Not of this World - Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

After 8 unsuccessful attempts the weather finally allowed me to take this shot. I've always loved this composition, but there is considerable light pollution which is usually seen in the same location the where Milky Way is rising in this photo. There is one solution to this light pollution problem, wait until extremely dense low lying fog / clouds cover the valley below the crater.

On this particular night the sun had set and the fog started to roll in very quickly over the valley as seen just above the horizon of this photo. These conditions removed a considerable amount of light pollution from the skyline & allowed me to finish off the rest in Lightroom & PhotoshopThe photo is composed of 4 different shots, all taken with my tripod in the exact same place. The first two shots are for field of view. The entire Milky Way Core and the Crater won't fit into a single frame of the Nikkor 14-24mm lens ( @ 14mm ) so a horizontal pano was used. The last (2) shots were taken 30 minutes before the first two shots capturing the immediate foreground / mid-ground using focus stacking techniques. Using a long ( 2 min ) exposure for the last (2) shots it was also possible to keep nice detail without using a high ISO and inducing noise. I recently got done making a Focus Stacking Tutorial on YouTube for anyone interested:) --> youtu.be/6hNhCo15Ay4


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If you’re interested in learning how to take and post process shots like this, check out my Free Star Photography Tutorial for Milky Way & Star Trails and Star Photography Post Processing / Editing Video Tutorial

For an in depth experience, my Star Photography Workshops & Photography Tours visit some of the darkest national parks that the West Coast of the United States has to offer and provide expert instruction along the way in all aspects of star and landscape photography!

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You may also be interested in the Learn Photography Page which contains a bunch of other free and paid tutorials, videos, and other useful links and information contained on this website!

Enjoy,
Dave

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