Set The Table For One... By Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: A Quiet Night In The Bisti Badlands Of New Mexico.

Recapture Pocket Panorama by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Recapture Pocket is an area on hoodoos near Bluff, Utah. There are 2 fields of hoodoos here. I call this Hoodoo Arch because it is an arch that is mostly just 2 connected hoodoos. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL) with a Gaol Zero Micro Lantern behind the arch and an LED Light Panel on a tripod about 50 meters behind me and to the right. Panorama: 11 images, 20 mm, f 2.0, 20 sec., ISO 6400, Nikon 810A Hope you enjoy! For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Sunset Arch Panorama, Escalante by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is a panorama of Sunset Arch in the Escalante National Monument, Utah. This was taken in a workshop with Royce Bair (his workshops and ebook are highly recommended). This is a combination of 12 vertical images, taken with a Canon 6D Camera, and a Nikon 14-24 mm lens at 14 mm, f 2.8, 20 sec., and ISO 8000. The arch is about a 20-30 minute hike from the parking lot, and is less visited than many of the well known arches in Utah. It's petty much in the middle of nowhere, off the beaten path. Our group settled in for the night and we were blessed with great weather. Escalante is one of the least light polluted areas I have seen in the USA. This makes for excellent detail in the sky. The faint light pollution on the horizon is from Paige, Arizona or Lake Powell, many miles distant. Doesn't the Arch look like a sleeping dragon? Thanks for looking. Hope you enjoy! 

After Midnight Landscapes: This is a video made for fun to show some photos from my website. I liked the upbeat music. This will take about 3 minutes of your time. Enjoy! As seen on You Tube:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2zAFserk0c

Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/pinks2000/19324861534

Hi Wayne, I just wanna pop by and say 'thank you'. It's very kind of you to share your tips and experience with us in taking good landscape astro photos. I wish you all the very best in your journey. Asteria.

Thanks for taking the time to look and write. It’s much appreciated. Cheers, Wayne

Hoodoos and Bones by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Oh, if the land could only speak, what a tale it could tell... For tours to this area contact Kialo Winters at Navajo Tours USA. Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Questions and Answers

About Panoramas

Question: Do you use a panorama head for your pano shots, or single frame ultra-wide angle?

Answer: When I call it a panorama I have taken multiple images and stitched them together, usually vertical images. 

I use an Acratech Ballhead that I like a lot. I also use an Acratech Leveling Head which I love. The leveling head makes panoramas much, much easier to get all the images in a horizontal plane. There are lots of leveling heads out there, and this is the one piece of equipment that I would strongly suggest. As long as it works the brand does not matter. At first I only used it for panos, but then I started using it for every night photo and life got a lot easier. Once you level the camera and take that first long exposure photo, it is so much easier to recompose the shot. If the camera is level then you can just swivel it from side to side, or up/down (a little trickier) and the camera remains level. I can usually get the composition right in 2 shots rather than taking multiple shots. Sometimes it takes more, but it is a lot faster to get the composition right with the leveling head. Also you can switch from Hor to vert and not have to change much. I also use an Acratech “L” Bracket almost always when mounting the camera vertically and it helps a lot with panos. It’s much better to help preventing parallax. 

I just wing it on overlap, and overlap a lot. I also use a Acratech Nodal Rail to position the focal plane over the point of rotation. This prevents parallax and the computer can reconstruct it better. In reality though, I only use the nodal rail when there is something  in the foreground that is close, and parallax might be an issue. If everything is far away then I just use the L bracket and it all works out just fine. 

I am learning double row panos, and using special software for that like PTGui pano software. If you want double rows think about this software. For the really high MWs I use the widest lens I have and do them vertically. I have had decent luck with my 15 mm Sigma fisheye lens vertically. I do some lens correction on each image in Lightroom or Adobe RAW and then stitch them together and it works out OK. Just do lots of overlap.

Cheers, Wayne

Question and Answers

Using the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8  vs.  Rokinon-Bower 24 f/1.4 

Question: Wayne, do you shoot with the 24mm because there is less distortion when you stitch the images together? I'm just curious why the rokinon 24 vs say the Nikon 14-24 at 14mm , which is a wonderful lens. I understand the rokinon has a larger aperture but at 24 mm, max exposure time is reduced. Obviously you knocked this image out of the ballpark - would love to know a bit more about the lens choices for panoramas. Thanks and keep up the fantastic work.

Answer: Well, first of all, at 24 mm my version of the 24/1.4 is remarkably sharp, even at f/1.4. It is sharper and has less coma than the Nikon 14-24 at f/2.8. The Nikon is a wonderful lens, and is my most used and versatile lens, but if I am shooting at 24 mm then the 24/1.4 is better. Second, it lets in more light. I can push the histogram more to the right. There is some danger in overexposing the stars, and I was concerned about that, but it worked out. I actually took the pano at several settings and chose the best one. By pushing the histogram more to the right, I get much more detail in the foreground, and that was the goal. For example, some photographers have argued that if you shoot the same photo with an ISO of 6400 and 12,800, all other settings being equal, the 12,800 will actually have less noise in the darker foreground areas than the 6400 photo. The histogram is pushed to the right, the foreground looks lighter, asnd there is less noise there. This is because the dark pixels in the dark left side of the each have less information than the lighter pixels in the right side of the histogram. Less information in each dark pixel equals more noise in the image. The more you push the histogram to the right, the more information you have in each pixel and relatively less noise. Of course you have to avoid overexposing the sky. Overexposure is rarely a problem in night photography, lol. Anyway there are some people that advocate shooting at higher ISOs for that reason. There are discussions on the internet about it. Hope this helps! More light into the camera is good, especially when you are working at the limits of the cameras sensor!

Forged by Ancient Earth by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This is a Butte in Arizona near Monument Valley, the inner plug of an ancient volcano, similar to Shiprock. This is on Navajo land and was taken from the road, so as to not trespass. 50 mm lens, f 2.0, 15 seconds, ISO 6400, Nikon D810A camera. No added lighting. Panorama of 7 vertical images. If you are interested in night tours in and around Monument Valley, google "Majestic Monument Valley Tours", call then and ask for a night tour with Quanah Parker. 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.

Mono Lake by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Blend Sky: 16 images, 20 sec, f/2.8, ISO 6400, 14 mm Foreground: 5 minutes, f/2.8, ISO 1600, 14 mm Mono Lake, California. These are tufas arising out of Mono Lake. They are formed from mineral deposits from springs beneath the lake bed over centuries and are exposed when the water level falls. The water level varies greatly. The paths I recorded 2 years ago during the drought are mostly underwater now. The largest concentration of tufas is along the south shore. When including the Milky Way you are usually facing south, so this makes it more difficult to photograph the tufas, lake, and MW at the same time. There are a few small “peninsulas” that stick out into the lake making it possible (but tricky) to shoot across the water facing S and include both tufas and the MW. There is a stack for the sky and a long exposure for the foreground (5minutes), blended in PS. Cheers, Wayne Pinkston

Joshua Tree at Night by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Joshua Tree National Park, California. Canon 1Dx camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens with an adaptor, f 2.8, ISO 6400. Lighting with Low Level Lighting (LLL). For more about this technique see lowlevellighting.org For more images like this please take a look at my website here . 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. Cheers, Wayne