Sunset Arch, Escalante By Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Sunset Arch, Escalante.

Echos of Long Forgotten Times by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Valley of Dreams, New Mexico Badlands, USA. Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Cheers, Wayne

Questions and Answers:

How to stitch photos together for panoramas

Question: Incredible work man! How did you stitch the 14mm shots so seamlessly?! The distortion on my Rokinon 14 makes stitching a huge issue in post.

Answer: Use a lot of overlap when taking the photos! I open the images in either Lightroom or Adobe RAW and use the lens correction function to undistort then as much as possible. If there is not a lens profile for your lens then do it manually and do it exactly the same for each photo. Also, there is less distortions if the camera lens is more horizontal. I get it as horizontal as I can and still get all the sky comfortably in the photo. I use a really wide angle lens. This means there may be a lot of "extra" foreground at the bottom, and I just crop it off. Hope this helps. Cheers, Wayne

Milky Way above Turret Arch by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: The Milky Way rises behind Turret Arch in Arches National Park, Utah, USA. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Your time, faves, and comments are much appreciated! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Questions and Answers

The very basics of getting started in nightscapes

People have asked me a number of questions about equipment, issues, and technique in Nightscape or Landscape Astrophotography. Since many of these questions are recurring, I am going to post the questions and answers here. I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability!

Q: What do I need to do to get a night sky photo with my Canon 20D?

A: Here's a start to night sky photos with your 20D.

1)  Put the ISO on "H" which is 3200. The image will have noise but you need the high ISO.. That is the highest ISO for your camera.

2)  Use the fastest wide angle lens you have. F2.8 is good but if the fastest wide angle lens you have is f3.5 or f4.0 then use that. Open the aperture as wide as you can. You want a lens that is 24 mm or wider optimally. A 20 mm lens or wider is even better.

3)  Put your camera on manual or "M" mode.

4)  Focus on infinity

5)  Use an exposure time of 15-30 sec. 

6)  Use a tripod

7)  Use RAW files, and not jpegs (or save both). RAW files are better for processing later.

8)  Here is a starting guide to processing the images:

lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes

Scroll down until you see "Workflow" and follow that lead.

Great Barrier Island, NZ by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Beach Panorama on The Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. 14-24 mm lens, 15 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec., ISO 12,800, 14 vertical images. ________________________________________________ The 2 brighter dots beneath the middle Milky Way arch (one brighter than the other) are the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. They are dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy. We do not see them from the Northern Hemisphere so I’m pretty excited to capture them. 😀

Feeling Small in Big Hogan by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This is a vertical panorama in Big Hogan Arch in Monument Valley, Utah. After taking the panorama I photographed myself with the same lens and settings and added it to the panorama in the same position. As you can see, Big Hogan Are is aptly named. It is huge. You feel like you are standing in a cathedral. The hole at the top is actually overhead in reality. The appearance here makes it look like it is in the front wall, but that is the result of trying to fit the inside of a sphere onto a rectangular image. You need a guide to enter Monument Valley at night. If you are interested in a night tour contact Majestic Monument Valley Tours and ask for Quanah. Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

The Hanging Hoodoo by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook “The Hanging Hoodoo”. I’ve been away from Flickr for many months unfortunately. It’s been a busy summer and I have a whole season of photos to process and post, and I’m just finally getting around to it. If anyone is still actually following me, then many thanks. 🙏🙏🙏 I had the opportunity to explore an area in New Mexico that I had not been to before, an area outside of the usual photo locations, and I found this “Hanging Hoodoo”. I was immediately enamored by the photo potential. I was able to return at the next new moon and get this photo. Next year I’ll return and get the scene with the Milky Way to the left of the hoodoo, but it was too late in the year to get it this time. I could just make a composite and paste a MW to the left of the hoodoo, but I try to keep it real. It’s a lot more fun and challenging to make it work out in actuality than just adding a MW. A lot more trouble too, lol. I think this would be a major photo op for photographers if anyone knew about it. I was lucky to find it. There is a 20 image stack for the sky and a 5 minute exposure for the foreground, blended in PS, all taken from the same position, back to back. Thought for the day... “The night is a tunnel, a hole into tomorrow..." ... Frank Herbert Thanks for looking! Wayne Pinkston

Racing the Clouds by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is an image of Cyclops Arch in the Alabama Hills of California (eastern part of Ca. adjacent to the Sierra Nevada Mtns.). I arrived and got a couple of unlighted shots, and this one decent lighted shot before clouds rolled in and obscured the beautiful sky. There is a thick layer of clouds just above the frame, but I was able to salvage this one shot. I ended coming back the next night. One good thing is that cloudy skies = a good nights sleep! This is a single exposure. Canon 6D camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens, f 2.8, 30 sec., ISO 6400. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Perseverance by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This is one of my favorite photos of this past summer. The photo is not really spectacular or anything like that, but this Ancient Bristlecone Pine looks like it has borne the weight of the world for millennia. I suspect it is several millennia old at least. It has taken all the abuse the earth could throw at it yet it persists, bent but not broken. In fact it seems to be quite healthy with a lot of foliage not shown here. Is there any better life lesson to learn? ________________________________________________ Low Level Lightening (LLL) used for lighting. A single Cineroid LED light panel was used, set on a 10 ft. (3 meter) light stand about 100 feet (30 meters) away, off to the left side. The light was turned all the way to low and set at a relatively neutral to slightly warm color temperature of 4200K. ________________________________________________11 light frames and one dark frame stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker. 14-24 mm lens, 20 mm, f/2.8, ISO 8000.

The Light of a Thousand Suns by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: I was honored to be on the Podcast "F-Stop Collaborate and Listen" with host Matt Payne. He interviews Landscape and Nightscape Photographers about a variety of topics. His relaxed style makes the podcasts enjoyable and interesting. He helps you see the people behind the photos. You can listen to my interview here: fstopandlisten.podbean.com This photo: "The Light of a Thousand Suns". This was a bit of a surprise. This is an Overlook of the Little Colorado River in the Grand Canyon before it joins the Colorado River. I had a good night shooting other sites along the Colorado River, and timed the Milky Way to be over this part of the canyon in the early a.m. When I got there the clouds had rolled in and I was about to pack it in for the night, but decided to give it a try anyway. I was surprised. The clouds were uniformly thin, thin enough for the light of the Milky Way to shine through and illuminate the clouds. The effect turned out to be pleasing, at least to me. This is a blend of a foreground image and a sky image. Foreground is a stack of 10 images taken at 14 mm, f 2.0, 30 sec., and ISO 3200. Sky image is from same spot at 14 mm, f 2.0, 20 sec., and ISO 12,800. For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. It's a pleasure to post here. Website Instagram Facebook