Jared Lee Photography

Capturing the Milky Way

On a recent trip to Colorado, I was lucky enough to have a New Moon with almost no light pollution.  What does this mean?  Awesome shots of the Milky Way.  After seeing some examples on Flickr, I figured you had to have some sort of telescope setup to be able to take photographs like these.  I was wrong.  All you need is a high ISO setting and some sort of noise reduction (hopefully your camera has it built in).  Here are a few examples of what I was able to capture and the settings I used.

ISO 3200, 30 Seconds, Natural Maglite to paint the tree.

In this first one, I lightpainted the tree with a flashlight for a few seconds to give the photo some foreground.  The very bright object in the lower middle is Jupiter.

ISO 3200, 43 seconds, f/4

The streak across the sky in this one is an airplane flying past.  If you look closely you can make out the red and green lights on the left and right wings respectively.

1 Minute, ISO 3200, f/4

On this one I used the trees to frame the sky.

You can view larger versions of these on my Flickr photostream.

Full Moon Over Palo Duro

The recent full moon has kept me busy. I actually took the time this month to go out and do some night photography and I was extremely pleased with the results.

My wife, some friends, and I hiked to the Lighthouse in Palo Duro Canyon so I could get some shots of it in the moonlight. The lighthouse has been photographed to death over the years, but I’ve never seen a night shot of it, so I set out to make a few. I was very pleased with the results. Here are a couple of the shots:

The Lighthouse

5 minutes at F/7.1, ISO 200

Will O Wisps

2 Minutes, f/6.3, ISO 200

For the lights, I opened the shutter and then we all walked around with our headlamps and flashlights blazing and swirling.

You can view the full set here.