Mt. Rainier and Ruby Beach

coscorrosa · August 15, 2010

Two really quick trips to some of the most photogenic locations in Washington State (Thursday night through Friday night).

#1: Crescent Moon at Sunset

#2: The Milky Way from Paradise (saw lots of meteors, some of them extremely bright, but they seemed to go away when the shutter was open!)

#3: Pre-dawn on Upper Tipsoo Lake. Normally this lake is calm at dawn and sunrise, but it was moving around quite a bit which made for some different shots than usual.

#4: Purple alpenglow at sunrise on Upper Tipsoo Lake.

#5: Ruby Beach at sunset. There was a 3 hour wait for the ferry, so I had to race to get there in time (arrived literally 2 minutes before the sun went below the horizon - fortunately the best light is usually 15-30 minutes after sunset at the beach).

#6: Just like the previous night at Rainier, the crescent moon was setting just after sunset.

#7: This is what "0% cloud cover" looks like at the beach. Fortunately the forecast wasn't accurate, there was also a fire in ONP that may have helped the colors quite a bit.

#8: Setting crescent moon (well after sunset, this was ISO 2000 f/4 for 2 seconds to minimize moon movement)

#9: About 30 minutes after moonset the stars started popping out, and about 30 minutes after that, the Milky Way was easily visible. There were as many stars as Rainier despite the low elevation, in fact the Milky Way was even more visible (no light pollution nearby). It's pretty cool seeing stars reflect in the wet sand. Like the night before there were some crazy bright shooting stars from Perseids.

Awais Yaqub · August 15, 2010

Wow man your work is always impressive!
Really like the 1st and the milkyway

dlplumer · August 15, 2010

Incredible

shniks · August 15, 2010

The first one is super impressive. Love it.

BTW Ron, do you mind leaving something for me to shoot. Dang man, you have shot every possible angle and everything in that state. I don't think I want to even try shooting those park ever.

Cheers,

scole · August 15, 2010

#9 is super cool. First shot like that that I've ever seen from the coast.

anwmn1 · August 15, 2010

Fantastic stuff as always

karlabbott · August 15, 2010

Stars reflecting in the wet sand.....

Is there any more to say after that? #9 is my favorite, but the whole series is excellent as always

Numbers Guy · August 15, 2010

Awesome shots of the Milky Way in 2 and 9. All are impressive. Great work!

squirl033 · August 15, 2010

grat stuff as usual, but dang, Ron, when do you sleep? i hope you drive a hybrid, too, or you're spending a fortune on gas! love the milky way shots... i tried some from Tipsoo last night, but they're nowhere near as good as yours... can't seem to get the cloudy, "nebula" look you do... maybe it's shooting at f/3.5-4 (i don't have a fast wide angle that's fit to put on a FF body), or maybe just that my poor ol' 5D isn't as good at ISO 3200 as the newer model... anyway, you've given me something to aspire to, so i'll keep tryin'!

Ladukebob · August 16, 2010

Great shots! Never spent ant time at Rainier but looks like I should.

coscorrosa · August 16, 2010

Awais Yaqub wrote: »

Wow man your work is always impressive!
Really like the 1st and the milkyway

Thanks Awais! That first shot was completely lucky and unplanned, but I'll take credit for it

dlplumer wrote: »

Incredible

You missed the good light by one week!

shniks wrote: »

The first one is super impressive. Love it.

BTW Ron, do you mind leaving something for me to shoot. Dang man, you have shot every possible angle and everything in that state. I don't think I want to even try shooting those park ever.

Cheers,

Heh, I feel the exact opposite! There are so many places in the state that I haven't photographed (North Cascades, Mt. Adams/St. Helens), rivers and forests and waterfalls, the eastern part of the state in general... There's no shortage of photo ops, just a shortage of hours in the day and vacation time from work.

scole wrote: »

#9 is super cool. First shot like that that I've ever seen from the coast.

It's pretty cool walking on star reflections

anwmn1 wrote: »

Fantastic stuff as always

Thanks!

karlabbott wrote: »

Stars reflecting in the wet sand.....

Is there any more to say after that? #9 is my favorite, but the whole series is excellent as always

The conditions were perfect, clear skies, warm temperatures (this made it comfortable) and low tide. I'll try and repeat this shot in the future when cameras are better able to handle it.

Numbers Guy wrote: »

Awesome shots of the Milky Way in 2 and 9. All are impressive. Great work!

Thanks!

squirl033 wrote: »

grat stuff as usual, but dang, Ron, when do you sleep? i hope you drive a hybrid, too, or you're spending a fortune on gas! love the milky way shots... i tried some from Tipsoo last night, but they're nowhere near as good as yours... can't seem to get the cloudy, "nebula" look you do... maybe it's shooting at f/3.5-4 (i don't have a fast wide angle that's fit to put on a FF body), or maybe just that my poor ol' 5D isn't as good at ISO 3200 as the newer model... anyway, you've given me something to aspire to, so i'll keep tryin'!

I don't sleep - at least not on the weekends

I'm not going to say how many miles I put on my car, but I will say that in the last year, I've spent a full month driving (30 days * 24 hours/day). If I didn't have a "real" job I could take my time a little more. And yes, noise performance makes a huge difference for those Milky Way shots, my 20D couldn't handle it, I'm waiting to see what the next generation of bodies produces as even the 5D MII isn't great. I generally try and keep it to 25 seconds or so, sometimes that requires ISO 4000 or 5000 at f/2.8, and they're often under-exposed and when you bring them close to proper exposure in post the noise gets even worse.

Ladukebob wrote: »

Great shots! Never spent ant time at Rainier but looks like I should.

Definitely, now's the time too, in the next few weeks the wildflowers at Paradise will be showing (a few weeks later than last year).

squirl033 · August 16, 2010

yeah, the wildflowers are definitely out in full bloom up at Rainier! i was at Edith Creek yesterday, and the flowers are everywhere!

CWSkopec · August 16, 2010

coscorrosa wrote: »

#9: About 30 minutes after moonset the stars started popping out, and about 30 minutes after that, the Milky Way was easily visible. There were as many stars as Rainier despite the low elevation, in fact the Milky Way was even more visible (no light pollution nearby). It's pretty cool seeing stars reflect in the wet sand. Like the night before there were some crazy bright shooting stars from Perseids.

Ron, I've really run out of adjectives to describe your work and sets like this one are the reason why. Each and every one is absolute bueaty!

This one (#9) however, exceeds them all. I sat and stared at it so long I got a couple disapproving looks from my boss!

(thanks for getting me in trouble, man!)

schmoo · August 16, 2010

7, 8, 9 omg! See what you're doing to fellow Dgrinners by getting them in trouble at work?

I don't know why more people don't shoot more stars over oceans. That shot is just unbelievable.

I feel boring.

hawkeye978 · August 16, 2010

Great set overall. I love #7 and adore #9.

coscorrosa · August 16, 2010

CWSkopec wrote: »

Ron, I've really run out of adjectives to describe your work and sets like this one are the reason why. Each and every one is absolute bueaty!

This one (#9) however, exceeds them all. I sat and stared at it so long I got a couple disapproving looks from my boss!
(thanks for getting me in trouble, man!)

Just tell your boss that you're less likely to screw things up if you're looking at dgrin instead of working. They'll understand.

FWIW, here's some meta-photography (taken by dseidman) of me photographing #9, the red lights are my timer and camera, you can see the stars at my feet reflecting in the sand:

schmoo wrote: »

7, 8, 9 omg! See what you're doing to fellow Dgrinners by getting them in trouble at work?

I don't know why more people don't shoot more stars over oceans. That shot is just unbelievable.

I feel boring.

It's only Chris, no big deal

I haven't seen any star shots at the ocean before, I've thought about a few times but the conditions didn't cooperate until this trip.

hawkeye978 wrote: »

Great set overall. I love #7 and adore #9.

Thanks!

Roaddog 52 · August 17, 2010

Ron, You captured some really nice images at the mountain and Ruby Beach. After hearing of the fires in the Olympics I was wondering if the smoke was making it to the coast, # 7 answered that question. very nice.

I have enjoyed your work for some time here on dgrin, and bumping into you and Danny on the Mountain was an unexpected pleasure. As much as you get out I won't be surprised to run into you again some time.

CWSkopec · August 17, 2010

coscorrosa wrote: »

It's only Chris, no big deal

Hell, even I can't argue with that logic!

dseidman · August 17, 2010

These all turned out nice. I'm going to have to get LR3 to deal with the noise in those Milky Way shots.

Ridgetop · August 17, 2010

Absolutely incredible #9. But is it just me and my crappy monitor, or is there an alien face reflected in the lower left hand corner in the lighter spot?

Wow is about all I can really say beyond that!

coscorrosa · August 17, 2010

Roaddog 52 wrote: »

Ron, You captured some really nice images at the mountain and Ruby Beach. After hearing of the fires in the Olympics I was wondering if the smoke was making it to the coast, # 7 answered that question. very nice.

I have enjoyed your work for some time here on dgrin, and bumping into you and Danny on the Mountain was an unexpected pleasure. As much as you get out I won't be surprised to run into you again some time.

Thanks, likewise, and I'm sure we'll run into each other again. The last few photo trips I've been on I've run into people I knew online or in person, it's a small world of landscape photographers here in the NW

CWSkopec wrote: »

Hell, even I can't argue with that logic!

dseidman wrote: »

These all turned out nice. I'm going to have to get LR3 to deal with the noise in those Milky Way shots.

I think any of the nice noise removal plugins (Noise Ninja, Nik Dfine) would work, LR3 has the advantage of additional features (a better RAW editor than ACR for example, better workflow than Bridge).

Ridgetop wrote: »

Absolutely incredible #9. But is it just me and my crappy monitor, or is there an alien face reflected in the lower left hand corner in the lighter spot?

Wow is about all I can really say beyond that!

Thanks! I can't comment on the sand aliens, they asked me to keep quiet

bryanj87 · August 17, 2010

Fantastic series of shots. #9 is truly outstanding. There is way too much light pollution out here for me to try something like that. I seriously need to move west.

thapamd · September 1, 2010

Awesome stuff, man! I love the milky way shots!

dls · September 1, 2010

These turned out great. The capture in 1 is superb... looks much better on the monitor than on the camera. Love the Milky Way shots, and the color and texture in 7 is awesome. Of course my fave is your meteoric sea stacks shot, and Danny's shot of you is just mind bogglingly incredible. :jawdrop
Glad you guys made it out there. Would have been nice if you went north a little bit the following day and we could have shot Shi Shi together...

dlplumer · September 1, 2010

dseidman wrote: »

These all turned out nice. I'm going to have to get LR3 to deal with the noise in those Milky Way shots.

Check out Dfine 2.0 by Nik software.

Mt. Rainier and Ruby Beach

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