Palouse Falls Under the Milky Way by Dale Johnson

Palouse Falls Under the Milky Way by Dale Johnson

A shot that takes planning, patience, and time post processing. Made a trip out to Palouse Falls State Park last week with a forecast of clear skies and no moon. It’s about a 4 hour drive from Seattle where I live. The canyon gets extremely dark when the sun goes down, almost like a black hole, so normal starry sky photos don’t work to get any detail in the canyon. For this shot I took 3 vertical images about 30 minutes after the sun set while there was still light in the sky (14mm lens, f11, 3 sec at ISO 64). Kept the tripod in the same spot and waited 2 hours until the sky darkened and the milky way came out. Then took another 3 shot vertical pano with a bit more of the sky (f1.8, 20 sec at ISO 2500). Stitched the panos in photoshop and then blended the falls/canyon shot with the sky to get this image.

Dale Johnson: Photos