KenElevenShadows

And also this month - yes, I've been getting around some this month! - I went out to Borrego Springs, photographing the night sky with noted astronomer Dennis Mammana. Between seeing this odd cloud formation and just having seen the new "Godzilla" movie, I couldn't help but create this shot! http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/1437-20sf4iso1000-2014-06-17-1256am_kenlee_borregosprings-atomicbreath-960px.jpg

This is a photo I took from my trip to West Virginia just a few weeks ago. This is a long exposure photo of Cathedral Falls, near the Gauley River. I didn't have much time to take photos. This one was a quick dash. I photographed my friend's wedding and was otherwise occupied with various stuff, but at least I managed to break away for a few minutes with this photo. http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/1265westvirginia2014_kenlee-cathedralfalls-1siso100f22-960px.jpg

I just came back from a trip to Arches National Park in South Utah, where I took some night sky long exposure photos of the various arches and everything else. And I took some day ones too, of course, but the night sky photos were especially fun. Gazing up at Delicate Arch feels like peering into the infinite beyond, the magnificent arch acting as a portal for the center of our galaxy and beyond. For this photo, I waited a bit for the Milky Way to drift farther south, then lined it up underneath the arch for this image. I light painted the arch with a small Streamlight LED flashlight to keep the arch from going to silhouette. The Milky Way is easy to see on a moonless night such as this one. Title: Door to Infinity

Cool bug photos!

FriPod!!! Well, at least you got to take a photo of it. On the BBQ! Great photos above!

You may also use your smartphone as a controller. Check out www.triggertrap.com for details. I love this. It's very very easy to use, and is cheap, requiring only a dongle to connect your smartphone to your camera, about US$30. The downside? There are two. One is that it ties up your phone, and furthermore, runs down your battery a bit quicker because it is continually processing and showing on the screen. The second is that because the screen is continually on, it sometimes attracts insects or whatever if you are shooting in the wilderness at night. But all in all, it's pretty great. I just used it last night to shoot some star trails photos. It also automatically sets the time between exposures for you so you don't have to guess what your camera can do, unlike many intervalometers.

Mike W, those are really great shots!

And a good, steady tripod? Possibly a remote trigger as to not shake the camera on those long exposures. Yup. You need those two items regardless of what kind of camera you have, modest or no. I've shot long exposure photos with a Joby Gorillapod before. That's good for waterfalls and stuff like that. It might be able to do Milky Way shots, which are often 15-25 seconds in exposure length, but I wouldn't want to do that, and I sure wouldn't want to use them for star trails. But for waterfall photos of 1-4 seconds, it's pretty great.

Suh-weeeet!

Oh, absolutely. Iceland in particular is one of my dream trips. I don't know so much about Greenland, but I would imagine it would be fascinating also.

Thanks. Also.... Look at something like this (Nikon D3100 with kit lens). This is a good camera and lens combination, particularly for the price. US$400. Then you buy some a couple of SD cards and a Joby Gorillapod, and you basically have a system that is *better* than what I shot these following waterfall and coastal photos with: http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/westvirginia2010/imagesforeverything/A-westvirginia2010/0322cathedralfalls.jpg http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/1147upperyosemitefalls700px-e1332119839934.jpg http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/105bowlingballbeach10sf14iso200-flat2.jpg You don't need a fancy camera to do any of this. You just need patience. You don't need a fast lens. Why? You are shooting long exposures. It just needs to be sharp and focused. You don't need a camera that is great with low light, shooting continuous burst at 6 frames per second, great with high ISOs, or any of that. You just need a camera with manual controls, which is basically any DSLR, ILC, 4/3rds, etc. Every single one of these (and the first two look MUCH better ordinarily, but I can't find my higher-res photos right now) was shot with a digital camera and lens that are about eight years old. The specs on the D3100 I linked to above completely smoke the old camera I took this with.

Whewwwww!!!!!!! xKnuckles, consider buying an old version of Lightroom before they went the subscription route. That's what a lot of us photographers are doing with either Lightroom or Photoshop. I'm using Photoshop CS4, for instance. I own it. I have the DVD. I don't pay subscription fees. I will try and avoid that for as long as I can.

This summer: I'm basically gonna go nuts and take lots of long exposure, night sky, star trails, and light painting photos. West Virginia, then Borrego Springs so far. But in a couple of days, Arches National Park. I may hit Zion on the way back, but I really want to focus on Arches, where I've wanted to go for eons and never have. I'm excited. Five days in Arches. Later on this summer, ghosts towns, this strange car art installation in Nevada, the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, Borrego Springs again (I'm giving a photography workshop there July 5-6 on star trails, Milky Way, and light painting techniques), and probably quick random trips to Joshua Tree, Big Bear, Trona Pinnacles, and/or Mount Pinos. I don't know yet. I make up a lot of stuff as I go along. I am also going to Northern CA for a reggae festival, but that's with my girlfriend, so that's not going to be a "photo safari"....just lots of fun and hanging out and listening to music and drinking beer.

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/1265westvirginia2014_kenlee-cathedralfalls-1siso100f22-960px.jpg Almost Heaven, West Virginia Cathedral Falls. This one was a little bit earlier this month, taken near the Gauley River. This is from my latest trip to West Virginia this summer. There was quite a lot of rainfall, so this has quite a bit more water than my previous photos of Cathedral Falls. Also, I was trying out my new camera, a Nikon D610, as well as a new lens, the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8. I didn't have an ND filter over this, but it was relatively low light, so I just stopped down to f/22. This is a one-second exposure, but since there was so much water flowing, one second was more than fine to create this silky quality in the water that most of us love so much.

That goes pretty much without saying!! http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/1437-20sf4iso1000-2014-06-17-1256am_kenlee_borregosprings-atomicbreath-960px.jpg "Atomic Breath" Astronomer Dennis Mammana and I shot some night sky photos of Ricardo Breceda's amazing metal dinosaur sculptures on a rather windy evening. After Dennis went home, I decided to take a few more night sky dinosaur photos before packing it in. I noticed some unusual cloud formations. That and seeing the new Godzilla movie inspired me to have a little fun with this image! By this time, the 88% moon was fairly high in the sky, and much of the desert was well lit. Nonetheless, a wee bit of light painting from my head lamp seemed to help the dinosaur come alive, so to speak.

Now what I am quite excited about is next week, I am going to be going to Arches National Park in South Utah and having a lot of fun photographing the natural beauty of this park. I've never been there before, and I've always wanted to go. And I'll of course be taking a lot of night sky photos while I'm out there, going to Delicate Arch, Double Arch, etc.

You really don't need an expensive camera to do this sort of stuff. I photograph a lot of these waterfall and night sky photos with an old Nikon D90, which is a modest camera. Any camera, preferably with manual controls, can take photos like this. And although a nice tripod is always good, I've taken a lot of my waterfall photos with a Joby Gorillapod, which is I think less than US$50. Think of it this way. Today's modest digital cameras blow away many cameras from 5-10 years ago. And people were getting beautiful photos back then. Don't get hung up on gear. Take what you have and go out there and shoot, pay attention to people who get phenomenal photos and pick their brain, and just go out and have fun and keep shooting.

Depends. But the first one was six seconds, and the second was eight. I usually bracket them from about half a second to eight seconds or so and pick the one that feels best later.

http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/westvirginia2012/images/1040westvirginia2012elakalafalls5sf8iso400.jpg Another long exposure photo from Elakala Falls in Almost Heaven, West Virginia.

Back from visiting West Virginia. This is not a photo that I took from my latest trip...this is from my last trip. But I haven't had time to process the new photos yet. Actually, right now, I'm in Borrego Springs, hoping to take some night sky photos of the amazing sculptures of Ricardo Breceda underneath the desert night sky. At any rate, this is a photo of one of the many beautiful waterfalls of West Virginia. This one is Elakala Falls. http://www.elevenshadows.com/travels/westvirginia2012/images/1011westvirginia2012elakalafalls6sf11iso400-2nrflat.jpg

Definitely!

Ken, I think you meant to say too narrow? Oh yes, sorry, I meant "too narrow" fo sure. Thanks!!!!!!!

No problem! I used a Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 lens. 20 second exposure, f/2.8 ISO 6400. It is not post-cropped, although I will do that from time to time, but I really try to nail the framing in person whenever possible. For my personal tastes, a 35mm is too wide, and I don't know many night sky photographers who use that, but on the other hand, it should be perfectly fine for things like light painting objects or certain landscape.

It really feels that way, as if they may be teeming with life. I sometimes picture stars as fish swimming in a giant ocean. Thank you so much for your kind words.

http://kenleephotography.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/256kenlee_joshuatree2014-5-20sf28iso6400-2014-05-25-131am-960px1.png This is another photo of Arch Rock, this time light painted.