CASTLE ROCK
Photographing The Milky Way
July 13, 2018
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The workshop was held on July 13, 2018 during a new moon. It took place at Castle Rock which is a large limestone pillar landmark in Gove County, Kansas. The formation and the nearby badlands are located in the Smoky Hills region of Kansas, which is approximately 11 miles south of I-70 near Quinter, Kansas.
We booked rooms at a Super 8 in Wakenny, KS, a little town approximately 30 miles east of our proposed location shoot. We all met at 6 PM with the instructor in the lobby to go over the basics and camera settings we were going to need to capture the Milky Way. It was touch and go as there were thunder storms, with lightning and rain all around us. There was moderate to heavy cloud coverage in the area we were going to which could have blocked any chances of getting a good shoot of the stars and Milky Way.
Our location shoot was on private range land but the landowners are amenable to visitors and no special permission is required. The two rut path leading back from the dirt road is quite rough, portions of the track having up to 18 inch deep ruts. It takes some careful driving, but you can do it in a car, but a SUV or light truck works much better.
The Castle Rock limestone, chalk and shale formation is fragile and may not last many more years. The tallest spire fell following a thunderstorm in 2001. But there is still a lot to see here. I found the badlands area just south of Castle Rock to be more interesting. We got there around 7pm and selected our location for the Milky Way Shoot. We were all on a burm lined up in a row. Good time to take some shots of the area while waiting to see if the clouds were going to move out and if the Milky Way would show itself. This first image was taken with a Fujifilm X-T2 and a 18-135mm lens. I shot this at f/8, 1/800 second shutter speed and ISO at 400. My focal length was 21mm and the camera was hand held. Note, that the shutter speed was higher than the focal length which really helps freeze any movements from hand-holding. Keep in mind this was a mirror-less camera so there was no shutter movement to deal with. It was taken at 7:57PM (6:57PM actual day-light time) In this shot I am facing north-west. You can see by the clouds and the storm south of our location and it was moving east. The sun coming from the west was reflecting light behind all the storm clouds which made for this shot.
Monument Rocks are large, heavily sculpted chalk monoliths that are sometimes referred to as the Chalk Pyramids. The site has been designated as a National Natural Landmark as well. In eastern Gove County is Castle Rock, a chalk spire that stands by itself in the valley of Hackberry Creek, though immediately south of Castle Rock is an extensive outcrop of chalk, capped by the younger Ogallala Formation.
This second image was taken around 8:22 PM and reflects the setting sun carpeting light on some of the rock formations. This is definitely a good example of high contrast between light and dark. This is not a composite of multiple images but a single shot that was taken in RAW format. I composted for the light so as not to blow it out and since I was shooting in RAW format was able to recover the dark and shadow areas. I did not use the rule-of-thirds for my composition but cropped using the Golden Triangle. To get as much light as possible I shot at f/5 which limited my depth-of-field (DOF) somewhat. I used a shutter speed of 1/480sec and an ISO of 400. In hind site I could have change my settings to a higher f-stop for greater DOF which would have reduced my shutter speed and accomplished the same correct exposure. My camera was set to a fixed ISO of 400 with aperture manually set but shutter speed on automatic. I was so excited taking pictures that I broke the cardinal rule of not checking my camera settings each time I moved to a new location.
This is probably one of my favorites because of the beautiful light and colors being reflected by the setting sun. It was 8:50PM, just about 30 minutes from the previous shot above yet the light is changing by the minute. As the sun continues to set the light will change by the second. OK so for this shot I increased my DOF by using an aperture set to f/8. Now with this aperture and an ISO of 400 my shutter speed was only 1/40 of a second but since I was shooting with a focal length of 24mm and this lens has vibration reduction I was able to capture this image hand-holding the camera.
The chalk was deposited during the Cretaceous Period of geologic history, about 80 million years ago, when the central interior of the U.S. was covered by a seaway. The several hundred feet deep water contained single-celled animals that drifted to the sea floor for eons, creating a mucky ooze. This material was perfect for trapping and preserving the remains of animals that lived in that ocean, such as fish, turtles, sharks, swimming reptiles called mosasaurs and plesiosaurs, swimming birds, gliding reptiles called pterosaurs, as well as invertebrate animals such as giant clams. Today the chalk beds routinely give up these fossils. Probably the best-known fossil from these beds is the famous "fish-within-a-fish" on display at the Sternberg Museum in Hays.
As I stated earlier there was a lot of lightning as the storms passed across our path. The good news was the clouds were moving out of the area allowing the stars to show themselves. I opted to process this image in black and white because there were low hanging clouds and a lot of dust in the area which gave this image the appearance of banding. Since my camera was on a tripod I was able to use a slow or longer shutter speed and was able to capture the lighting's effects. I counted between each strike and timed it so that I would get lightening feedback while my shutter was still open.
This was taken with a Nikon D750 and a 20mm Prime Lens. Aperture was set at f/2.0. I used a shutter speed of 15 seconds. At this point it is getting dark and it was time to use a much higher ISO which I set to 3200. Yes the trade off is increased noise but I was able to remove it selectively in Photoshop. I had calculated the length of time I could set my shutter speed at using the 500 Rule. What is that? You divide 500 by your lens focal length and this will give you the maximum shutter length before the stars start to leave trails in your image. So with my lens being 20mm I divided 500 by 20 to get the length of time I could use or for this lens up to 25 seconds. Remember I was using a Full Frame camera. If I were to shoot with my Nikon D500 or even my Fujifilm I would need to take into consideration my cropped sensor factor. For Nikon and Fujifilm it is 1.5 for Canon it is 1.6. Example: If I used this same lens on my D500 I would need to multiply the lens length by 1.5 or in this case 30 (20 x 1.5) and then divide this into 500 and my maximum shutter time would be 16.6 or just say 16 seconds prior to getting star trails. Why does this happen? Because the earth is rotating. There are devices to attach to your tripod to counter this effect.
We all set around waiting for the clouds to move out while praying the storms/rain would stay south of us, which they did. In the meantime everyone focused there lens to infinity using white clouds in the north and then marked their lenses to be able to get back to that setting when it was too dark to see. For those using zoom lenses the instructor had gaffer's tape which he used to mark their settings to prevent their lenses from accidentally moving. Once you find the infinity focal length you must switch the camera to "manual focus".
While waiting for the clouds to move out of the way of the Milky Way I looked behind me and just could not pass up this shot. The sky was clear except for a few clouds with very low opacity and the heaven was blanketed with stars.
For this composition I used the Nikon D750 on a tripod and the 20mm lens. My aperture was almost wide open at f/2. My shutter speed was set for 20 seconds and my ISO was at 6400. What can I say, lot of noise but was able to remove a lot of it in post processing.
Well at around 11:00 PM the Milky Way began to show itself. In this image there is still some cloud coverage between the Milky Way and the top of the rocks so parts of the Milky Way are still hidden. With and ISO of 6400, an aperture of f/2 and shutter speed of 20 seconds I was able to capture this image.
Probably the best shot for ME because the Clouds had moved out and it was around 2:00 AM. Everything I have read is that the Milky Way is at its brightest during the summer months when it is in the norther hemisphere, best seen during a "New Moon", and reflects its best light between 2 AM to 4 AM in the morning.
Nikon D750 with 20mm Lens, Aperture at f/2, Shutter set to 15 seconds and ISO at 6400. In the future I will opt for settings of f/2 or f/2.8, Shutter somewhere between 20-25 seconds, and ISO at 3200. The secret is in post processing and shooting in RAW Format so that no data is thrown away by your camera.
The Milky Way: A galaxy contains stars, gas and dust. In a
spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, the stars, gas, and dust are organized into a
"bulge," a "disk" containing "spiral arms," and a
"halo." Elliptical galaxies have a bulge-like central region and a
halo, but do not have a disk. Bulge: The bulge is a round structure made
primarily of old stars, gas, and dust. The outer parts of the bulge are
difficult to distinguish from the halo. The bulge of the Milky Way is roughly
10,000 light years across. Disk: The disk is a flattened region that surrounds
the bulge in a spiral galaxy. The disk is shaped like a pancake. The Milky
Way's disk is 100,000 light years across and 1,000 light years thick. It
contains mostly young stars, gas and dust, which are concentrated in spiral
arms. Some old stars are also present. Spiral Arms: The spiral arms are curved
extensions that begin at the bulge of a spiral galaxy, giving it a
"pinwheel" appearance. Spiral arms contain a lot of gas and dust as
well as young blue stars. Spiral arms are found only in spiral galaxies. Halo: The
halo primarily contains individual old stars and clusters of old stars
("globular clusters"). The halo also contains "dark
matter," which is material that we cannot see but whose gravitational
force can be measured. The Milky Way's halo may be over 130,000 light years
across. Stars, Gas, and Dust: Stars come
in a variety of types. Blue stars, which are very hot, tend to have shorter
lifetimes than red stars, which are cooler. Regions of galaxies where stars are
currently forming are therefore bluer than regions where there has been no
recent star formation. Spiral galaxies seem to have a lot of gas and dust,
while elliptical galaxies have very little gas or dust.
I am intrigued with night photography and plan to continue to pursue it so as to improve my skills. Planning a trip in August to to photograph the Milky Way. Thanks for visiting my Blog.
Amazing shooting and great story with all the information about the location, photography and the Milky Way. It was a great trip with lots of learning and created a thirst for more Milky Way shots.
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