Landscape photography from the field

Night Sky Photography

Why the Best Night Sky Shots Start Before You Ever Touch Your Camera
Night Photography

Why the Best Night Sky Shots Start Before You Ever Touch Your Camera

I drove three hours into the Oregon high desert last September, set up my tripod in the dark, and stood there for forty minutes before I even removed my lens cap. Not because something was wrong. Because everything was right, and I wanted to actually look at it first. That habit took me years to develop. Early in my career I was so eager to start shooting that I’d be chimping through exposures before my eyes had fully adjusted to the dark.

What the Dark Actually Costs You: A Night Sky Photographer's Honest Field Notes
Night Photography

What the Dark Actually Costs You: A Night Sky Photographer's Honest Field Notes

The Night I Stopped Guessing and Started Reading the Dark I was standing on the rim of Smith Rock at 1 a.m., shooting the Milky Way core rising over the Crooked River gorge, when I realized I had wasted the first 45 minutes of prime sky. Not because of clouds or light pollution, but because I was chasing a composition I had locked onto from a daytime scout and refused to let go of.

What the Fog Teaches: How I Finally Learned to Expose the Night Sky Without Blowing Out the Stars
Night Photography

What the Fog Teaches: How I Finally Learned to Expose the Night Sky Without Blowing Out the Stars

The first time I tried seriously shooting the Milky Way, I drove out to the high desert east of Bend at 11pm with a fast prime lens and enough confidence to embarrass myself. I’d read the forums. I knew about the 500 rule. I set up, fired off a thirty-second exposure at f/1.8 and ISO 6400, and came home with a frame full of comma-shaped stars, a washed-out galactic core, and a foreground so noisy it looked like wet concrete.