MILKY WAY Road Trip Around CALIFORNIA 🚗🌌

today's video is sponsored by mpb if you have any unused camera gear lying around head on over to mpb.com get an instant quote and turn that unused gear into cash at the end of april i took a road trip around california to photograph the milky way at some of the most iconic locations in this genre of photography so after picking up my rental car in las vegas i drove down the joshua tree national park sadly i didn't vlog much because i had a throat infection and i lost my voice and well quite frankly the trip didn't get off to a very good start so i dropped my camera last night my sony a74 i've barely had it for two months it's astral modified by spencer's cameras brand new camera just as i was about to take the first shot thought i had it clamped on my arca swiss head and i let go it just dropped and i did not expect it to come back in one piece but miraculously it's come back in perfect working order and the only damage is a slight chip to the plastic on the corner of the lcd screen the screen itself is fine which is incredible i was shocked i expected the lens to pop off and blow up and the camera to break and the lens mount to break but i think most of the brute force was taken by the l bracket and also sadly the lens so is a huge chip on the filter thread of the of my lens the sony 24 millimeter g master my favorite lens of all time but yeah thank god for insurance guys if you don't have insurance get insurance but let me just show you the photo that i took immediately after dropping my camera the first photo of this road trip so this was a simple panorama captured with my second sony 24 millimeter f 1.4 g master lens it's two rows each row with six images and they're all captured at f2 15 seconds and iso 3200 shortly afterwards i took this image which was probably my favorite from joshua tree this time i used the move shoot move star tracker on the sky and i took three exposures of the foreground to focus deck and they were all captured at f 2.5 two minutes shutter speed and iso 800 and here are some of the other images that i captured and as you can see it's best to visit joshua tree at the start of milky way cool season because as it heads into the south it just gets swamped by the light pollution from coachella valley this here is the aptly named skull rock and it's just off the side of the road so it's nice and easy to access and i captured that just as the milky way started to rise from the horizon so that i could take a 50 meter walk behind that and capture the milky way behind another aptly named rock elephant rock and i captured that with both a 24 millimeter and the 50 millimeter f 1.4 zeiss lens again using the move shoot with star tracker so i could track this guy and get two minute exposures and then in the early hours of the morning we were treated to a beautiful sight a gathering of mars venus and the crescent moon in the morning skies it was absolutely stunning i captured these images with the sony zeiss 50 millimeter f 1.4 lens which i purchased from the sponsors of today's video mpb and i purchased that lens using funds that i got from selling gear to mpb so i had a few lenses and a microphone lying around that i hadn't used for like a year or two so i jumped onto mpb.com got an instant quote online was happy with the quote and then mpb arranged free collection from your address at a time of your choosing they inspect the gear very quickly and you get paid swiftly so you can use those funds however you want but if you're like me you'll just end up buying more photography gear so if you have any gear lying around that you haven't used for a while click the link in the video description down below get a quote and see if you can free up some funds for some new gear or a photography adventure [Music] so damn windy oh but there are the pinnacles and the torona pinnacles takes me right back to like the very first days when i started up landscape astrophotography because i learned a lot from ian norman's website lonelyspec.com and he has a few images from patron of pinnacles on his website i just remember seeing these images of this landscape that i've never seen before it was just so captivating and fascinating it's so otherworldly i think it's been used as the film set for planet of the apes and star trek and it just makes for the perfect foreground for a milky way photograph six years later here i am as a full-time astrophotographer it's so crazy it's just weird feeling weirdly nostalgic right now and kind of remembering different oh my god the the feeling of joy that i had when i discovered this hobby this passion and that he was accessible to the average person with a dslr camera and a lens and huge thanks to you guys for the love and support over these years this is what's brought me here today to experience this in the flesh so i'm feeling super grateful and nostalgic right now and i can only hope that i've brought you guys the same joy i experienced when i discovered this passion and this hobby and the joy that i still get when i capture a new image that i'm i'm happy with and proud of so [Music] [Music] ah [Music] so the wind has died down a bit which is nice there's still a little bit of wind so i'm kind of using the car as like a windshield and um i don't know if you can see but there's a guy in a car well i say car it's a 4x4 pickup just sitting there with his lights on right now oh he's moving and i'm trying to get my foreground shot and he's just there doing donuts don't get me wrong i appreciate everybody's right to do donuts but in such a huge space why do you have to do it right next to the pinnacles oh i think he might be leaving this time please please nope oh oh oh no i think we're in here come on please leave so hopefully the video you can see the milky way just over there it's getting higher quite quickly so i really need this guy to disappear so i can finish up this foreground put the star tracker on i'm shooting with the 50 mil so the detail the milky way is going to be great pinnacles are nice and distant so they're going to look very minuscule compared to the gigantic milky way looking forward to see how this turns out [Music] [Music] one of those compositions i'm gonna do this one first and i spotted another one as i was driving in i didn't notice when i was scouting in the daytime so probably drive back get that one as well but uh yeah i don't want to concentrate on the vlog much just want to get these shots and enjoy this incredible landscape especially after fantasizing about it for all these years that i've been doing landscape astro so [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] so [Music] your destination is on the left [Music] this is my kind of landscape very martian otherworldly feels like you're on another planet and then in the backdrop over there you've got the jagged peaks of the eastern sierras currently with some snow bones that's one of my favorite words snow bones it's used for the last remaining snow in the cracks of the mountains it's just such a lovely earth isn't it snow bones [Music] all right so i've come to the other side of the arch so i can face southeast the milky way is going to be rising in that gap there there's a big boulder through the gap of the arch it kind of ruins the arch effect so i think i'm gonna have to go down here a little bit to hide that rock from view and get a nice clean arch with just sky through the gap so it's nice it's not too far from the car park it's like the whole loop is like a mile so not too much walking which is good so this location has a bit more of a clear view of the horizon whereas at mobius archer i was kind of down in a ditch kind of looking up a little bit so i think i'm going to shoot this one first as the milky way comes up over the horizon jump in the car 10 minute drive down to mobius arch and then shoot mobius arch as well bag them both in one night and there's a third location where i'm going to go scout quickly uh cyclops arch which is really close to where i am right now it's just down a few hundred meters i guess so it's a bit of a shame i'm gonna go from here drive down the mobius and then potentially drive back for cyclops but trying to get as much done in one night as possible so let's go check out the cyclops all right so we found the cyclops it's pretty damn cool it's a little bit more difficult to find than the others there's no sort of direct path here and the road in was a bit sketchy but we'll be fine i'm gonna check into the hotel have a rest and then come back at night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so pretty much farm by foreground composition i'm really happy with it it's looking good it's a nice breathing space around the edges some nice leading lines in the bottom left corner and then you've got the arch in the top right and the milky way filling that sky a bit later on i'm here a bit earlier than i thought it's going to take at least another hour for the milky way to get into that clear patch of sky where i want it to be ideally i'd wait a little bit longer like an hour and a half maybe even two hours but i really want to go down and get the shot at mobius arch as well so see how it goes i quickly jumped in the car and drove down to mobius arch and the car park was absolutely packed i was a little bit nervous there were guys in the car park with star trackers doing some deep sky stuff when i arrived to the arch there was five or six guys there but people would just come in and go in all the time with people constantly turning head torches on to adjust their gear and settings and people coming and going all the time it was impossible to do an exposure longer than 20 seconds so i set up my camera to do a time lapse take an exposure after exposure after exposure and then i deleted all the images that had lights on the foreground and i stacked all the clean images i ended up with this stacked result and for a brief 10 minutes it was just me and one of the guys sachi who was a follower of the channel so hey sachi and he was super kind to stop light painting so i could grab some exposures and i grabbed this single exposure of me sitting in the arch all right so that was a busy as i expected a little bit frustrating but it is what it is it's an iconic spot and uh i'm part of the problem coming here myself so yeah there was a few compositions that i would have liked to have shot but it was just impossible um you know there wasn't enough space there for everyone and just so many headlights and flashes and and all sorts so i've got about an hour and 15 left of complete darkness hopefully cyclops is empty and i've got the place to myself i could really do with a bit of solitude to to work a nice photo all right so i've got a place to myself which is a relief i really wanted to end the night with some some solitude but uh in this community is a bit of an awkward spot for cyclops you don't really get any of the arch um and gaps with the sky so i could do some light painting but i'm not much of a light painter um i've got a big fan maybe i'll give it a go but i have just found a really nice cactus i think it's called a bell cactus um so i'm gonna use the 14 millimeter get nice up close and personal make it nice and big in the frame do a focus stack hopefully get a nice milky way backdrop as well you'll be a little bit different than having yet another rock arch i've photographed so many rock arches on this trip so i think a cactus would be something a little different but not sure how the composition is going to turn out so let's find out [Music] [Music] whoa it is pretty cold up here it's also pretty windy but i'm about 3000 meters just over 3000 meters in elevation so it's a lot colder than the deserts i've been enjoying down below the past few days it's really funny i've got a bag of crisps and some cookies in the car and because of the drop in pressure they're ready to pop when i go back down later they should go back to normal well if the weather stays like this tonight might be a little bit brutal it is fresh i'm just gonna do one of the hiking trails see if we can find some ancient trees [Music] [Music] [Music] so these are the two most popular of the ancient trees in this forest these are the most photographed and they're absolutely incredible i think they're about 4 700 years old absolutely incredible but i think it's going to be quite difficult to compose an image kind of need a milky way to move a bit more this way which doesn't really happen at this time of year so i'm going to try and work out what i'm going to do with my composition here let me show you the problems i'm facing so the milky way is going to be rising like here um as you can see if i stand here the the two trees kind of merge into one the silhouettes kind of merge into one it would be a lot nicer and cleaner if we used to have separation between the two trees and then the milky way sort of here somewhere um i'm not sure the milky way is going to get that far at this time of year the other thing i'm thinking of doing is maybe i can hide the other tree behind the front tree that might work pretty well silhouettes are still merged but it kind of gives the illusion of one tree which i think will be a lot more aesthetically pleasing in the image it gives the viewer less to work out which is good i want them to just immediately enjoy the image all right so the trail starts going back to the car park now really fell over uh about half a kilometer so it's not too bad and i'm gonna head back down to bishop get something to eat get some supplies for the night i desperately need some cold brew coffee for the drive home in the morning and i will see you guys tonight all right it is night time i've fed i've had a nice chinese meal and uh the milky way is not gonna be ready until about 2 3 a.m but it's like 9 p.m now i'm just gonna go up early and hopefully do some star trails whilst there's no people there's four cars here in the car park one of them is a guy i met in the car park earlier called stephen and he said he was going to be at the tree all night as well so probably have some company for the next hours which should be good because uh waiting for a star trail could be pretty boring but let's go hiking so when i arrived stephen and his friend were their tripods set up and ready to go thankfully they weren't after the same composition that i was so i set up my tripod ready for my star trails all right so i've set up my 14 millimeter to do a star trail but first i'm gonna focus stack the foreground with three minute exposures so they should be nice and crispy and detailed and then once i've finished the focus deck i'm gonna focus on the stars let the camera run for star trails i'm going to do multiple 30 second exposures we've got at least four hours until the milky way's in a good position so hopefully i can run it for three to four hours get some nice long thick trails [Music] all right it's been a pretty grueling wait so far it's just gone midnight i guess i've been here like three hours now and uh the wind just takes all your heat away it's getting pretty cold and for the first time in the years upon years upon years upon years it's been in my bag [Music] i'm actually using the emergency foil blanket in my bag and my god it's keeping my legs so warm and toasty right now but have you guys so i'm hoping the starches going well not that one next one over it's been shooting for a couple of hours now so fingers crossed it's good a little bit worried that the wind is gonna shake the camera and make the trails a bit shaky i'll be really disappointed if that's the case [Music] luckily i had no reason to worry because the tripod on the camera stayed steady for the entire five hours of this the hot trail sequence if you'd like to learn how to do star trails don't forget that i have a free video on my youtube channel but i will soon be releasing a premium tutorial because there's plenty of secret tips that i've kept just for that as the milky way started to rise i grabbed a shot of it with the other tree and shortly after this shot the two guys that were there left because the cold just got to them so they left me with the trees for a couple of hours on my own and it was bliss as the milky way core rose higher managed to get this composition with the tree that i shot the star trails with and then having the place to myself i had the freedom to do this focus stack which is probably my favorite image maybe after the star trail image but i really loved how this one came out [Music] that was a test of endurance it was italy cold the main problem was the wind chill the wind just blows away all of your body heat and uh god man toes when um legs breathing oh i don't think my body's gonna be kind to me tomorrow for this uh hoping to wake up ill but anyway we've got an hour and 40 minute drive back to the lone pine quick sleeping hotel check out and then over to death valley for the last two nights of my trip super excited [Music] all right so made it to death valley currently checking out bad water basin which is home to some salt flats some really interesting shapes of salt filling up the cracks in the mud cracks and uh it's the lowest elevation in north america it's 282 feet below sea level what's really cool is a little sign just above the car park on the mountain to show you where sea level is i'm gonna walk out onto the plains it's super hazy at the moment i'm hoping that's not gonna ruin my night i've had such good luck with the weather so far but thankfully i'm not shooting in that direction i'm shooting back towards this direction to the east and southeast so it does look okay for what i want i'm going to take a walk out of the planes and see if we can find some interesting cracks and salt formations all right so i've been walking for like 45-50 minutes now i guess and uh the landscape's just not really changing much and i can't see any signs or any change in the distance it just goes on and on and on so i've marked this spot here these structures are quite clean there's not like much messy salt and rock in the foreground so i'm hoping the sort of hexagonal patterns kind of shine through in the foreground i've got some nice mountains in the distance nice milky way arch panorama and uh i might do another focus stack with milky way core as well so see how that goes but as close to sunsets it's probably a good idea for me to turn around and get back to the car before it gets dark and uh go have some food and a rest and get back out tonight looking forward to it i very nearly didn't make it out tonight after food i was exhausted and uh yeah i was falling asleep so i told myself i'd have a nap but waking up from that nap was so difficult you know when you just like wake up way too early in your eyes just bloodshot red and burning and stinging yeah i'm going through that right now and i'm in the one of the driest and dustiest places on planet earth which is not helping so i'm not sure how much i'm actually enjoying this foreground it's actually quite chaotic and messy i was kind of hoping the sort of almost hexagonal structures would stand out to be a lot more clean but i don't know i guess i have to wait till i get to post processing but i'm just working on the first image um i'm gonna do a vertical panorama focus stack in the foreground and then up to the milky way core which i'll probably pull the star tracker out for and then once i finish that i'll do a track panorama of the milky way and then take the foreground and the panorama as well produce a tracked panorama it's incredibly silent here it's deathly silent it's the kind of silence you only experience in really remote locations at night there's no distant hustle and bustle from cars or human activity there's no wildlife here there's no wind there's no bushes there's no trees in some ways it's really pleasant but in other ways it's incredibly eerie but at least it's a lot warmer than last night all right i'm going to get working on this [Applause] so this was my first shot of the night of virtorama with the 24 millimeter lens and i focus stacked the foreground before panning up to the milky way i then took a very similar shot with the 14 millimeter lens again focus stack the foreground so it's nice and crispy and sharp in the foreground and then panned up to the milky way i think i prefer this one to the 24 mil so annoyingly my move should move star tracker ran out of battery last night and i forgot to put it on charge when i got to the hotel today so not able to do any track shots which is so good because there's no wind and this is like a ball class [Music] definitely a two maybe borderline one i'm not sure but star trek would have been so good on these guys so i guess i'd have to wait until tomorrow but i couldn't do the track panorama so i just did a normal panorama i'm so glad i got out of bed like this experience is such a dream right now like the complete darkness the total silence the night sky is incredible in all directions and because of the whiteness of the landscape now that my eyes have dark adapted i can pretty much see the landscape in sort of monochromatic beauty and yes it's weird it's like a like a dream so i'm just sitting i'm gonna lean against my bag and taking it all in while still waiting for these exposures so beautiful and so this was the last shot of my trip simple panorama two rows all taken at f2 15 seconds and iso 1600 it turned out okay but i would have loved to have pulled the star tracker up for this because the skies here were exceptional they're definitely a bottle class one apart from that little bit of light pollution on the distant horizon unfortunately the cloud from the daytime has stuck around and it's forecast to be here pretty much all night as well so getting a bit of an anti-climactic end to my trip but probably for the best i need to wake up super early check out drive dog in las vegas to fly home so i need a lot more time to explore death valley it's huge and i'm sure there's way better salt hexagons and mud cracks and all sorts of things to find so i'll have to come back for sure two nights definitely wasn't enough for death valley but it's been the most incredible trip just the nostalgia of visiting those places that inspired me to get into astrophotography myself because i'm doing things differently i think i'd get a camper van checking out of hotels in the morning and being deprived of sleep has not been good i think a campervan would be a lot more free and flexible and i originally thought it was gonna be too expensive but now after comparing it to the hotel prices it actually works out pretty good so if i have to do it again i definitely do a cameraman so let me know what has been your favorite location which one would you like to visit the most yourself thanks for tuning in to another vlog please hit subscribe if you haven't already and if you go out to enjoy the night sky anytime soon i wish you good luck including skies [Music]

Channel: Alyn Wallace

Views: 40,362

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Id: XeJmE7oBjdM

Length: 33min 9sec (1989 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 09 2022