This year was the first time I have ever visited Crater Lake as a photographer and not a tourist or flying over in an airplane.
I avoided looking at any other photos from this place before heading down. All I needed was some planning on Photographer's ephemeris and sky view 3D on my iphone to know when the galactic core would be positioned evenly away from the West end of the lake.
I was rather disappointed in how little there was to explore but thrilled at what was available. Turns out the vast majority of beautiful windswept trees are near the parking areas below each peak. I hiked every peak on the west end and didn't see anything that suited my fancy. Maybe for winter shots though.
I'm sure this shot has been done 40 billion times before, but at least I now have my own version to keep. It's one of my two favorite trees on the west end and is stupidly easy to spot even from a parked car.
The tree was above the camera a little too much to get any good light reflecting from it, so it is a little darker than I wanted. I might try boosting it some more and just dealing with some heavier noise reduction. I always try to avoid light painting whenever possible to remain as honest to the scenery as I can. The tree branches look like mysterious dancing night creatures to me.
Canon 6D
16-35 @16mm
Panoramic stitch and focus stacked (which was a nightmare due to star movement)
Any feedback is more than appreciated.
Edit: For some reason the tourists thought it was funny to take pictures of the guy sleeping in his car at 11am drooling all over himself from long nights of work.
Comments
10 commentsEd
The only distractions to me is its softness and I would not mind a small hair more shadow detail. Having said that it still kills!
I did leave the stars a little out of focus but not completely out of focus for this shot. I have another pass on the panorama that has sharper stars, so I might try processing that one and showing it to you guys.
The camera is so darn close to the tree that I would need a better setup to get closer and wider as suggested. My panoramic has a bit of room on the sides, so I may leave it wider and see how it works. A 14mm lens would have given me more DOF and wider FOV to make that a bit easier.
I've done panoramic stitches with focus stacking and exposure blending that go far into the 30-70 shot range, so I am no stranger to uber complex compilations in photoshop. The star movement is something I have never dealt with before, so it has been a severe learning curve.
I'll give it another pass. I fully expected to mess up on my first attempts, which is why I posted here looking for feedback.
Thanks again guys!
BTW, I'm not going to cut down that branch or clone it out, which I agree isn't ideal, but that's just nature for ya I guess.
Edit: I think I left the crop tighter because I wanted the tree to fill the frame more. I really wish I could have gotten close to make the tree fill out the galactic core all the way across for more dramatic effect. My 6D rocks for these night shots, but the 16-35 is really fighting me the whole way through. I'm really disappointed in its nighttime shooting ability.