North Window Arch - Night Photography

This is a photo of North Window Arch in Arches National Park taken in the very early morning ours. The shutter time on this photo is approximately 10 minutes. If you notice the dotted line to the upper left of the arch, that is actually a satellite orbiting earth. The light was provided by the moon, which actually turned out quite nice in my opinion!

comments (7)

Ferdy Christant

Lion

Whoa, it seems you're picking this up very quickly. This is an incredible result! How did you come to the 10 minute exposure? Was it trial and error or do you use one of the calculation methods? Posted 10 years ago
1. travismorhardt
  
  Lion
  
  This photo was from the same night as the other. I had a few hours to play around and try different settings. I had been primarily using a 45-50 sec exposure, based on some reading I had done. Then I tried three minutes, and after some adjustments with my ISO, I tried this ten minute exposure. I had decided that this would be my last photo for the night, whether it turned out or not, because as you know with extended exposures, the time it takes for the camera to render the photo is just as long as the bulb is open. So, even though the exposure on this photo is ten minutes, it really was a twenty minute process. But, I feel it was well worth it :) Posted 10 years ago
2. 1. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    Yeah I know about that rendering time, surprised me when I first tried such exposures. Maybe you already know this, but you can actually turn it off so that you can cut the time in half. The setting is called "Long exposure noise reduction", it may have some unwanted effects though. Posted 10 years ago
  2. Ferdy Christant
    
    Lion
    
    Some more info I forgot, at risk of you already knowing this: the camera isn't actually rendering your photo in that 2nd 10 minutes period. It is taking a 2nd photo, this time with the shutter closed, thus a photo of nothing. It does this because during long exposures, sensors heat up which impact the image. It will then use that closed shutter reference image to remove sensor noise from the real image. Posted 10 years ago
  3. 1. travismorhardt
      
      Lion
      
      Also did not know that. That is interesting, I had no idea it was taking a second photo! Well that gives me more reason to not mess with my camera after the original photo :) Posted 10 years ago

travismorhardt

Lion

It surprised me too! I did not know you could turn it off though. I will have to do a little experimenting with it this winter. I plan on trying some more night photography throughout the coming months. I will have to see what differences the photos show between the two settings and see if it is worth keeping the noise reduction setting on or not. Posted 10 years ago