Capturing the Milky Way at the Grand Canyon and a quick tip about the camera settings

“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”  – Arthur C. Clarke

Well first off, sorry for my absence!

I had full intention of updating the blog over the past couple of weeks as I traveled through the western half of the country but in reality, barely had the time to even empty my memory cards along the way!

From LA to Denver via Yosemite, Mono Lake, Mammoth Lakes, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, Palm Springs, Scottsdale, the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Telluride, and several other places sprinkled in throughout my long days of travel, lets just say that the poor little rental car took over 2,000 miles of beating!

More to come over the weeks and months, but here is one from my stop at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. As I mentioned on Facebook when I shared this one there, its not often that I actually get to see the amazing sky at night with its mesmorizing astronomical display. Living in South Florida with all of our light pollution and cloud cover kinda puts a damper on that! This is one of my first attempts at the process of this type of photography and although I have a lot to improve on, I kinda like it!

More details on the settings in todays quick tip Tuesday video below, but here is the skinny…

3200 to 6400 ISO with an f 2.8 setting and a 20 second shutter speed. I used a tripod (of course!) with a white balance of about 3000 or tungsten. There was a bit of post processing as well, but I’ll share that in another video soon.

The toughest part was getting the focus I needed. The lens simply set at infinity creates mixed results so I racked it back from that just a hair. Again, there is a lot to improve on, but I like to share the process and journey along the way 🙂

Have you ever tried this type of photography?

Share your tips or links to your images in the comments below!