Boston Mine Attempt

A couple friends and I tried to hike to the Boston Mine last night, but the conditions proved to difficult to get there in the time we had. We'd hoped to reach the mine around 8:00 PM to catch the moons light rays on the surrounding mountains. By 9:15 with with moon going down quickly we stopped instead at the remains of this mining cabin.
The Boston Mine is located off SH-91 just south of Copper Mountain on the way to Leadville, CO.

These shots represent my first attempt at this type of star shots and the lesson learned is I'm woefully under geared. It's presented here only because of the lack of detail needed on an internet post, a bit of processing talent and a stubbornness to produce something since we froze our asses off. Unfortunately, as cool as the shot is, there is no way I'm going to be able to print it. Still, it was a really great hike/adventure and I hope to practice this type of shooting often.

These are a compilation of 3 shots exposing for the stars, snow/mountains and building independently with a little bit of light painting thrown in.

16mm, f/2.8, 30 - 230 sec, ISO 400.

Nice mix, Jon. Wondering if the non-sky should be brought up just a hair so the stars don't overwhelm so much, especially on the second one?

Jon, I'm getting very disappointed in you. It seems you're always late getting to your destinations on time. Maybe you're getting a bit too old to be wandering around in the mountains.

At any rate, I like these and I'm sure once you get your settings nailed down, you'll come up with some very print worthy images.

Yeah, I know. I'll get to fixin' that roof in the spring. Liking #2.

Great composition but I agree the that everything under the stars could be a bit brighter.

Thanks everyone!

To be honest the light on the ground is something I struggled with. As shown the light is brighter than was scene out there which is what a 4 minute exposure can do for you. My goal is to make these look as close to how I remember them, but in this case that would yield an even darker presentation. I'll look into brightening it some more and see what it does. Thanks for the suggestion.

Gene, in addition to old age we were fighting the clock because of work, rush hour traffic, snowy roads, and about 2 feet of unpacked snow which we had to trudge through. Even though we missed the mine, it was a great adventure....until my fingers began to loose function from the cold.

I dunno, Jon. That last one is growing on me more and more...as is.

Nice work Jon - way to take one for the team in freezing your ass off. Here is an article you might be interested in:

http://windinmyface.di​glloyd.com …ts-Betty-photography.html

in terms of a similar scene and approach.

kirk

Thanks Kirk, that's a good article and jibs pretty well with what I've found. I currently use a pocket size Maglite for painting. It's only good for fairly close subjects due the (lack of) beam power, but it has three advantages. Using the old style bulb, the color of the beam works well when my camera WB is set to daylight which is normally where it's at. The beam is adjustable focus so I can dial in from wide to pinpoint, and lastly it is very portable. I first tried painting with my led headlamp and the color was awful and it has no accommodation for light spill.

The article touched on the hot spot issue, but didn't really elaborate on it enough IMO, nor did it mention the more challenging issue with spilled light. With respect to hot spots the Maglite performs well because of the fact it's power is low. It's kind of like using a low opacity brush which is much more forgiving than a high opacity brush.

But the really challenging part of light painting for me is the amount of light which you're not keeping track of which spills out the edges. The first times I tried light painting I was really surprised how much light gets on things. Mostly you concentrate on what your painting and don't notice the tertiary light which gets on everything and is really strong on your foreground.

One other thing, we brought some flashes to trigger from the inside of the buildings for a similar effect as in the article, but decided it was too cold to mess with them. One (warmer) day in the future, we'll give them a go.