Night in East Glacier +1

[Kyle Jones]

I drove over Logan Pass Saturday evening, hoping to take advantage of the early moonset and forecasted clear skies to do a little night photography in some popular spots. I started at the Wild Goose Island lookout and there were more clouds than expect and plenty of wind to churn up the trees. I then drove to Two Medicine Lake and tried my luck there.

Each imaged captured with the Canon R5 and Tamron 15-30 f/2.8 at f/2.8. The sky in each photo is a single image at ISO 3200 and 20s. For the ground I used a 3 minute exposure at ISO 1600 for the bulk of the scene, but used a median stack of 5 "sky" exposures for the mountains in the background to keep them looking natural against the skies. The clouds were a challenge, as my normal night processing to bring out the stars darkened them more than I liked.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Edit: the clouds near the center peak in the first one were bugging me, so I did a re-edit using the clouds from the long exposure.

1) St Mary Lake

2) Two Medicine Lake

3) An edit of the first one that cleans up the clouds in the middle.

 

[Ben Egbert]

I like both of these Kyle, I like the ground layer detail you have at St Marys lake and I like the MW placement at Two Medicine. What a great backyard you have.

 

[Jeffrey]

The nice thing about these images is that they do look like night time. Most MW pics do not. Nice work Kyle.

 

[AlanLichty]

I agree with Jeffrey - these look like the night sky instead of wildly exaggerated MW shots. Nice job with the overall light in the final images.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice pair of images Kyle. Great location for night skies.

 

[BlackRockArt]

I drove over Logan Pass Saturday evening, hoping to take advantage of the early moonset and forecasted clear skies to do a little night photography in some popular spots. I started at the Wild Goose Island lookout and there were more clouds than expect and plenty of wind to churn up the trees. I then drove to Two Medicine Lake and tried my luck there.

Each imaged captured with the Canon R5 and Tamron 15-30 f/2.8 at f/2.8. The sky in each photo is a single image at ISO 3200 and 20s. For the ground I used a 3 minute exposure at ISO 1600 for the bulk of the scene, but used a median stack of 5 "sky" exposures for the mountains in the background to keep them looking natural against the skies. The clouds were a challenge, as my normal night processing to bring out the stars darkened them more than I liked.

Any thoughts are welcome.

1) St Mary Lake
View attachment 43410

2) Two Medicine Lake
View attachment 43409

Kyle, given the challenging weather condition, I think you did quite well.

Oliver

 

[JimFox]

Very nice work Kyle! They both look great. I totally feel for you with the clouds, there are times I have had the same issue with the clouds going too dark. Using a feathered layer mask was the only way I could deal with it.

 

[Sunny Sra]

Kyle,
These are beautiful, especially #2. Well shot