August 21, 2017
Being that Joshua Tree is a bit of a drive(almost 200 miles to the shooting locations), I decided to see if there was a location that was a bit closer to the cave that would provide enough darkness to photograph the Milky Way. So after consulting the DarkSkyFinder.com light pollution map, I settled on a location about 90 miles northwest(as the crow flies) of Downtown Los Angeles in Lockwood Valley at the foot of Mt. Pinos. I was somewhat familiar with the area since the Boy Scout Camp(Camp Three Falls) is in the valley and I ended up setting up my gear on the Boy Scout Camp Road. Also since my last trip to Joshua Tree, I’d purchased a “Red Intensifier” filter, which is said to reduce some of the yellow cast you see from light pollution. The first 5 pictures are from this shooting session. The last two pictures are from Joshua Tree since I noticed something in one of the picture that I thought was interesting and I acquired some new software to do panorama stitching that made some panorama shots that I’d take usable.
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Milky Way with some light painting.
This shot was taken about 15 minutes after the shot above, after I’d rummaged thought my camera bag and found my “Red Intensifier” filter and put it on the camera. I think it really does reduce the amount of light pollution. Again the shot is a composite of a 20 second background and a 60 second foreground. I also added some light painting to light up the bushes in the immediate foreground. One of the nice things about shooting alone is that you can do light painting and not worry about screwing up somebody else’s picture. On the other hand, you do hear strange noises in the darkness along with the familiar sound of coyotes howling.
