Eloquent Images by Gary Hart
Insight, information, and inspiration for the inquisitive nature photographer
The Megapixel Myth
Posted on August 9, 2020
Comet NEOWISE and the Big Dipper, Grandview Point, Grand Canyon
Sony a7SII
Sony 20mm f/1.8 G
20 seconds
F/1.8
ISO 3200
I kind of have a thing for comets
As soon as I announced that I’d purchased the just-announced Sony a7SIII, people started asking why I wanted a 12 megapixel camera when I already have a 61 megapixel Sony a7RIV (two, actually). When I hear these questions, I realize the myth that megapixels are a measure of image quality is still alive. The truth is, megapixels are a reflection of image size, not image quality. In fact, for any given technology, the fewer the megapixels, the better the image quality.
Without getting too deep into the weeds of noise and clarity in a digital image, it’s safe to say the the more efficient a sensor is at capturing light, and the less heat the sensor generates, the better it will perform in these areas. How do you make a sensor more efficient? Well, you start with bigger photosites to catch more light. And how to keep the sensor cool? Give your photosites more room to breathe. But how do you make your photosites both bigger and farther apart without increasing the size of the sensor? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that reducing the number of photosites is the only way to achieve both of these objectives.
So why do the manufacturers keep giving us more photosites? (My last rhetorical question, I promise.) Well first, advances in technology make it possible to cram more photosites onto a fixed-size sensor without compromising image quality (and in fact, often while still improving image quality). But more important that is the sad, simple truth that megapixels sell cameras.
Bridalveil Dogwood, Valley View, Yosemite
Don’t get me wrong, I think megapixel count is great and am all for as many megapixels as I can have—as long as they don’t come at the expense of image quality. The more megapixels you have, the more you can crop, and the larger you can print. While cropping is a nice safety net, goal should be to get the composition right at capture. And before chasing more megapixels, you should ask yourself how large you need to print, and how many megapixels you need to do it. Whenever this question comes up, I think about an image that I have printed 24×36 and hanging in my home. It’s an extreme close-up of a raindrop festooned dogwood flower, with Bridalveil Fall in the background. I can stand six inches from this 24×36 print and not feel like it’s missing any detail, from its delicate spider web filaments to the small dust particles suspended in the raindrops. All this was captured as a jpeg on my first DSLR, a 6 megapixel Canon 10D.
So given all this, you may be wondering why my primary camera is a 61 megapixel Sony a7RIV, with a second a7RIV as my backup. Well, like I said, all things equal, more megapixels are better than fewer megapixels, and for the vast majority of the natural light landscapes, on a tripod, that I photograph, my a7RIV bodies give me cleaner, higher resolution images than I ever dreamed possible. The dynamic range is the best I’ve ever seen, and my high ISO images are as good as any primary body I’ve ever owned. They’re so good, in fact, that last year I set aside my dedicated night camera, my 12 megapixel Sony a7SII, in favor of the a7RIV. I was getting such good results after dark with the a7RIV, I figured I could sacrifice a little low light performance to lighten my bag.
And for the most part I was satisfied—I’ve now used it enough at night to know the a7RIV is hands down the best night camera I’ve used that’s that not an a7S (original, or a7SII). But photographing Comet NEOWISE last month in Yosemite, I started to wonder if I might have been too quick to jettison the a7SII. My images were clean enough, but if I could get even less noise…
If you follow me regularly you know that I’m a one-click shooter—if I can’t get an image with one click, I don’t shoot it. That doesn’t mean I think it’s wrong to composite night images, but that approach doesn’t give me satisfaction, and I don’t like the artificial look of images that have clearly been blended. The analogy I like to use is the difference between applying a little make-up (dodging/burning and noise reduction in Photoshop), and submitting to cosmetic surgery (blending multiple exposures captured at different times, or with completely different focus and exposure settings). (There’s also a third option that’s more of a Frankenstein solution that involves assembling images from two different scenes, that I don’t even consider real photography.) My one-click approach means I have to live with more noise in my night images, but anyone viewing them knows that that truly is what my camera saw.
So anyway… For my Grand Canyon trip a couple of weeks ago, I decided to dust off the a7SII and give it a shot at Comet NEOWISE. My plan was to concentrate on the park’s east vistas to get away from the lights of Grand Canyon Village. Desert View was closed, but all the other vistas—west to east: Grandview, Moran, Lipan, and Navajo Points—were open for business. So during the day, while chased lightning out on the east end, at each stop I made a point of firing up my astronomy apps to figure out where the comet would be after dark.
Knowing that at about an hour after sunset, NEOWISE would be the northwest sky just a few degrees west of the Big Dipper (which would be dropping and rotating closer to due north as the night wore on), I decided that Grandview Point would be the best place to get it above the canyon. After it rotated farther north, I liked the way NEOWISE aligned with the canyon from the more eastern vistas. On that first night I got about 45 minutes of clear enough skies before the clouds returned.
For this trip I’d brought two tripods so I could simultaneously shoot with both the a7SII and a7RIV. On the a7SII I mounted my Sony 20mm f/1.8 G lens; on the a7RIV was the Sony 24mm f/1.4 GM lens. For both cameras I had long exposure noise reduction turned on (because with the Sonys it does make a difference for exposures measured in seconds). LENR doubles the capture time, which gave me at least 30 seconds between each shot, making it really easy to switch back and forth between cameras.
Having both cameras set up side-by-side like this, I was reminded what a nighttime monster the a7SII is—even though the a7RIV had a slightly faster lens, I could see the dark scene much better with the a7SII. I wouldn’t know how much cleaner the a7SII files would be until looked at them on my computer, but what a joy that camera is to work with in the dark.
I went with relatively few compositions, but varied my exposures for each for more processing options later. To focus, I just picked a star in my viewfinder, magnified it to the maximum, and dialed my focus ring until the star became the smallest dot possible. And even though that’s usually enough to ensure a sharp image, each time I focused I verified sharpness by magnifying the captured image in my viewfinder and checking the detail in the canyon.
I was thrilled by how much light the 20% waxing crescent moon cast on the scene. While the moonlight wasn’t noticeable to my eye, and didn’t seem to wash out the stars at all, it did cast enough light to bring out more canyon detail in my images. The small meteor that scooted through the Big Dipper during this frame was a welcome bonus that surprised me when I reviewed the image later.
When I finally got back to the room and looked at my images from that night a little more closely, the a7SII images were noticeably cleaner, so much so that when I went back out to photograph the comet the next night, I didn’t even set up the a7RIV. Is the a7RIV bad for night photography? Absolutely not. In fact, to capture 61 megapixel, high ISO, long exposure images as clean as the a7RIV does feels like cheating. But given my one-shot paradigm, and the fact that 12 megapixels is more than enough resolution for pretty much any use I can think of (for me—you need to decide for yourself how much resolution you need), for dark sky night photography, my vote goes the a7SII’s cleaner files and ease of use.
Some of my fellow Sony Artisans got to preview the a7SIII, but since it’s primarily billed as a video camera and I don’t really do video (yet), I’ll have to wait until mine arrives at the end of September (fingers crossed). But the reports from my colleagues about the a7SIII’s high ISO performance have me salivating.
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An a7S/a7SII Gallery
Remembering my Dad
Posted on July 19, 2020
Comet NEOWISE and the Big Dipper Above El Capitan, Taft Point, Yosemite
Sony a7RIV
Sony 20mm f/1.8 G
20 seconds
F/1.8
ISO 12800
My dad would have turned 90 today. We lost him 16 years ago, but I have no doubt that he would still be going strong if Alzheimer’s hadn’t taken over. I have always been grateful for Dad’s love, gentle discipline, wisdom, advice, and laughs (especially the laughs), but it takes being a parent to fully appreciate our own parents’ love, and their influence on the adults we become.
Dad was a United Methodist minister who literally practiced what he preached. In 1965, when Martin Luther King issued a plea for clergy to join him on his voting rights march to Montgomery, Dad borrowed money and flew across the country to join Dr. King in Selma, Alabama (where he was on national TV getting arrested).
His was an inclusive, Jesus-centric theology that respected all religions and people: I remember him opening his pulpit to the local rabbi one Sunday morning, then reciprocating the following Saturday with a sermon of his own at the synagogue. Dad welcomed everyone into his churches, and became an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights (before the acronym made it into popular culture). He frequently provided odd-jobs around the church to people who were down on their luck, and I lost track of the number of homeless people, including families with young children, we housed while they tried to get back on their feet.
In addition to the values he instilled, so many of the things that define my personality are directly attributable to my dad’s influence. My positive spirit, sense of humor, and love for sports were absolutely modeled by Dad. And when asked how I became a photographer, the instant answer has always been that my dad was a serious amateur photographer whose 80-hour work week offered too little time to pursue his passion, so he made up for lost time on our summer family vacations. So frequent were the photo stops, I grew up believing that a camera was just a standard outdoor accessory.
But I think his influence on my photography goes deeper than that. More than simply modeling camera use, Dad instilled in me his appreciation of nature’s beauty, and his longing for its soothing qualities. I realize now, because I see it in myself, that it’s not simply photography that dad loved, he was motivated by an insatiable desire to record and share the people and places he loved.
On a minister’s budget, our family summer vacations were, without exception, camping trips—always tent-camping, though in the later years we splurged on a used, very basic tent trailer (no kitchen, bathroom, or any of the other luxuries available in today’s tent trailers). These vacations usually took advantage of the mountain scenery within a few hours of our California home (we were just as close to the ocean, but our vacations were always in the mountains), but every few years we (Dad, Mom, my two brothers, and I) hit the road for a longer camping trip. Especially memorable were the full month we camped all the way across the United States and back, and a multi-week camping adventure into and around the Canadian Rockies.
Of our more frequently visited destinations, Yosemite was the clear favorite. Marveling at the Firefall from Camp Curry and Glacier Point, waiting in lawn chairs with hundreds of fellow tourists at the Yosemite garbage dump for the bears to arrive for their evening meal (really), rising in the dark for a fishing expedition to Tuolumne Meadows, family hikes up the Mist Trail to Vernal and Nevada Falls, are just a few of the memories that I realize in hindsight formed the bedrock of my Yosemite connection.
Here’s my dad’s Half Dome Rainbow, captured on a summer afternoon in the mid-sixties.
My favorite Dad photography story happened when I was about ten. It involves an electrical storm atop Sentinel Dome, and his desire to photograph a lightning bolt, a desire so great that it trumped common sense. As his ignorant but trusting assistant, to keep his camera dry I stretched high to extend an umbrella above Dad’s head. (In his defense, as Californians, the novelty of lightning obscured a full comprehension of its dangers.) We didn’t get the lightning, and more importantly, it didn’t get us. But that’s not the end of the story.
After risking our lives on Sentinel Dome, the family ended up at Glacier Point, just down the road. Dad had returned to tourist mode as we browsed the shop at Glacier Point Lodge, no doubt seeking souvenirs that would fit our meager budget. But when a vivid rainbow appeared out of nowhere to arc across the face of Half Dome, Dad was ready with his camera still draped around his neck. Watching Dad’s excitement, better than any souvenir, this felt as if God was giving him a much deserved, “I got your back.”
I love you, Dad.
About this image
Comet NEOWISE and the Big Dipper Over El Capitan, Taft Point, Yosemite
I’ve written recently about my love of astronomy that dates back to when I was 10 years old. While my memory isn’t complete, I do know that not long after I expressed an interest in something astronomical (which could have been as simple as asking a question at dinner), my dad presented me with a used telescope gifted to him by a Kiwanis friend who was a serious amateur astronomer. I have no knowledge of the specifics, but I know my dad well enough to know that my simple query was enough to prod him to ask his astronomer friend for guidance that might fuel my interest, which no doubt led to the gift of this mothballed telescope that became the catalyst for my relationship with the night sky.
Of course photographing celestial objects requires some cooperation from Mother Nature. But one of the things photographer friends seem to resent me for is my good photography luck: the clouds that part just as the moon rises, the snowstorm that arrives just as a workshop starts (that’s good if you’re a photographer), the rainbow that appears out of nowhere.
My brother Jay and I take many photo trips together, and he seems blessed with similar luck. On our photo trips, sometimes we talk about Dad, and sometimes we don’t, but he’s always with us. Often it feels to Jay and I that Dad is watching over us, pulling whatever strings he can to deliver something special.
In the last ten days, Jay and I have made two trips to Yosemite to photograph Comet NEOWISE. On the first trip we were surprised by how visible NEOWISE was to the naked eye, as if its brightness had been cranked up a couple of magnitudes for our visit to Glacier Point. And Venus’s proximity to Half Dome was another an unexpected gift.
On our trip to Yosemite last Thursday afternoon, I had one eye on the road and another eye on the clouds obscuring the entire Sierra range. Would we be shut out entirely? I needn’t have worried. When we pulled into the trailhead parking area the clouds had started to clear, and by the time we’d finished the one-mile hike out to Taft Point, they had all but vanished.
Like the proverbial elephant that can’t be fully seen up close, El Capitan is so massive that from Yosemite Valley it looks completely different depending on where you view it from. One of the things I like most about Taft Point is its elevated, more distant view that offers a more complete perspective of the world’s largest granite monolith. So as I waited for the darkness to reveal the comet, I took some time to drink in the view and appreciate El Capitan.
About 30 minutes after sunset I started getting serious about locating Comet NEOWISE. I knew this shoot would pose some problems I hadn’t had to deal with for the Glacier Point NEOWISE shoot a week earlier. First, the comet was more faint, but I didn’t know how much: would we still be able to see it without aid, or would it only appear in our images? And second, there would be no moon to illuminate El Capitan and Yosemite Valley.
Again, there was no need to worry because things always seem to work out for me (thanks, Dad). NEOWISE, though noticeably fainter, was still clearly visible. Not only that, it had developed a magnificent ion tail (the faint spike above the fanned out primary tail). And the extra darkness? The several stops of exposure it forced me to add, while introducing a fair amount of noise, only made the comet stand out more against the dark sky.
As with the Glacier Point shoot, I worked two bodies. I quickly found that a vertical composition with my new Sony 20mm f/1.8 G lens was wide enough to include all of El Capitan, Comet NEOWISE, and the Big Dipper. Pretty cool. By the time the night was over, I’d used every one of the five lenses I packed.
Jay and I stayed until about 11 p.m., then made the walk back in the moonless darkness, most grateful for bright flashlights and perfectly spaced reflectors mounted on trees lining the trail. After a four hour drive, I finally made it to bed at about 4:30 a.m. and managed to sleep for five hours, visions of comets dancing in my head.
Such a spectacular night. Thanks, Dad.
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The Many Views of El Capitan
Click an image for a closer look, and to view a slide show.
Think Fast
Posted on June 21, 2020
Almost Heaven, Big Dipper Above the Clouds, Big Sur
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
Canon 24-105 f/4L
25 seconds
F/4
ISO 400
In virtually all aspects of my life, “think fast” is rarely my default response. Rather, given a choice, I prefer evaluation and analysis to instant reaction. This think-first mindset might also explain why my favorite sport is baseball (which many consider “too slow”), and why I prefer chess and Scrabble to video games (the last video game I played was Pong). So I guess it should be no surprise that, as a landscape photographer, my subjects don’t move. I’m much happier working a scene comfortable in the knowledge that when I’m finally ready, it will still be there.
But nature isn’t truly static, and sometimes I don’t have the luxury of analysis. A few years ago while helping Don Smith with his summer Big Sur workshop, we’d spent most of an afternoon and evening working in the fog (it was billed as a fog workshop). Driving home after a gray sunset, the fog showed no signs of clearing so Don and scrapped the group’s night shoot plans. But climbing toward Hurricane Point, the car suddenly broke through the fog and the world completely changed. We were above the clouds, whose undulating tops seemed to stretch to the horizon where a fading stripe of orange was the only evidence of the retreating day. In the darkening blue sky, the stars had just started to pop into view, with more seeming to appear with every passing second.
Change of plans: Screeching to a halt at the Hurricane Point vista, everyone piled out and raced to set up their gear. As much as I like to take my time when I arrive at a scene, something told me to hurry and once I got to the edge of the overlook and peered over, I saw why. The fog that looked so static and serene from a distance was in fact a roiling soup charging up the steep slope. With a few advance fragments of cloud scooting across my view, I frantically loaded my camera onto my tripod. To save time, I stuck with the lens that was already mounted on my body, pointed in the direction of the Big Dipper, and quickly focused on the stars. This was pre-mirrorless, so without the pre-capture histogram, I just guessed on the exposure. Fortunately my focus and exposure choices were right-on because this was the only shot I got before that foreground fog bank engulfed the world in clouds—score one for instant reaction.
The value of some images can transcend their aesthetic appeal—sometimes they offer lessons as well. For me, this is one of those images. In my workshops I see photographers who are deliberate like me, and others who are constantly in motion. What I’ve come to realize is, wherever we might naturally fall on the deliberate<->reactive continuum, it benefits our photography to sometimes shake things up and come at a scene from a different place than we usually do. I learned from this night’s experience, and others like it, to trust my instincts more. I know I’ll never not be one to take time to pause and consider a scene because that’s how I’m wired. But now when I arrive at a scene, I try to start with the more instinctive shot—even if that turns out not to be exactly the image I end up with, that alternate perspective often sends me down a completely different path than I’d have otherwise taken.
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In a Fog
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(Sometimes) I’d Rather Be Lucky Than Good
Posted on June 3, 2018
Big Dipper Reflection, Colorado River, Grand Canyon
Sony a7S II
Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM
20 seconds
F/2.8
ISO 12800
Grand Night, Milky Way Above the Colorado River, Grand Canyon Sony a7S II Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 20 seconds F/1.4 ISO 6400
It was 4:00 a.m. and I’d spent the last two hours photographing the Milky Way’s brilliant core above the Colorado River. In about 75 minutes the guides would be ringing the “coffee’s ready” gong, signaling the start of another day at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Collapsing my tripod, I performed a little mental math and found slight relief in the knowledge that I might be able to squeeze in one more hour of sleep. That relief vanished in the time it took to turn and glance toward the northern sky and see the Big Dipper, suspended like a celestial mobile in the notch separating the canyon walls.
My Milky Way position had been chosen for its unobstructed view of the southern sky; the best view of the Big Dipper was clear across the campsite, at a sheltered pool just beyond our rafts. The moonless night sky at the bottom of the Grand Canyon is so dark that the Milky Way casts a slight shadow, but once your eyes adjust, it’s surprisingly easy to navigate without adding light. Trudging across through the sand, I passed a handful of other solitary photographers, anonymous shapes enjoying the darkness as much as I was. I stopped few times to answer questions and point out the Big Dipper, then moved on.
Setting up on the steep, sandy slope above the river, I gazed at the Big Dipper and privately chuckled at my good fortune—this prime photo opportunity hadn’t manifest because I proactively made myself seek a scene away from my original subject (as I encourage my students to do), it was a chance glance after I’d mentally put myself to bed. When we landed at that spot the prior afternoon, I’d been so focused on the southern exposure and the Milky Way opportunity in that direction that I hadn’t even considered that there might be something facing north too. Shame on me, but sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.
Checking my first Big Dipper frame, a couple of things became instantly obvious: though sunrise was still an hour away, and my eyes could detect no sign of its approach, with the same exposure I’d been using for most of the night, the sky was noticeably brighter on my LCD; more significantly, the Big Dipper was reflecting in the river. I realized that pool below me, while not flowing, was sloshing enough that the reflection didn’t stand out to my eyes, but it was smoothed enough by a multi-second exposure that the water mirrored a blurred but clearly visible reflection of the bright Dipper stars.
From my elevated vantage point, part of the handle’s reflection was lost to the sandy beach—I needed to move closer to the river to include the entire reflection. Remember when I said it’s surprisingly easy to navigate in the moonless darkness? On my first step toward the river I learned that functional night vision applies to avoiding objects, not to depth perception. So, as that first step dropped earthward and I waited for it to touch down, where I expected sand I found only air. The rest of me followed quickly and I was in free-fall. Fortunately the fall was not far, just a couple of feet, but it’s amazing how the disorientation of a blind fall slowed time enough for me to curse the darkness before my graceless splat onto the damp beach.
The beach was damp because the place I landed had been river when I went to bed. I popped up almost as quickly as I landed, the unwitting beneficiary of artificial tides induced by upstream releases from the Glen Canyon Dam, timed to meet the power needs of Las Vegas and the rest of the Southwest sprawl. Had I fallen a few hours earlier, I’d have splashed in chilly river water—not enough river to sweep me to my death, but definitely enough to soak me and my camera. So I found myself sandy but otherwise unscathed—glancing about to see if anyone had seen my fall, I instantly forgave the darkness that had made me more or less invisible. The Rokinon lens I’d had on my camera was caked with sand; since it was too dark to clean it, I switched to my Sony 16-35 f/2.8 GM.
The rest of the shoot was fairly uneventful, at least until my final frame. Over the next few minutes I inched even closer to the river, which I discovered had receded enough to add about six feet of soggy shore. With each frame I verified my focus, tweaked my composition, and experimented with different exposures.
On my final few frames I was comfortable enough with all of the photography variables that I wasn’t even thinking about the next shot, and instead simply stood and took in the night sky. As I waited for my last frame of the night to complete, a brilliant meteor sprung from the darkness and split the Dipper’s handle. It came and went in a heartbeat, and I held my breath until the image popped up on my LCD and I confirmed that I’d captured it. The perfect cap to a spectacular night.
Celestial Wonders
The definition of breathtaking
Posted on February 11, 2012
Moonlight and Big Dipper, Badwater, Death Valley
Death Valley is notorious for blue skies–great for tourists, but a scourge for photographers. Clouds add interest to a scene, and filtering harsh sunlight through clouds reduces contrast to a range a camera can capture. To mitigate harsh sky problems, I schedule my annual Death Valley workshop for winter to maximize the chance for clouds. And hedging my bets further, I time each workshop to coincide with a full moon–that way, if we don’t get clouds, careful location planning allows me to include a full moon in many of our sunrise and sunset shoots, and allows us to photograph Death Valley’s stark beauty by moonlight.
I returned last night from my 2012 workshop. Not only did we have a creative, enthusiastic group, we also were blessed with a wonderful blend of conditions. On our first two days we were treated to lots of clouds (and even a few snow flurries during a sunset shoot at Aguereberry Point) and beautiful sunrise color on the dunes. But by day three the Death Valley sky was back to business as usual and it was time to plug in a moonlight shoot.
I usually opt for moonlight on the Mesquite Flat Dunes near Stovepipe Wells, but during a pre-workshop visit to Badwater it occurred to me that the salt flat’s white surface was tailor made for the light of a full moon. Since the sky didn’t clear until our third day (the moon rises later every day), I was concerned that the moonlight wouldn’t reach Badwater, 282 feet below sea level and in the shadow of 5,700 foot Dante’s Peak, early enough. I briefly considered returning to the more exposed dunes, but finally decided that I could make Badwater work by simply leading the group out onto the salt flat until we reached the moonlight.
Sure enough, we arrived at Badwater a little after 8:00 p.m. to find ourselves in deep moonshadow. But across the valley, Telescope Peak and Badwater’s west fringe already basked in the light of the rising moon. So off we went to meet the advancing moonlight, following our headlamps through the darkness for about a half mile before reaching the advancing moonlight. With headlamps doused we paused in silence to take in our surroundings: Venus was just disappearing behind Telescope Peak and Jupiter sparkled high overhead; Orion and Sirius decorated the southern sky, while Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper straddled Polaris to the north. And rising above the mountains to the east, the moon painted the playa’s jigsaw surface with its silvery glow. Overuse has reduced “breathtaking” to cliché status, but I can’t help think it’s these moments the adjective was intended for.
After sharing exposure settings, a quick refresher on focus in moonlight, and some composition suggestions, I let the group get to work. We found compositions in all directions except due east, where the moon was simply too bright to include in the frame. With everyone working within a 100 foot radius, it was easy (and gratifying) to hear exclamations of delight as images popped onto LCD screens.
So amazing was the experience that we stayed far later than I’d planned. If I’d have been there by myself I’d have probably stayed out much longer, but I wanted to make sure no one was too tired for the sunrise moonset I had planned (also at Badwater) the following morning. The above image of the Big Dipper was captured toward the end of our shoot, when the entire playa was illuminated, but the moonlight hadn’t quite reached the Black Mountains. I used ISO 800, f5.6, and 30 seconds.
My 2013 Death Valley Winter Moon photo workshop is January 25-29–it’s already nearly full.
Almost Heaven
Posted on August 29, 2011
Almost Heaven, Big Dipper and Fog, Big Sur
Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III
28 mm
25 seconds
F/4
ISO 400
On the first night of Don Smith’s Big Sur workshop last week, Don and I gathered our group at (aptly named) Hurricane Point above Bixby Bridge for a round of night photography. While the stars were already out in force as we set up, the last light of day persevered on the western horizon, softly illuminating the sea of fog blanketing the Pacific. The fog, which in California summers lurks offshore by day, was making its nightly assault on the coast. On this evening, under the cover of darkness, it was in full-out attack mode. Rushing to determine the exposure settings for our group of inexperienced night photographers, I managed to fire off three frames before the charging fog engulfed us and we aborted the mission.
I wasn’t sure I’d captured anything of value in my haste until I returned home and found this. It’s a 25-second, 400 ISO exposure that underscores the camera’s ability to accumulate enough light to reveal color beyond the ability of the human eye/brain. In other words, this is pretty much the way my camera saw it: My processing was limited to a slight cooling of the light temperature in the Lightroom raw processor, fairly mild noise reduction, a small wiggle in Photoshop Curves for contrast, and a little dodging to bring out more detail in the fog. Each time I look at this image it revives some of the emotion of being there.
Eloquent Images by Gary Hart 