A few nights ago a friend got in touch and asked if I wanted to go and take some star shots at Porteau Cove. Although I've shot this location at night quite a lot, I didn't have any other plans, so I figured why not!
The forecast looked a bit touch and go, but was good in Vancouver, which suggested we might have a good chance looking towards the south, which is also where the most interesting part of the Milky Way was. Although there was quite a lot of glow from the cities of Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast and Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, there was also good visibility of the Milky Way. The glow also nicely silhouetted Anvil Island, making it stand out clearly on the horizon.
We also took along a tent to act as a prop. Even though using a tent as a prop in night sky photography is about as cliched as photographing a street of yellow cabs in New York, there's no denying it is an effective foreground element! I used an app on my phone that allows the screen to be set to display any colour to light the tent from inside, allowing us to control the appearance of the tent. A warm yellow-orange setting simulated candlelight quite well, and the tent nicely diffused the light.
To increase sharpness and reduce noise, I took two different shots to make up this image, a 20 second exposure of the stars at f/2.8, ISO 3200, and a 2.5 minute exposure of the ground at f/2.8, ISO 400. The two exposures were equivalent in brightness, allowing me to easily blend the longer, less-noisy ground detail in with the shorter exposure of the sky.
Worth viewing large!
Thanks to everyone for their kind comments on my series of fog photos, and for getting two of them into the top 20!
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
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Total perfection. I love the light inside the tent, the softness of the water, that great Milkyway and that gorgeous light behind the mountains! FAV!!!!!!!!!!!
If I could fav this ten times I would! My son (@sicamore) posted one like this when he climbed Mt Tanganyika - his was a mountain setting and yours has the water plus the mountains plus the stars! Its a privilege to view your work, Alexis!
Congratulations on getting this shot to the Top 20. It deserves to be there! It is too easy to miss shots like these but I now have the opportunity to make it a Fav!
Wow... stunning! Milky way photography is my new favourite obsession! I am researching like a fiend right now for my next one! lol.... this is now the standard by which I will measure a great example of one though! Clearly a fav! Congrats on TT too =)
absolutely super - I have never tried a long duration shot and you've inspired me - I only just saw this on the fav's of people discussion. really great!
