Not of this World - Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Let's kick things off with a free eBook! 3 Tricks for Focusing at Night, is digitally published and ready to go. I'm excited to see what you think! Contained within the book are 3 of my favorite methods for focusing at night or in low light conditions.

Click Here to Access Your Free eBook

On to some other free goodies. Focus Stacking is a technique which I often use for an array of different shooting situations. This latest tutorial will take you step by step through the entire process, starting with shooting and ending with post processing. Best viewed in 1080P.


Summer is full swing here in the Pacific Northwest which means lots of backpacking, teaching star photography workshops & exploring / scouting new locations. Here are a few Behind the Scenes Shots from the past couple of months.

Paul Weeks Shooting in the Rain Forest during a 3 Day Backpacking Trip || Olympic National Park, Washington

Solo Hike Under the Super Moon Light || Mount Baker Wilderness, Washington

Another Successful Night Under the Stars - July 2014 Star Photography Workshop Group || Mount Rainier, Washington

The Shot
After 8 unsuccessful attempts the weather finally allowed me to take this shot. I've always loved this composition, but there is considerable light pollution which is usually seen in the same location the where Milky Way is rising in this photo. There is one solution to this light pollution problem, wait until extremely dense low lying fog / clouds cover the valley below the crater.

On this particular night the sun had set and the fog started to roll in very quickly over the valley as seen just above the horizon of this photo. These conditions removed a considerable amount of light pollution from the skyline & allowed me to finish off the rest in Lightroom & Photoshop.

The photo is composed of 4 different shots, all taken with my tripod in the exact same place. The first two shots are for field of view. The entire Milky Way Core and the Crater won't fit into a single frame of the Nikkor 14-24mm lens ( @ 14mm ) so a vertical pano was used. The last (2) shots were taken 30 minutes before the first two shots capturing the immediate foreground / mid-ground using focus stacking techniques. Using a long ( 2 min ) exposure for the last (2) shots it was also possible to keep nice detail without using a high ISO and inducing noise. Some of these techniques are covered in the Focus Stacking Video Tutorial provided above.

As always click the photo to see it full size on a black background