Wheels in Motion - Eastern Sierra Petroglyphs

Came back out here while I was up in the Eastern Sierras. I wanted to use a wider lens and a different technique. Focus here is challenging as the petroglyphs are inches in front of you. So I shot the foreground at twilight in order to achieve maximum depth of field and the stars about 1.5 hours after when it got darker. Since daylight and night time shots look different, you can't just throw the two together as it looks odd. For the foreground a good tip is to desaturate the image a bit to tone down some of the color as night images are a little flatter. Also, use a blueish photo filter to remove the whites from the image. Brightness varies by preference. I tend to leave the image a bit darker to match the sky, just enough to make out the details. Still had some snow on the sierra range from the past weekend. Not the darkest area but still one of the coolest in my book. Can't beat thousands of year old rock art under the night sky. Hope everyone got their astro shots in, Oct was really the last month this year where the core is visible. If not, gotta wait until Q2 of next year.

 

Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24, foreground: f/14, 1 sec, ISO-100 sky: f/2.8, 15 sec, ISO-6400

 

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