Ready for Inspiration, Education and Fun? — Announcing the 3rd Annual Night Photo Summit

We are thrilled to announce the return of the Night Photo Summit!

Now in its third iteration, the Night Photo Summit is a 3-day virtual conference that celebrates everything night photography. Each year we aim to make it a little bigger, a little better, and to bring you even more opportunities to learn, to be entertained and (of course) to Seize The Night!

We know that there are many night photography enthusiasts out there who are looking to connect and learn, so we created the summit to exalt in the joys of our shared passion. Perhaps you’re hunkered down for the long cold winter, not able or ready to travel, but still keen to expand your knowledge and be better prepared for the coming Milky Way season. Maybe you’d like to learn a new technique to broaden your horizons, or simply long for that kick in the pants that a healthy dose of inspiration can provide.

The Night Photo Summit has all that covered––and then some.

Join us from February 3-5, 2023, to experience 3 days of dynamic presentations from 35-plus world-class photographers, authors, artists, astronomers, and national park and dark-sky activists.

Sessions and Speakers

This year’s summit features sessions on creativity, auroras, publishing photography books and lighthouses, as well as (of course) night photo techniques, including image capture, different ways of combining exposures, lighting, mobile night photography, post-processing and more.

There are classes for all levels, including a series of five recorded presentations that cover all the fundamentals of night photography. You’ll have access to those before the summit begins if you’d like a refresher, or to get you up to speed if you are just getting started in night photography.

There are intermediate and advanced level courses, as well as instructive, inspirational and informative sessions covering a wide range of topics. All in all, the programming totals over 45 hours of learning and virtual adventure.

View fullsize

Our incredible lineup of speakers and talks includes:

• Albert Dros: “Cities Come to Life After Sunset”

• Alyn Wallace: “Night Sky Wonders”

• Chris Nicholson: “Photographing Moonlight”

• David Zapatka: “USA Stars and Lights: A Lighthouse Project”

• Dirk Ercken: “Light Painting from Within the Scene”

• Elia Locardi: TBA

• Forest Chaput: “Choosing a Telescope (and Other Equipment) for Deep Sky Astrophotography”

• Gabriel Biderman: “9 Parks at Night”

• Harold Ross: “Light Painting the Still Life”

• John Paul Caponigro: “Naked Eye, Camera Eye, Mind’s Eye”

• Joseph DePasquale: “Unveiling the Infrared Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope”

• Katrina Brown: “Designing the Night with Light”

• Ken Lee: “Behind the Book: My Path to Publishing a Monograph”

• Kevin Adams: “365 Nights: A Year of Inspiration”

• Lance Keimig: “Know Your Options: Decisions That Lead to Your Best Images”

• Matt Hill: “Color Management for Night Photographers”

• Michael Frye: “Reducing Noise with Star-Stacking”

• Noel Thomas: “Astro Time-Lapse Techniques”

• Pete Mauney: “Plane Trails at Night: Visualizing Human Networks”

• Phill Monson: “How to Put Nature First as Creators”

• Rachel Jones Ross: “A Field Guide to Photographing the Northern Lights”

• Rafael Pons: “Moon Photography Planning (from Beginner to Pro)”

• Royce Bair: “Starlight Blends”

• Russell Preston Brown: “New Developments in Mobile Night Photography”

• Sandra Ramos: “How to Keep Your Instagram Account from Being Hacked”

• Sherry Pincus: “Things That Go Bump in the Night: Staying Safe in the Wilderness”

• Susan Magnano: “Spark your Creativity with Luminescent Portraits”

• Tim Cooper: “5 Photoshop Techniques for Night Photography”

• … and more to be announced!

Sponsors & Giveaways

Every attendee will be automatically entered into drawings for a large number of giveaways from our generous sponsors, as well as amazing session-specific giveaways from speakers. More info on that to come!

How to Join Us

If you’re into night photography, or if you want to get into it, this is an event you absolutely do not want to miss.

View fullsize

Tickets are $399, and include:

• 3 days, more than 35 instructors, over 45 hours of inspiration, instruction and fun

• a Fundamentals series of video classes available on-demand before the summit weekend

• 1 year of access to re-watch all of the courses

• a live image review session

• exclusive glow-in-the-dark summit T-shirt (mailed to attendees with U.S. addresses, and we may be able to help those from other countries too!)

• personal access to product experts from manufacturers and developers sponsoring the event

• giveaways throughout the duration of the summit

• an unprecedented opportunity to connect with like-minded photographers passionate about the night

Moreover, if you purchase your ticket by January 13 at 2 p.m. EST, you’ll get your shirt and a swag bag (USA only) before the summit!

Registration is available now, so sign up today and mark your calendars to join National Parks at Night for the world’s third online Night Photo Summit!

JOIN US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

As if that isn’t all enough, we’ll be releasing plenty more information over the next few weeks. To stay tuned in to it all, we invite you to follow the summit social media accounts on:

• Instagram: @nightphotosummit

• Facebook: @nightphotosummit

• Twitter: @nightsummit

We are very much looking forward to seeing you online next month. In the meantime, feel free to ask us any questions via the social media accounts above, in the comments below, or through the Night Photo Summit webpage.

Seize the night … online!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 30 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images and workshops at www.thenightskye.com.

---

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Hanging Ten: Our Favorite Photos of 2022

As time seems to accelerate with each passing year, we can look back at 2022 as when the world got its collective groove back. If 2020 is best remembered as the year we’d rather forget as the full force of Covid shut down the globe, and 2021 was a year of starts and stops as one variant after another reared its ugly head, then 2022 is the year we hit full stride and really got back up to speed.

Here at National Parks at Night, we ran a full schedule of workshops and tours, including a couple that had been twice rescheduled due to the pandemic. We ran 23 workshops and tours, six of which were international trips, including our first aboard a sailboat and our first to the Faroe Islands. We also welcomed some wonderful new people into the National Parks at Night community with our first Intro to Night Photography workshop in Death Valley.

It was a productive year for image-making too. Tim dug deeper into blue hour blends. Matt focused on rendering astro-landscapes through panoramas, vertoramas and little planets. Chris leaned into natural-looking foregrounds for night photos, whether blue hour blends, moonlit foregrounds, long exposures to fill in shadows, or employing Low-level Landscape Lighting (LLL) with a dim and cool light. Gabe leveled up his post-processing skills, getting more comfortable with blending, masking, stacking and compositing. I used new LLL tools to repurpose lighting skills I had developed a couple of decades ago.

It’s always a challenge to pick our favorite images of the year, but it’s also a great opportunity to look back at the images we made, to revisit the places we went, and especially to remember the people we traveled and worked with while making those images.

Below you see each of our top two picks from the night photographs we made in 2022.

---

Chris Nicholson

Moon Over Mount Baker

View fullsize

Nikon D5 with a Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 10 seconds, f/5.6, ISO 800.

The Mount Baker Wilderness is one of my favorite places in the world. It’s part of Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, in a stretch of Washington state’s North Cascades mountains, bordering the wilds of North Cascades National Park. Walking the trails is like walking at the edge of heaven.

Gabe and I brought a group to the area this summer. We stayed in a chalet in the mountains for a couple of nights, where we had access to some of the most beautiful alpine scenery in the U.S. On the second night we took a short hike, and I looked for an interesting way to photograph an area I’d shot twice before. The moon over Mount Baker was calling to me—the balance of moonlight between the sky and landscape was perfect—but I was struggling to find an intriguing foreground.

I walked a little further up the trail, turned a bend around some large glacial erratics, and came upon this expanse of ice and snow. Perfect! I had to climb one of those erratics to get the angle right. The boulder didn’t have enough room for both me and my tripod, so setting up was a little precarious—but worth the trouble.

I spent a lot of time this year working on natural-looking foregrounds to night photos, and using moonlight is one of the techniques I most enjoy. The serenity and dynamics that combine in this scene are a perfect example of why.

Star Trails Over Ocean Cliffs, Acadia National Park

View fullsize

Nikon D5 with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 20 minutes, f/6.3, ISO 200.

From one corner of the mainland to the other, I moved from North Cascades in summer to Acadia in fall. On our last night in the latter, I brought Matt and a couple of our friends to one of my favorites spots in the park—one of my favorites for either photography or hiking or even just for enjoying the sound of waves swishing onto the cliff-bottom shores.

I made this photo while waiting to make another. I’d scouted a composition that required facing west, which is the last direction of sky to get dark at night. I wanted to stay productive while waiting, so I wandered around the rocks and eventually found this eastward view toward the entrance to Frenchman Bay.

Long exposures aren’t always easy to visualize, and that was the case with this setup. I wasn’t sure I’d like the image. But I had time, so I dilated it into this exposure. And when it was done, I was very glad I’d opened the shutter.

The scene was bathed in moonlight, so I didn’t need to do any blending or light painting to get detail in the foreground. There was so much moonlight, in fact, that the stars were getting a bit washed out—so I mounted a polarizing filter to make the moonlit sky pop a little better.

Once all that was done, executing the photograph was a matter of a simple 20-minute exposure and some easy tweaks in post.

Gabriel Biderman

Liberty Bell, Milky Way and Car Trail

View fullsize

Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. Foreground: 2 minutes, f/4, ISO 1600; sky: 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

I was incredibly fortunate in 2022 to travel 70,000 miles, to 4 countries, to 15-plus national parks, adding almost 50,000 clicks to my cameras. Needless to say, I explored and taught a lot under the stars.

One of the most epic trips was my 3 weeks in the Pacific Northwest where I visited all three of the national parks in Washington, none of which I had previously been to. I was excited most about the least visited one, North Cascades National Park.

Known as “the American Alps,” North Cascades is challenging to explore, but once you peel back the layers it just gets better and better. The craggy mountains reminded me of the ancient peaks of Lofoten. And of those, Liberty Bell, to me, won the prize as the most distinguished of the peaks. It doesn’t hurt that—in this photo, anyway—the Milky Way rises above it and car trails act as a mirror below the peak.

We brought our workshop here and figured we’d stay for an hour or 2, but we all fell so in love with this location that we ended up staying the whole night.

There aren’t many times that I choose one spot to set up and happily stay all evening. But we had so much fun. We were all careful to compose with the Milky Way and add the road below. Some of us composed horizontally and some vertically. Most of us were shooting noise stacks because after we took our twilight base shot it got really dark and we were pushed to ISOs of 12,800 and beyond.

We’d shout out whenever a car was coming up the valley, and you’d hear the triggers firing, as well as our giggling that we’d captured another successful image of several awesome elements coming together.

We could feel the world rotating and the Milky Way moving closer and closer to the peak. Should we stay to see how it looks coming out of the top? Will it look like a volcano erupting with space dust?

The answer is yes, but that is a picture for another time. This one was similar to many that our group shot, and I don’t care. It genuinely brings me back to Liberty Bell and the excitement we all shared when all the stars, cars and mountains aligned.

Auroras Over Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore

View fullsize

Nikon Z 6II with a Nikon Z 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 8 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is one of my favorite places in the park system. The sand dunes, picturesque farmsteads, historic buildings and pristine dark skies keep me coming back for more. The people who live in the small towns that dot this Lake Michigan region are so warm and welcoming that I feel right at home.

I created this image during a workshop I teach for the Glen Arbor Arts Center. We experienced auroras on two nights! Sleeping Bear is at the 45th parallel, the halfway mark between the equator and the North Pole. That’s pretty far north for Michigan’s Lower Peninsula and the area is definitely prone to green, red and purple auroras.

This night was magical. We were chasing spiking and Steve auroras, and we settled on composing the light show and stars in reflecting pools of water. We were having a blast, but the composition was missing … well, the human element, to express how excited both the atoms and we were. So I set up the intervalometer and walked to the other side of the pool, careful to place myself close to the water so the reflection would be from head to toe.

Lance Keimig

Thurmond Train Station, New River Gorge National Park

Nikon D780 with an Irix 30mm f/1.4 lens. Two blended exposures of 15 seconds and 2 minutes, f/3.5, ISO 800.

I had long been aware of the semi-ghost town of Thurmond, West Virginia, as it reminds me of the sort of location used by O. Winston Link, train night photographer extraordinaire and one of my heroes. I had expected it to be a highlight of my visit to New River Gorge National Park, and the little town did not disappoint.

On the afternoon of the night I visited, there had been a tremendous thunderstorm, and all but emergency power was out in the area. Luckily for me, this also caused the few trains that passed through the town that evening to stop at Thurmond station and wait for traffic down the line to clear. Their headlights provided ample illumination and just the right atmosphere when combined with the heavy wet summer air lingering in the gorge after the storm.

I didn’t think that the train would stay put long enough for me to make some good exposures, but after a minute or two staring at the scene and feeling as if I’d been transported back in time, I hustled down the track to a point halfway between the resting engine and the red signal lights that were holding the train in place.

I set up low to the ground and quickly determined that multiple exposures would be required to hold detail in both the highlights and shadows. I made a number of exposures, leaving myself options to either manually blend a couple of layers or to make an HDR composite if that turned out to be the better option. It did. I was excited that a car approached from across the river, lighting part of the bridge and filling in some shadows in an otherwise dark part of the frame.

I spent the whole night enraptured by the little town, thinking of Link, and feeling so pleased to finally get to create images in his footsteps.

Eidi, Faroe Islands

Nikon D780 with a Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8 lens at 15mm. 3 minutes, f/4.5, ISO 800.

During our pre-workshop scouting in the Faroe Islands, Tim and I took a slight diversion to the outskirts of the little town of Eidi to check out a soccer pitch near the coast that we had seen as we came down the mountain above the town. I was much more interested in the town, but Tim saw the potential of this coastal view.

We didn’t shoot that day, but we did come back with the workshop one night after a wonderful Ethiopian meal prepared especially for our group at Rose’s Cafe a few miles away.

We didn’t get to do as much night photography as we had hoped, in part due to the weather, and in part due to sheer exhaustion from the long, full days we were experiencing. It was in fact raining off and on this night, but the group toughed it out and we photographed at the water’s edge for about an hour and a half. At one point the clouds opened up with the moon rising behind them, and that combined with waves crashing on the rocky shoreline and a long exposure made for one of my favorite images from our 18 days in Faroe, and of the whole year.

The Faroe Islands were a new destination both for me and for National Parks at Night in 2022, and in a year full of outstanding adventures with outstanding colleagues, it stands out as my favorite recent trip and the place I’m most excited to get back to.

Matt Hill

Half Dome Forest Fire Tracked Vertorama

Astro-modified Nikon Z 6 with a Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens and FTZ Adapter; foreground tracked with a Benro Polaris. 30 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 12,800.

When Lance and I were in the Eastern Sierra for a workshop this year, there were scattered forest fires that occasionally blew smoke in a direction that affected us. At Olmsted Point there is a spectacular view of Half Dome, and the Milky Way core was going to line up vertically over it. What an opportunity!

Alas, upwind of the iconic peak was a forest fire and the smoke was drifting right into the view. Some people might pout, stomp their feet, shake their fists at the heavens and shout, “I want clear skies!”

Not me. I saw that smoke and said, “Wow, now this isn’t something I’ve ever seen before! It’s something real that is happening now and tells a story of the drought and fire cycles. How can I make this work for an image?”

It was after twilight, but the fire and starlight provided enough illumination for exposures at ISO 12,800. And I wanted Half Dome, which is quite diminutive from that vantage, to really stand out. So I put on a 70mm lens and composed for a vertorama where the landscape and sky were exposed at the same settings to blend well.

I shot with my astro-modified Nikon Z 6 to pull out more of the reds and magentas. I exposed the sky first to see how well the stars poked through the low smoke layer. Using the Benro Polaris to track that image for 30 seconds was a breeze.

Liking the results, I recomposed the landscape frame to include the granite valley walls leading up to Half Dome, and then completed the two-panel vertorama.

Animus Forks Little Planet

View fullsize

Nikon Z 6II with a Laowa 12mm f/2.8 lens. Foreground: 18 blended frames shot at 1/4, 1 and 4 seconds, f/11, ISO 800; sky: 10 stacked images shot at 15 seconds, f/4, ISO 12,800.

When we arrived at the abandoned mine town in Colorado at 11,000-plus feet, I was awestruck. I wanted to try to get everything I saw and felt into one photo. Reasonable, right? Of course. A spherical panorama would solve that! And PhotoPills showed me that the Milky Way arch from mountain peak to mountain peak would make for a strong “Little Planet” edit.

So I set up a tripod along the river’s edge and embarked on the most ambitious panorama I’ve ever attempted. (Watch your inbox for a blog post dedicated to the process from tip to tail.) The short story is that I made an HDR multi-row panorama of the landscape, left my setup in place and walked away for a few hours. I came back when the Milky Way hit the right position, then made sets of pano images of the sky to noise-stack in post.

I stitched the landscape and sky images separately in PTGUI Pro, then blended them in Photoshop. I did this process twice to find just the right shape for the little planet projections.

It was a risky idea, but I am super proud of how it turned out. And it’s inspired me to attempt even more blue hour spherical panorama blends in the future.

Tim Cooper

Northern Lights Near Fredvang, Lofoten Islands, Norway

View fullsize

Nikon Z 6II with a Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 lens, lit with a Luxli Fiddle panel light and a Coast HP7R flashlight. 5 seconds, f/2.8, ISO 3200.

Sought after by photographers and night sky enthusiasts, the northern lights are a bucket list item for many folks. On our March trip to Norway, I was lucky enough to witness these amazing lights over one of the world’s great landscapes: the Lofoten Islands. While there are many places to view the aurora borealis in the Northern Hemisphere, not all supply the dynamic mix of mountains and beaches that Lofoten provides.

Three days after the group arrived we were treated to our first aurora opportunity. Keeping an eye on several aurora tracking apps, we headed out with high hopes. As we were photographing at a local beach, they finally appeared. The mix of waves, mountains and clouds with auroras was beautiful, but it soon petered out. We decided to try another location in the hopes they would reappear.

I’ll never forget the excitement in the van as we recounted the beauty we had just witnessed along with the fun of chasing some more. Once we arrived at our new location, we quickly scrambled out of the van and got to work.

I remember snapping a couple of quick frames before I headed along a trail that led to an inlet. Turning around I saw the trail leading directly back to the glow of green. Beautiful!

To be sure I captured something, I snapped a few quick shots. Then I set up a Luxli Fiddle to illuminate the foreground. This panel light coupled with a handheld Coast HP7R flashlight brought out the texture of the grasses and helped define the trail. I was in heaven.

It felt like I shot a thousand images while watching the auroras dance and change shapes. Everyone had plenty of time to capture the magic. The northern lights are truly phenomenal and experiencing them with like-minded folks was a true gift.

Star and Car Trails Near Checkerboard Mesa

Nikon Z 6II with a Nikon Z 14-24mm f/2.8 lens. 30 stacked frames shot at 30 seconds, f/4.0, ISO 800.

I love lines in my photographs. Both real and implied lines generate impressions that influence the feel of the photo. Converging lines suggest speed, vertical lines suggest stability and horizontal lines give a feeling of calm. My favorite lines, however, are curved ones. These lines are elegant. They are in no rush to get you through the composition, and they make you slow down and take in more detail.

Car trails and star trails are two very common types of lines we encounter in night photography. The National Parks at Night team will tell you that my love of car trails borders on an obsession. It was no surprise to Chris, then, when I found this scene while we were scouting locations for a spring workshop in Zion National Park.

Climbing up from the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway near Checkerboard Mesa, we were searching for dramatic red rock formations to use as foregrounds. The eastern side of the park is noted for its swirling sandstone and solitary trees, so these subjects were in my mind’s eye as we climbed the ridge.

Not finding my imagined scene, I switched from looking for a particular subject to seeing what the area offered. That type of “searching for a specific thing” has often made me miss great opportunities, so I am glad I was able to switch mental gears that night.

After walking around with an open mind I saw the road bisecting the peaks and leading straight to the sky. I was thrilled. In typical (for me) fashion, I made plenty of images to capture the best car trails and many more to capture the night sky. To round it off, I had to make several frames using different focus points to ensure that the foreground was sharp front-to-back at my wide-open aperture setting.

---

Your Turn

What was your favorite night photograph of 2022? We’d love to see it! Share in the comments below, or on our Facebook page, or on Instagram (tag us @nationalparksatnight #nationalparksatnight #seizethenight). Be sure to tell a story too—the technical aspects, the challenge overcome, or a tale of the experience.

Then … have a Happy New Year!

Lance Keimig is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He has been photographing at night for 35 years, and is the author of Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark (Focal Press, 2015). Learn more about his images at www.thenightskye.com.

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Five Questions: Holiday Lights, Metal Prints, a Southern National Park and More

‘Tis the season of giving. You’ve given us questions, and we’re giving you answers. Unwrap below.

This special holiday installment of our “Five Questions” series features inquiries about photographing Christmas lights, choosing a surface for metal prints, Congaree National Park, Irix and Sony lenses, and how Lightroom affects raw data.

If you have any questions you would like to throw our way, please contact us anytime. Questions could be about gear, national parks and other photo locations, post-processing techniques, field etiquette, or anything else related to night photography. #SeizeTheNight!

1. Dashing Through the Holiday Lights

Question:

I’m hoping you can solve a mystery for me and my photography students. When they created a zoom-blur photo of holiday lights, some streaks were solid and some were dotted. None of the lights appeared to be blinking. So does this have to do with the cycling of new LED lights? The exposure times were 1 second or longer, which I would think would be long enough to compensate for flicker. What’s the solution to get solid lines, if we can? — Kathy E.

View fullsize

This is one of the photos Kathy E. is asking about. Click on the image to view the photo larger and see full the effect. © 2022 James Steele. Nikon D7500 with a Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-6.3 lens. 1 second, f/11, ISO 200.

Answer:

The intensity of LED lights is controlled by increasing or decreasing the frequency of their flicker. What you’re seeing is a result of that.

We almost never see this effect with photo/video lights because the manufacturers know about shutter speeds and they keep the frequency much faster than any shutter speed that photographers would conceivably use. However, with cheap light sources, like Christmas lights, the manufacturers don’t care; the lower refresh rate of the LED pulsing will be captured by the camera.

So, in short, the lights were blinking—faster than the eye could see, but not the camera’s eye. If you see that some lines are dotted and some aren’t, that means that the lights were cycling at different rates—some fast enough for the shutter speed, and others too slow.

To keep the lines from becoming dotted during a zoom-blur, I would try zooming more slowly during a longer exposure. (Stop down everything, and maybe even add a neutral density filter.) That way the light will have more time to burn into the pixels while they’re pulsing during your zoom. — Matt

Note: For more about how to photograph holiday lights, see Gabriel Biderman’s post “Seize the Season.”

2. Metal Mettle

Question:

What finish do you recommend for metal prints of astro photos from Bay Photo Lab? — Alan A.

View fullsize

When hanging a metal print opposite a window, consider avoiding a high-gloss surface, as the window light will cause glare. High-gloss prints are best hung at a 90-degree angle from a window.

Answer:

This is a very subjective question with answers that depend on two main factors:

1.       What is your personal taste?

2.       Where will the print hang?

I feel that most of my night images benefit from being printed on a more luminous surface. For metal, I tend to print on high-gloss surfaces. Lance prefers the mid-gloss option. My wife prefers my work printed with a satin finish because glare really annoys her. So as you can tell, personal taste can vary from person to person!

However, understanding what each finish can bring to your space—and how it’s affected by your space—is also key. If you are going to hang a print directly across from a window, then satin might be your best option as you’ll want to have minimal glare. I tend to hang most of my prints at a 90-degree angle to the windows, where even high gloss shows little to no glare.

Bay Photo recently announced their Performance EXT coated metal surfaces, which have additional coatings to extend print life in direct sunlight or outdoors. This addresses another important factor: Most of my images are in a bright room, and my oldest Bay Photo metal prints are 5 years old and show no signs of fading. I recently replaced some metal prints from another printer—those were around the same age but were starting to fade. I have not used Bay’s EXT coating yet, but I advise considering it if your prints get direct sunlight.

If you are new to the metal game, I suggest getting a sample pack made in a smaller size before committing to a surface you are unfamiliar with. Bay offers sample packs in 4x6, 5x7 and 8x12 inches with either standard coating or EXT.

Finally, if you are new to using Bay Photo, be advised that they offer a 25 percent discount on your first order. — Gabe

3. Photographing Congaree

Question:

Have you ever photographed in Congaree National Park in South Carolina? It is only a few hours’ drive from my house and I’ve been thinking about going there, but I’m not sure if the park offers many good landscape opportunities. — Arnie

View fullsize

Congaree National Park boardwalk loop trail. © 2016 Chris Nicholson. Nikon D3s with a Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. 1 second, f/11, ISO 800.

Answer:

I’ve been to Congaree several times. It’s a very pretty park, but it’s primarily forest. (Floodplain forest, in particular. More on that in a bit.) As you may already know, forest photography is challenging because it’s very much about making compositional order out of natural chaos. So if you’re into that type of challenge, then Congaree can be amazing. (It’s also good for spider and snake photography.)

There are some other compositional elements to work with, but most take some effort to get to: the Congaree River (which needs to be hiked to), several ponds (which need to be hiked to) and Cedar Creek (which should really be paddled). The one exception is the 2.4-mile boardwalk trail that starts (and ends) behind the visitor center; that trail is an easy way to get around that section of park, and is an attractive subject as well.

My personal feeling is that aside from the annual show of synchronous fireflies, Congaree is better for daytime photography than nighttime, and it’s better still in overcast light or fog.

The park is probably at its aesthetic best when it floods, which happens about 10 times per year—the caveat being that those conditions drastically minimize how much of the park you can access. But even with the restricted access, the reflections of the forest in the floodwater can be ample fodder for photography. — Chris

4. Sony vs. Irix Lenses

Question:

In one of Lance’s presentations he recommended the Irix 15mm T2.6 Cine lens as the best for capturing the Milky Way. I am now using a Sony a7R IV camera body with two different lenses for night shooting: the Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM and the Sony 20mm f/1.8 G. What is the possible improvement I might achieve with the Irix lens? — Ed H.

View fullsize

The Irix 15mm T2.6 Cine lens.

Answer:

I’ve looked at your photos, and you do not seem to have a problem focusing, which could have been one reason to switch.

Of the lenses you mentioned you already own, both have some noticeable coma, but neither to a catastrophic level. Stopping down the 20mm to f/2.5 should clear it up nicely. Coma on the 16-35mm will vary across the focal lengths, and with it being an f/2.8 lens, you’d likely need to stop down to f/4 or more to get rid of it.

If you need something wider, or if further testing of the 16-35mm tells you that you need to stop down to f/4 or smaller at 16mm, then the Irix 15mm will probably be a little bit better. Other advantages of the Irix are that it’s a touch wider, and it’s easier to focus and to keep in focus. I like to stop down the Irix to f/3.2 to get rid of its minimal coma.

If those advantages don’t resonate with you, then stick with your two Sony lenses. What you have seems to be working. — Lance

5. Raw Permanence

Question:

When importing, does Lightroom add edits or adjustments? If so, is there a way to import raw files as shot in camera? I was told by another photographer that Lightroom always applies filters or edits on import, so instead of importing directly into Lightroom, she moves images from a card to an external drive, and then imports to Lightroom from the external drive, thus preserving her original in-camera files. — Christie

View fullsize

Answer:

Your friend is partly right and partly wrong.

Yes, Lightroom applies some standard edits. These are the same types of edits that Canon software would apply when importing Canon raw files or Nikon software would apply when importing Nikon raw files. Most of them are under-the-hood stuff, such as sharpness, noise reduction, etc. These are basically the same types of edits that are applied to a JPG when it’s produced in-camera. They don’t really change the look of the image so much as refine it to compensate for imperfections in how the image data was captured.

If there is a change in how the photo looks after importing, the likely cause is that the profile Lightroom is applying in the Develop module doesn’t match the in-camera profile you used when shooting. Immediately upon import you see the camera-generated JPG preview, and then very quickly Adobe updates this preview with their interpretation of that file based on the Lightroom profile that’s being applied. In some cases, this can drastically change the look of your photo. (You can read more about this, and how to fix it, in our post “How to Make Your Lightroom Rendering Look Like Your Camera Preview.”)

Not to worry, though. These settings are not permanent.

In fact, none of the edits that Lightroom applies are permanent. They are simply a recorded set of instructions that tell Lightroom how to render the raw data when you view it on screen or export it later. Those instructions are stored in the catalog database and/or a sidecar file, not in the image file. The actual raw file never changes—only the instructions on how it should be previewed, copied or printed. And those instructions can be reset, altered, updated and reset again, all while never making any change to the raw file.

You can prove this by making drastic changes to a photo in Lightroom and then opening the raw file in another program. When you open it in, say, Nikon Capture NX-D, you won’t see any of the Lightroom edits—because, again, those edits are not stored in the raw file.

Therefore, having another copy of raw files in their “original state” is completely unnecessary—it’s a waste of hard drive space. Of course, we do highly recommend backing up your photo files, but that’s a whole other blog post. (Stay tuned.) — Tim

Chris Nicholson is a partner and director of content with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015) and Photographing Lighthouses (Sidelight Books, 2023). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

---

 UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

PhotoPills, National Parks at Night Partner for Two Masterclasses

As most of you know, we love the PhotoPills app. It is packed with tons of useful information for photographers. We use it to plan locations from home, scout the stars during the day, figure out exposures, calculate hyperfocal distances, visualize star trails and much, much more.

Earlier this year Chris Nicholson wrote a great article on “The Many Ways That PhotoPills Helps A Night Photographer,” which zeroes in on several key features that are essential to his workflow. Tim Cooper always says that PhotoPills is the best $10 investment he’s ever made in photography, and the rest of us definitely agree.

Yet PhotoPills is much more than an app. The team behind it also offers a lot of education to support their mantra of “Imagine. Plan. Shoot.” Why? Because their goal is to help people become better photographers.

National Parks at Night embraces that same philosophy, and we have partnered with PhotoPills often to collaborate. In 2018 we invited Rafael Pons, also known as The Bard of PhotoPills, to speak at our very first conference, the New York Night Photography Summit, and he also spoke at our Night Photo Summit online conference in 2021 and 2022. We’ve even run four PhotoPills Bootcamp workshops, with a fifth coming next year. 

This past May, Chris and I were instructors at PhotoPills Camp, a much-sought-after international gathering of PhotoPillers hosted on the Mediterranean island of Menorca, Spain. It was an amazing experience, and we finally met the entire PhotoPills family on their home turf!

Shortly thereafter, Rafael invited Chris and I to present as part of their Masterclass series on YouTube. Both of those masterclasses were livestreamed in the past two weeks.

I spoke about star trails and Chris taught about how to photograph lighthouses at night. We are very passionate about these subjects and have been honing classes about them for years. But given the chance to speak on the PhotoPills Masterclass platform, we knew we had to share every bit of information we knew, and then some. So we hit the books, pushed the stars and lighthouses beyond anything we had tested before, and voila!

Both classes are now posted on the PhotoPills YouTube channel for you to watch at your leisure.

It was a great thrill to see so many friends and workshop alums among the livestream visitors (thank you!), and we’ve been enjoying reading the positive comments in the chat.

Please leave any questions you might have in the comments for each video. Chris and I will be monitoring them for the next few weeks and want to make sure you are ready to Seize the Star Trails and Lighthouses in the near future.

What other night topics are you interested in learning more about? Drop them in our comments below and #staytunedformore.

Gabriel Biderman is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night. He is a Brooklyn-based fine art and travel photographer, and author of Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (Peachpit, 2014). During the daytime hours you'll often find Gabe at one of many photo events around the world working for B&H Photo’s road marketing team. See his portfolio and workshop lineup at www.ruinism.com.

---

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT

Toys and Tinsel: Our 2022 Holiday Gift Guide

Here we are again. Another year almost over, another season of thanks and joy upon us.

Along with the season of greetings comes the season of giving, and as we have every year since 2016, we’re here to help with ideas for the night photographer in your life.

We try to mix and match—some things photography, some things national parks; some things serious, some things fun; some things lofty, some things modest. Over 35 products carefully curated for you and yours. There should be something here for every night photographer on your list.

This is our gift to you: to help you find something special for someone special. Your gift to us? You’ve already given it. Thank you for being you, and for being here.

In addition to the blog post below, we’re also providing this gift guide as a free downloadable PDF e-book, so you can read it and reference it on any device, anytime, anywhere. Inside you’ll find products from major brands such as B&H Photo, BenQ, Bay Photo and Vallerret, along with great little finds from smaller companies and startups.

In addition to the product information, the e-book version includes a lot more photos, as well as special discount codes and offers.

Download your copy today by clicking here:

Note: If you decide to purchase any of the items in this gift guide, please consider using the links included, as many generate a small commission that helps us improve the National Parks at Night workshop program.

---

Acratech

Panoramic Head

Love shooting Milky Way panos? Acratech is here to help! Their Panoramic Head facilitates shooting single- or multi-row panos. It has large-numbered degree scales on both the base and the tilt axis so you can make precise movements between panels. Moreover, the head weighs less than 1 pound and supports over 25 pounds of a camera-lens combo.

Special offer: 10 percent off all Acratech Panoramic Head variants at B&H Photo with promo code “NPANGIFT22.” Valid through December 19, 2022.

Adonit

PD-3A2C Universal World Travel Adapter

We learned about the compact and lightweight PD-3A2C Universal World Travel Adapter from a workshop attendee, and now we always carry one. It’s an ideal all-in-one replacement for most of your individual chargers, featuring two USB-C and three USB-A ports, plus pass-through AC for your laptop. Pairs perfectly with modern multi-voltage power supplies in over 150 countries.

Apple

AirTag

Did the airlines lose your luggage on your last trip? Regrettably this became a common refrain among travelers this year. Several of us at National Parks have been using the Apple AirTags to keep track of our bags during recent flights, and we love them. Using a unique network of connected Bluetooth devices, AirTags can help you locate your luggage when the airlines can’t or won’t. Buy a four pack and use the extras for your keys, backpacks, etc.

B&H Photo

Gift Card

If you don’t know what to give the photographer in your life, then give the gift of choice from the world’s best camera store, B&H Photo. With a gift card they can pick any camera, lens, computer or whatever they desire, and will have you to hug and thank for it.

Bay Photo

Wall Display

A photograph isn’t truly complete until it’s been printed, and we love the prints from Bay Photo Lab. Get the photographer in your life their favorite image printed for their wall. Choose from a plethora of wall display print surfaces, including metal, canvas, acrylic, wood, paper and more.

Special offer: 20 percent off one order of select wall display prints from Bay Photo Lab with promo code “NPAN22.” Valid until December 13, 2022.

BenQ

SW321C

For a real Wow Factor in the home office or editing studio, not to mention a super-resolution display for viewing hard-won images, the BenQ SW321C can’t be beat. Its 32-inch size gives lots of real estate for examining and editing photos, and it comes complete with all the advantages of all BenQ photo monitors: 99 percent of the Adobe RGB color gamut, 10-bit support for 1.07 billion colors, crystal-clear rendering of image pixels and more.

Special offer: $100 off the BenQ SW321C at B&H Photo with promo code “NPANGIFT22.” Valid through December 19, 2022.

Big & Little Parks

Night Stickers

Sticker culture is alive and well, as is astro-tourism, and Big & Little Parks is celebrating the junction of the two with a variety of night-sky national park stickers. Decorate your water bottle, your laptop, your whatever with a beautiful sticker of Canyonlands, Death Valley, Joshua Tree or others.

Books

NPAN bookshelf

Does the photographer in your life relish great photography books? In addition to the few specific tomes and monographs mentioned in this guide, the National Parks at Night Bookshelf catalogs over 100 of our instructors’ favorite volumes. Explore titles related to instruction, travel, photography history, photography collections and more. You’re sure to find a book for anyone who loves the art.

Bug Bite Thing

Venom Extractor

Traveling to natural spaces is an amazing experience, but has a notable downside: potential bug bites and stings. To treat them, we’re loving this new product: the Bug Bite Thing! Brought to our attention by one of our regular workshop attendees, it’s become a staple in our bags. Bit by a mosquito? Stung by a bee? This lightweight, easily stowable gadget uses suction to remove the venom from the skin, reducing itchiness and quickening the healing process.

Calibrite

ColorChecker Passport Duo

For those who shoot both video and photography, night and day, Calibrite offers the new ColorChecker Passport Duo. This awesome protective clamshell houses four panels for photographers capturing on-site camera calibration profiles, white balance, proper exposure and color for video. For landscape photographers, these tools can ensure a consistent and neutral workflow that leaves room for more creativity and less frustration.

Coast Portland

G20 Inspection Beam

Night photographers need good flashlights, and not just high-powered ones for light painting. We also need gentler tools for looking into our bag and seeing or way in the dark without ruining our night vision or washing out a neighboring photographer’s long exposure. Enter Coast Portland’s G20 flashlight, which focuses a relatively dim and cool light that’s perfectly discreet.

Duduho

Galaxy Apron

For the night photographer who’s also an artist in the kitchen, what better way to keep clothes clean than an apron donned with the Milky Way? The unisex Galaxy Apron is made of high-quality waterproof fabric with adjustable neck and waist straps. It’s a necessity for making a dinner that’s out of this world.

DxO

PureRAW

Night photography is all about pushing the limits of our cameras, and one of the side effects is high ISO noise. While some post-processing techniques can reduce the effect, none eliminate it. But PureRAW is different. This software from DxO employs what they call “pre-processing” raw files to remove noise before working on photos in Lightroom, Photoshop or other editing solutions. This technology is nothing short of disruptive—it will change how night photographers approach noise, allowing for highly improved night images.

Everglades Seasoning

Dry Rub

We found this Everglades Seasoning right outside one of our favorite national parks: aptly, Everglades, during a workshop no less. The Cactus Dust flavor has found a regular spot on our homemade chicken wings, but all of them are worth a rub onto any chicken, steak or fish. Taste the unique flavors while dreaming of long winter nights in the swamps and marshes of Florida’s famous park.

Getaway

Cabin Adventures

Getaway maintains a network of natural-space cabins around the U.S., all within 2 hours of major cities, but far out into dark-sky areas. The Cabin Adventures cabins feature all you need to get by, plus outdoor amenities such as a fire pit. But the coolest feature of all? The to-the-ceiling plate glass bedroom windows that allow you to gaze at nature and the stars as you fall asleep.

Irix

45mm f/1.4 Dragonfly

Irix keeps delivering the innovation we’ve come to expect. One of the more recent additions to their lineup of lenses is the supersharp 45mm f/1.4 Dragonfly. Its near-normal focal length is perfect for filling the background with the Milky Way, and the lens is almost coma-free even when shot wide open.

Special offer: $115 off the Irix 45mm f/1.4 Dragonfly at B&H Photo through November 28, 2022.

Ken Lee

Music Album

Ken Lee is an amazing night photographer based in California, and the author of two (and counting) night photography books. He also writes and records music—“trippy otherworldly music,” in his words— under the artist name Eleven Shadows and The Mercury Seven. His music has been featured on various MTV programs, the BBC, NPR, XM Radio and more. Eleven Shadows’ most recent release is The Seahorse in the Center of Your Mind, available for purchase and download. Perfect background music for night photography and editing.

LaCie

Rugged SSD PRO

For the hardcore approach to a sturdy travel hard drive, look at the Rugged SSD Pro. Holding from .5 to 4 TB, this Thunderbolt 3 External SSD offers data transfer speeds of up to 2800 MB/s. It features a durable exterior with 2 tons of crush resistance and resistance to dust and water. Serious speed, serious capacity, for the serious road-warrior photographer.

Special offer: $30 to $350 off the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro at B&H Photo through the end of 2022.

Ledlenser

P2R Work Flashlight

Ledlenser’s Work series of flashlights are uniquely suited for night photography due to their high CRI (color rendering index) and relatively warm white balance. Several of us have made the P2R Work our go-to light both for lighting and navigation due to its versatility and compact size. It is rechargeable, has three power settings, and conveniently comes on at a 15-lumen Low setting that is perfect for astro-landscape environments.

Light Painting Brushes

Holographic Sword

At 2 feet long, the Holographic Sword enables a light-writing photographer to create unlimited effects in the background or foreground. Blacked out on the side, and capable of showing all the colors of the rainbow from the front, the sword gives complete creative control to its wielder. Paired with the Universal Connector, it can be used with hundreds of different flashlights on the market.

Luxli

Fiddle Pocket LED 2-Light Kit

Since the day they were launched in 2017, we’ve been among the biggest fans and supporters of Luxli’s unparalleled line of LED panels, and we use them even more than we preach them. So we worked with B&H Photo to create a kit of the tools that we most often use together, dubbed the Fiddle Pocket LED 2-Light Kit. It includes two each of the Luxli Fiddle, magnetic honeycomb grid, Manfrotto Carbon Fiber Nanopole Stand and Oben BD-02 Mini Ball Head, and one magnetic diffuser hood. Everything you need to begin and master Low-level Landscape Lighting.

Special offer: 10 percent off the Fiddle Pocket LED 2-Light Kit at B&H Photo with promo code “NPANGIFT22.” Valid through December 19, 2022.

Manfrotto

ProCUBE Professional Twin Charger

Double-charge your batteries! Manfrotto’s ProCube will get a photographer out shooting again faster, charging two batteries simultaneously. An LCD shows how much each battery has been replenished, as well as a battery health check. The unit can also power up rechargeable AA batteries, and has a USB output for charging phones and tablets. Options available to recharge various models of Nikon, Canon and Sony batteries.

Special offer: 10 percent off the Manfrotto ProCube at B&H Photo with promo code “NPANGIFT22.” Valid through December 19, 2022.

Move-Shoot-Move

MAK 90 Telescope

For the photographer who wants to study or shoot celestial objects, Move-Shoot-Move’s MAK 90 telescope is a great beginner’s tool. Its 1250mm focal length with a compact body is achieved with catadioptric mirrors and allows for narrow field observation at a fraction of the cost, length and weight of refractor (glass-lens) telescopes.

National Park Service

America the Beautiful Pass

National parks are the backbone of what we do, and are among the very best places in the U.S. for night photography. For only $80 you can purchase the America the Beautiful annual park pass, which grants access to more than 2,000 recreation areas managed by five federal agencies. Moreover, the proceeds are used to improve and enhance visitor recreation services at these sites all across the country.

National Parks at Night

Night Photography Adventure Tours

Send the photographer in your life on the adventure of a lifetime, crafting images under the night skies of some amazing destinations. Tickets are available for several National Parks at Night adventures:

• Lofoten Islands (March 17-25, 2023)

• Virgin Islands National Park (November 27-December 3, 2023)

• Iceland: Snaefellsnes (August 25-September 1, 2024)

• Iceland: Westfjords (September 7-14, 2024)

Or if none of those sound like the perfect gift, then how about Online Tutoring?

Books by Our Instructors

Looking for some national park and night photography inspiration and education that you can always have at your fingertips? Choose from one of four books written by members of the NPAN team!

• Photographing National Parks by Chris Nicholson is a portable and concise look at each of our national parks and how to best capture them. Includes best locations, times and great info on each park to help you plan your next adventure.

• Have someone new to the night? Gabriel Biderman and Tim Cooper’s book Night Photography: From Snapshots to Great Shots (now in its third printing) is an introduction to nocturnal photography, and it inspires you to get out there and seize the night!

• Want an even deeper dive into the night? Lance Keimig’s book Night Photography and Light Painting: Finding Your Way in the Dark has long been the ultimate tome for those interested in immersing themselves in the genre. The latest edition has an amazing chapter on the history of light painting and does an excellent job of balancing theory, history and enthusiasm for taking your night visions to the next level.

• Light painting is the most creative expression in night photography, and Tim Cooper’s ebook The Magic of Light Painting is a detailed exploration of all the illuminating possibilities that can happen when we practice the craft.

Nightscaper Photo Conference

Conference Ticket

What more could a night photographer want than to spend a few days under the beautifully dark night skies of Kanab, Utah, rubbing elbows with and shooting alongside like-minded individuals? A ticket to the Nightscaper Photo Conference is a ticket to coming together with some of the most passionate minds in the niche. Four days and nights together, learning and shooting among the stars. May 18-21, 2023.

Special offer: Limited number of early-bird tickets remain.

Noso Patches

Nylon Repair Patches

We love our national parks! And getting out and playing in them sometimes takes a toll on our nylon clothing. The folks over at Noso have created a solution: a line of waterproof, durable, lightweight and flexible no-sew Nylon Repair Patches. Simply peel off the backing, cover the damaged area and hit the patch with a blast from a hair dryer. Voila, the repair is done! Best of all they have a whole line of national park patches in addition to their standard and artist series versions.

Novoflex

TrioBalance 4-Section Carbon Fiber Compact Tripod

Nice and tall at 50.2 inches, the TrioBalance is an ideal travel tripod. The built-in leveling ball makes setup a breeze for panorama and tracking, and can even be used in place of a ball head. The kit includes mini legs, which can be used for tabletop photography, for macro or even for setting up against a wall when space is tight. Holding up to 22 pounds, it’s ready for nearly anything you carry.

Special offer: 5 percent off the Novoflex Triobalance at B&H Photo with promo code “NPANGIFT22.” Valid November 28 to December 19, 2022.

Outdoor Exposure

TK8 Photoshop Plugin

Most photographers have heard of a luminosity mask, and many know the power of it. But few wield that power because … well, it’s just a tad tedious. Until you start using the TK8 Photoshop Plugin, which automates much of the process. Instead of spending a lot of time isolating channels to make selections, just click a button, refine a little, and you’re on your way to those powerful edits.

Special offer: 25 percent off the TK8 Photoshop Plugin at Outdoor Exposure through November 28, 2022.

Paka

The Hoodie

Yep, those long nights can sometimes get cold, but we have so many options to keep us warm. Near the top of that pile is The Hoodie from Paka. Sourced from women artisans in Peru, this comfortable sweater is as warm as it is stylish. Soft, durable and flexible, it’s made from a weave of alpaca fibers, organic cotton and recycled nylon. Available in seven sizes and three colors.

Parks Project

Insulated Water Bottle

Parks Project has all sorts of cool stuff, but one thing we love is their All Our National Parks insulated water bottle. It has a slick, eye-catching design indicative of the company’s free-spirit sentimentality. Made of professional grade stainless steel, the bottle’s double-wall vacuum insulation keeps 32 ounces of liquid either hot or cold for up to 24 hours. The company donates a portion of their profit to projects in the parks—to date, over $2.5 million—so your gift purchase gives in more ways than one.

PhotoPills

Scouting App

Give your photographer loved one the sun and the moon and the stars—all exactly where they want them. PhotoPills enables locating any visible objects in the heavens and determining exactly where and when they’ll be in the sky in any location on the globe. It does more too, from helping determine star-point exposures to calculating hyperfocal distance to figuring overlap angles for panos and more.

Pure Zen Tea

Travel Tumbler

Tea is a refined, millennia-old beverage that will keep a photographer both warm and awake under the stars. But if one is the type who prefers loose leaf to bags, making a good cup on the road can be a challenge. The Pure Zen Tea Tumbler overcomes that challenge brilliantly. The screw-on steel infuser allows ample room for quality brewing, and the BPA-free double-wall glass combined with the neoprene sleeve will keep that tea hot for an hour.

Shimoda

Explore v2 35 Backpack Photo Starter Kit

The super-rugged Explore v2 35 backpack is laid out smartly for the traveling photographer and it boasts the most comfortable harness system we’ve encountered for heavy loads and long hikes. Its adjustable shoulder harness straps make it fit perfectly for folks of different heights, and the accessory straps do the same for different body types. This kit includes a Medium DSLR Core Unit Version 2 insert, but you can also choose among the many accessory options to match load-outs. Carry-on compatible for both U.S. and international flights.

Special offer: 5 percent off all Shimoda Explore V2 variants at B&H Photo with promo code “NPANGIFT22.” Valid November 28 to December 19, 2022.

Space Art Travel Bureau

Half the Park is After Dark Posters

Tyler Nordgren is an astronomer, night photographer and astronomy artist based in upstate New York. One of his claims to fame is the famous “Half the Park is After Dark” series of promotions for the National Park Service. The fantastical posters from that series are available on Nordgren’s website. Options range far and wide, from posters for Acadia, Badlands, Carlsbad Caverns, Everglades and much, much more.

Syrp

Magic Carpet Carbon Slider

For those who want to level up their time-lapses of the night sky, a slider is one of the first items to add to the kit. Syrp weighs in with the Magic Carpet Carbon Slider. Its lightweight construction and design make it a pro-level option that’s easy to travel with, and its seamless joints allow for silky-smooth and stable movements.

Special offer: $170 off the Syrp Magic Carpet Carbon Slider at B&H Photo for a limited time.

Tether Tools

ONsite USB-C 30W Battery Pack

Stay powered up while traveling! Weighing in at 4.2 ounces and boasting full TSA compliance, the ONsite USB-C 30W Battery Pack is the perfect companion for the globetrotting photographer who needs to recharge phones, tablets, flashlights, etc., on long wanders.

Special offer: 20 percent off the ONsite USB-C 30w Battery Pack at B&H Photo through November 28, 2022.

Unemployed Philosophers Guild

Constellation Mug

This fun and nifty 10-ounce mug features a bunch of stars when cold, then reveals constellations when filled with a hot beverage. See Cassiopeia, Perseus, Sagittarius and more appear before your eyes while you drink a morning (or overnight?) coffee.

Vallerret

Merino Wool Zip Jersey

We’ve long loved Vallerret for keeping our hands warm on cold nights with their photography gloves. Now they’re keeping our cores warm too, in the form of their Merino Wool Zip Jersey. Warm, soft, flexible, odor-resistant and durable, it will keep a photographer out longer, making more art well into the night. Comes in one color: the perfect Midnight Black.

Wotobeus

Car Charger Adapter

If you travel with a hefty-battery laptop like the MacBook Pro, you sometimes need to charge on the go—and that sometimes means in the car. Not all adapters can handle the high wattage needed, so we found one that can, via USB-C: the Wotobeus Car Charger Adapter. Works with other devices too, including many PC laptops, tablets and more.

YES Watch

WorldWatch V7

An elegant timepiece with a photographer’s needs at heart. The WorldWatch V7 keeps its wearer in sync with the daily, monthly and seasonal cycles of the sun and the moon, including solstices and equinoxes, sunsets and sunrises, moonrises and moonsets, moon phases and illumination percentages, and more. The case and bracelet are made from titanium and fitted with a sapphire crystal, and the watch is water resistant to a depth of 100 meters.

Special offer: 20 percent off the WorldWatch V7 at YES Watch with promo code “NOW.” Valid through the 2022 holiday season.

---

Note: Remember, this gift guide is also available as a free downloadable PDF, with lots more photos and a ton of discount codes. Download yours today by clicking the image above.

Chris Nicholson is a partner and workshop leader with National Parks at Night, and author of Photographing National Parks (Sidelight Books, 2015). Learn more about national parks as photography destinations, subscribe to Chris' free e-newsletter, and more at www.PhotographingNationalParks.com.

---

UPCOMING WORKSHOPS FROM NATIONAL PARKS AT NIGHT