Yosemite Nights

coscorrosa

I was lucky to be able to spend a large part of last week in Yosemite. This was my second visit, the first was in January under a blanket of fresh snow. I wanted to view the park in spring to see the peak water flow, dogwoods in bloom, moonbows, and to check out Tioga Pass/Glacier Point (which weren't open by the time I left - next time!).

Here are some of my favorite night shots, taken under a full or nearly-full moon.

#1: Upper Yosemite Falls under the stars



#2: Moonlight on El Capitan after dusk



#3: Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls



#4: Moonbow from Lower Yosemite Falls (my first real moonbow, I could actually see the spectrum with my naked eye - very cool)



#5: Partial moonbow of Upper Yosemite Falls - there was too much cloud cover and fog to get a full moonbow any day I was there, I'll have to improve this shot next time.



#6: El Capitan and Horsetail Falls



#7: Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls (with a slight moonbow on Lower Yosemite Falls)

ront

Ron, these are some of the most awesome and interesting pictures I have ever seen of Yosemite!! IMHO, everyone of them is a wall hanger! I really enjoyed looking at these.

Ron

rookieshooter

Very good. All of them are superb.

anwmn1

#1 and #3 are pretty awesome!

stirinthesauce

outstanding!

Doug Solis

Heck of a series, it is hard to believe there were taken a night. I really like 2-4, very cool. Love how the long expoure stretches the clouds in #4 & #6

dogwood

Yes! All of those are awesome photos! Very nice work indeed.

CWSkopec

Great stuff, Ron! Love the El Cap & Horsetail Falls shot!

Funny story... when I was in Yosemite, I spent almost an hour wandering around, trying to find Horsetail Falls and getting mad at myself for not being able to find a stupid waterfall! Turns out you need to go when there's water to fall to see it!

agunther

Moonbows are cool. I never thought of this. Amazing stuff.

coscorrosa

ront wrote: »

Ron, these are some of the most awesome and interesting pictures I have ever seen of Yosemite!! IMHO, everyone of them is a wall hanger! I really enjoyed looking at these.

Ron

Thanks Ron, Yosemite is a beautiful place, hard to take a bad photo. Hopefully I'll be able to make it back sometime in the next year.

rookieshooter wrote: »

Very good. All of them are superb.

Thanks!

anwmn1 wrote: »

#1 and #3 are pretty awesome!

Thanks, both of those are from Cooks Meadow which offers a great view of both falls. I wanted to do #1 with a moonbow but it was never quite clear enough.

stirinthesauce wrote: »

outstanding!

Thanks!

Doug Solis wrote: »

Heck of a series, it is hard to believe there were taken a night. I really like 2-4, very cool. Love how the long expoure stretches the clouds in #4 & #6

Thanks Doug, the clouds didn't help the moonbows, but I like the long exposure effect on the other shots and they made some of the sunsets and sunrises much more interesting.

dogwood wrote: »

Yes! All of those are awesome photos! Very nice work indeed.

You'll be happy to know that I have some dogwood photos too from my trip I'll post them here in the next few days.

CWSkopec wrote: »

Great stuff, Ron! Love the El Cap & Horsetail Falls shot!

Funny story... when I was in Yosemite, I spent almost an hour wandering around, trying to find Horsetail Falls and getting mad at myself for not being able to find a stupid waterfall! Turns out you need to go when there's water to fall to see it!

Thanks! That shot was just driving around looking for things to shoot after the moonbow time period was over. Amazing how you can just pull off the shoulder of the road and see so many awesome landscape opportunities. And I hear you about Horsetail Falls - when I went in winter I knew it wouldn't be visible but I still though I should detect where it would be at, but I have no idea. Even now, having seen it, if it wasn't running I probably wouldn't be able to locate it. In February it would be easy - just follow the tripods

agunther wrote: »

Moonbows are cool. I never thought of this. Amazing stuff.

Thanks. There's actually an easily googable website which lists the times when moonbows are visible within Yosemite Valley. The best conditions are when there is peak spray (April, May, or June depending on the year), a bright full or nearly full moon front lighting the falls, and no cloud cover.

Yosem

wonderful work on these waterfalls. The milky affect at night really brings out a beautiful look with them. My favorites are the Elcap shot with Ribbon falls and a Lower yosemite image. Great stuff and good job here

astrostu

Wow ... just, wow ...

Yosem

I'd love to get some idea of your stats for these shots. Were you at F4 with 200 speed or say 100, and how long of an exposure?

NorthernFocus

Simply awesome

coscorrosa

Yosem wrote: »

I'd love to get some idea of your stats for these shots. Were you at F4 with 200 speed or say 100, and how long of an exposure?

The moonbows I tried to optimize for short exposure times (wide open, ISO 800 or so).

The full EXIF data is available for all these photos on my Yosemite gallery:

http://photos.coscorrosa.com/Landscapes/Yosemite/

dls

these turned out quite well, ron. the polaris star trails over upper yosemite is dead on, and the moonbows showed up quite nicely, despite the finicky weather. love your moonlit tunnel view (mine didn't turn out as well, i think). but my faves are #4 and #6, with the streaking clouds over lower yo falls and over el cap/horsetail. great stuff.

Alpha_Plus

#1, 6, & 7 do it for me.. Fantastic!!

dseidman

#4 and #7 are the best of this series, in my opinion. This is some awesome night photography.

coscorrosa

dls wrote: »

these turned out quite well, ron. the polaris star trails over upper yosemite is dead on, and the moonbows showed up quite nicely, despite the finicky weather. love your moonlit tunnel view (mine didn't turn out as well, i think). but my faves are #4 and #6, with the streaking clouds over lower yo falls and over el cap/horsetail. great stuff.

It's hard to screw up Yosemite. The full moon basically extends the shooting day another 3 hours (and adversely affects sleep the same amount - but you can sleep later).

Alpha_Plus wrote: »

#1, 6, & 7 do it for me.. Fantastic!!

Thanks!

dseidman wrote: »

#4 and #7 are the best of this series, in my opinion. This is some awesome night photography.

Hopefully on my next visit there will be more moonbow opportunities, but I was happy to have a few nights with low enough cloud cover to do some interesting shots.

Thwack

Wikipedia disagrees with your location for Horsetail Fall. It's on the east side of El Cap (back side). Your shot above (#6) is on El Cap's west side.

There is a small waterfall on the eastern edge of the rock wall (off the right hand edge of your shot) behind El Cap's face that was still flowing Memorial Day. It had much less water than the waterfall in your shot.

Having stopped at the GPS coords posted somewhere here on DG for shooting Horsetail Fall "lava shots", I'm pretty sure the fall in #6 is not Horsetail (but I've been wrong about many other things so please don't be bashful if you disagree).

Here's a link for an article on Horsetail Fall which also says it's on the east side of El Cap (along with some additional info for folks interested in seeing the lava-effect in person): http://shutterbug.com/techniques/outdoor_travel/1206locations/

I think the waterfall in #6 is Ribbon Fall.

Nice captures regardless!

coscorrosa

Thwack wrote: »

I think the waterfall in #6 is Ribbon Fall.

Nice captures regardless!

You're correct.