Happy 100th Birthday, National Park Service !!!

In my pursuit to visit natural wonderlands of United States of America, I have been fortunate enough to visit 25 National Parks and preserves in the past 10 years and amongst which some of them were multiple visits and some even touching double digits. 

As I moved across different states, sometime for jobs I made it a point to visit nearby national parks. Sometimes, some of these parks me go so crazy, I use to fly, drive several hours to reach the location or once I even did a cross country drive from San Francisco to Maine covering multiple National Parks on the way from Yosemite in California to Acadia in Maine.

The night sky was one of the major attraction for me who was born and brought up in a City. I was fascinated by the number of stars that we could see with our naked eye. And as a photographer I got thrilled to capture them as well. 

As we are celebrating National Park Services Centennial today on the 25^th of August 2016, I wanted to relive my National Park Experience in this presentation of the below National Parks I had visited over the period of 8 years. Here is a collection of Photographs which I have carefully selected from my archives of all the 25 National Parks I have visited and which I feel portrays the National Parks feel to be there and enjoy and cherish it.

 

 As a nature photographer, I take pride in capturing the beauty of varied landscapes in some magical lighting conditions. National Parks provide me the opportunity to enjoy and capture the moment at the same time. Running National Parks is not a simple thing and I believe the National Park Service which does a great job 24x7 365 days deserves an applause in what they do. Starting from providing a conducive environment to the public to visit and enjoy the place, they managing rescue operations day in and out providing safety to public. They conserve nature and wildlife and as well create awareness amongst the visitors on how to conserve and not pollute the preserved parks and its wildlife. 

Keep Wildlife Wild and Nature a natural pristine untouched place for the generations to come. I am thanking NPS and hearty wishes to them for achieving this milestone. Happy 100th Birthday National Park Services.

Tips and Tricks to Enjoy/Photograph the most amazing meteor shower of the year 2016

Perseids is my favorite among various meteor shower which happens throughout the year. Perseids this year has been predicted to produce some extraordinary peak rates as per NASA which will be almost double the normal rate.

I have been recently asked how and where to catch this famous annual Meteor showers this year and below are some tips and tricks to enjoy and photograph this spectacular fireworks of nature.

·       Darkness matters – The darker the sky, more easily you would be able to see the meteors striking our atmosphere. Start planning to be away from city lights and find an open spot with nice clear view to the north from where the Perseids will radiate from. Plan to take a nice chair and sleeping bag if you would like to relax and enjoy the show while your camera does its job to capture the shots. 

·       Timing – August 11, 12 – The best nights to watch for Perseids is August 11^th with expected rate of 200 meteors per hour, but August 12^th night being a Friday would not hurt either if you are aiming for a nice weekend activity which is expected to produce almost 80-100 meteors per hour.

·        Watch out for weather – If you are really particular about the catching the best of the show, be weather aware. Keep your options open where you would like to venture out and keep an eye out to see which of those spots will have clear skies, less humidity. The lesser the clouds and moisture in the air, the more will be the visibility. With 60 Percent moon which will be up in the sky until midnight, visibility will be hindered but it will become perfect conditions soon after the moon set till an hour to Sunrise.

·       Camera/Lens requirement – Any Camera which can go up to 6400 ISO will be able to capture the stars and meteors with ease along with the foreground. Grab a nice wide angle lens varying from 11 – 24mm with a minimum aperture of 2.8 to try and capture most of the meteor strikes. If you do not have one, don’t be discouraged, you can either rent one or take up the challenge and capture something unique with telephotos. 

*    *Tip – Try to catch the Andromeda/ a prominent constellation and wait for few meteors to fall in the frame.

·       Setting up the camera – Being a very consistent meteor shower, you can safely point your camera towards North-North East to capture the maximum number of meteor strikes. But, if you are trying to capture some nice foreground or Milky Way along with it which doesn’t line up – I will not be afraid to put the camera in that direction and start capturing the action, as the meteors do land up anywhere in the sky though the majority might look like it radiates from constellation Perseus. General setting for Camera I would recommend would be having ISO at 1600+, Shutter Speed at 25s, Aperture at widest possible of the lens preferably 2.8, and focal length between 11 and 24mm.

If shooting telephoto (Focal length more than 24mm) – recommended settings would be ISO – 3200+, Shutter speed – less than 15s to avoid star trails and aperture preferably 1.8 to 2.8.

*Tip – Always take some trial shots to finalize your frame which you would not regret after coming back. Do not keep running around and pointing your camera to a different direction every time you see a meteor in a different direction than where your camera faces. This will drastically reduce the chance of capturing the meteors. Be patient and confident about your frame you have set up, if you don’t end up catching a ton of them at least you will have a nice timelapse or a star trail to take back with a few single images with some nice pretty meteors. Prevent throwing other external light source when the camera is shooting the timelapse to avoid changing of lighting condition on the foreground which may become a hindrance when post-processing.

·       Watch out for lens fogging and battery – The best way to capture meteors would be to have the camera running on timelapse mode with continuous exposures which will increase the chance of capturing majority of the meteors falling inside your camera frame. But being on timelapse for a long period of time, lens might start fogging due to various environmental factors such as temperature and humidity. To prevent disappointment later, you can act on it upfront by having a hand warmer wrapped around the lens. And to prevent battery from running out due to long exposures and temperatures, it will be good if you could carry a battery pack/ extra batteries for your camera.

·       Enjoy the show – With all these planning and photographing, do not forget to enjoy the show. I can vouch that Perseids had been the best meteor shower with some nice big trails and if you are in a real dark spot, I bet you would able to see the colors of the meteor with your naked eye.

Finding Dark Skies near San Francisco Bay

As the awareness to protecting night sky increases, being a member of International Dark Sky Association and an advocate of Dark Skies, I wanted to explore the available remaining dark skies close to home and close to cities that could still be enjoyed and preserved. I was 25 when I first saw milky way, and I wanted to create awareness to others to not miss this spectacle in their life time and preferably experience it at a younger age. The following is my effort in identifying areas and locations in the state of California with a collection of pictures constituting of beautiful landscape combined with enviable dark skies which are not too far from where the masses live but devoid of dark skies due to city lights. I also believe with summer time people should take advantage and take their kids to such places and show them the nights how our ancestors enjoyed.

Davenport, CA is a quaint town in the coast of CA with near proximity to big cities like San Jose, San Francisco. The quality of dark skies is completely enviable in the south - Southwest where the Milky Way will be visible at this time of the year. The skies are so dark that you would not even find light domes in the horizon from the beach . 

Scotts Creek, CA is a beautiful beach area on the road side few miles north of Davenport CA where the Scotts creek merges with the ocean, this is a beautiful spot to enjoy the stars which demands just getting down from car got out and look up. 

Pescadero, CA - Pigeon point light house is again a short drive from Half Moon Bay getting out of all hustle bustle and touristy crowd to enjoy the peacefulness of country side with really dark skies despite the light from lighthouse tries to take the darkness away. This would definitely be a nice spot to enjoy the stars with family learning about planets, stars, galaxies providing kids chance to see the occasional shooting stars aka meteors. 

Majors, CA is on the way to Santa Cruz and any where getting out of the car to look at the beaches will provide you with stunning views of beaches as well as a pretty good dark skies. As we are near to another big town Santa Cruz, we will start seeing a light dome of light pollution but its a beautiful few miles drive away from city to enjoy the Milky Way. 

Yosemite, CA - Yosemite and high sierras is a 3-4 hour drive from San Francisco Bay Area which gives a nice weekend retreat away from city life to the wild beautiful mountain landscape with plenty of opportunity for night skies as the area has the best chances of having clear nights in Summer.