah, it's a sight to see. Its hard to put the camera down and just enjoy that place. Where are you from?
I am based in Northern BC in Canada for now. I am Australian however.
Gotcha. I saw both in your bio so wasn't sure. How north are you? I just looked at a map, and realized BC is way bigger than I remembered,haha. I've been in the southern part of BC which was absolutely breathtaking. I've always wanted to go north west up there into Alaska area.
I am near Prince George. About 9 hours drive North of Vancouver.
Very cool. Do you mind if I ask you what moved you out there?
Work and life. Or life and work. Something like that ;-)
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This is amazing. now i want to try to make this kind of shoots!
I'll be doing a tutorial on long exposure shoots in the future, so stay tuned!
Of course!! i would love to see that.! (do it fast so i can start practicing ) =D.
I am completely jealous of the amount of stars in that second shot - okay, actually just completely jealous! I've heard the same thing about Yosemite, and I'm hoping to visit there someday, and get my own shots. Awesome captures!
Thanks! Yeah, make sure you make it there. It's absolutely incredible. Worst part is the amount of people that are in the most popular parts, but you can't really blame them. It's an amazing park!
Coolness, @aweber! Thanks for the tip!
That second picture is especially awe inspiring! It's such a magnificent scene under the stars!
It's really nice that the park has a policy of turning down lights to tone down light pollution - why use lights under a clear, starlit sky?
Yeah I thought it was an awesome initiative to turn off all lights in the evening. Definitely made the park even more awesome, if that's possible.
These are incredible! I have to go there one day.
Agreed, you definitely should! And I need to go back haha
Very nice.
grrrrreat @aweber
check out my blog @joepike if you like.