Overnight Beauty On Black Bear Pass

I usually like to get most everything in focus in my style of photography but sometimes, I like to be a little more creative. On this night, I... more

by Mike Berenson

Title

Overnight Beauty On Black Bear Pass

Artist

Mike Berenson

Medium

Photograph

Description

I usually like to get most everything in focus in my style of photography but sometimes, I like to be a little more creative. On this night, I camped up on Black Bear Pass near Silverton, Colorado and waited for a thin moon to rise. When it did, I added a little light painting to the field of wildflowers in the foreground to make the scene really come to life.

How I Got The Shot
Without any wind to blow the wildflowers around, my job of capturing sharp details in the flowers was made quite a bit easier. This allowed me to shoot a long exposure without concern for the flowers dancing around - looking like blurry yellow blobs. I did do some focus stacking to get more of the foreground in focus but as you can see, I was not concerned with getting the background stars in focus. There was something special about the way the background stars (and Milky Way in this case) looked out of focus so I decided to keep this as part of my finished image.

Photo Gear
• Camera Body - Sony A7RII
• Camera Lens - Sigma 20mm f/1.4
• Tripod Head - Acratech GP Ballhead with Lever Clamp
• Tripod Legs - FEISOL Elite CT-3472 Rapid Tripod Legs

Exposure Settings - Three Focus Stacked Images
• ISO: 12800
• Aperture: f/2.0
• Shutter Speed: 15 seconds

Uploaded

February 8th, 2017