Light of Darkness @ Deadvlei, Namibia

Namibia has one of the darkest skies in the world and the Namib-Naukluft national park is one such place where there is no trace of human civilization for hundreds of kilometres; make it a paradise for night sky seeker.

But it is a bit tricky to capture night images of this location as there is major restrictions on accessing this place at night. I would disclose a bit on how I made this image in my up coming Namibia film. But for now I would say just say that it is tricky. If you want to know more, quickly subscribe to me YouTube channel. :)

There are so many places in Namibia to do night photography that after some time you get more tired than happy for spending so many nights on the wild. Honestly speaking in this tip I concentrated more on filming that photography as it is practically not possible to do both properly. Then also drive around. I have a wish to go back to Namibia for the 3rd time to mainly do night photography. It is so much fun to see such bight star that is normally not the case in our say to day life.

I go to the Swiss mountains very frequently and unlike many city dwellers; dark sky is not an alien for me. But the Bortle 3 sky of Swiss Alps and the Bortle 1 sky of Namibia has a massive difference and I don't get chance to see such dark sky frequently. In central Europe only a little part of Austrian Alps has Bortle 2 sky. So it is always a great experience to appreciate darkness.

Now regarding this image. It is captured with a H Alpha modified Nikon D850. The foreground is taken with a Sigma 14MM F1.8 Art image. 16 images of 15 seconds ISO 3200 at F1.8 stacked to reduce noise. Whereas the sky is from stacking of 16 tracked light frames and 4 dark frames with a Sigma 28MM F1.4 Art lens at F4, ISO 800 4 Minutes. RAW processed using Capture One and rest of the processing, aligning and stacking done in Photoshop.

On popular public demand, I will make a video soon to show my workflow on how I edit my wide field astro images. Hopefully I will have some time to get it done quickly.

Till then; I have made a short film to record my journey through Namibia; you may be interested in watching it where we have compiled the overall beauty of Namibia as we experienced. Click here to get amazed with the beauty of this special country.

Please have a look at my website www.avisekhphotography.com for all my recent works.

Have a nice weekend.

Hope you will enjoy the picture.

Any suggestions or criticisms are always welcome.

Taken in: Namibia / Hardap / Sesriem (show map)

Taken on: July 19, 2023

Tags:

deadvlei

bortle 1

namibia

namib desert

africa

dark sky

namibia astro photography

milkyway above deadvlei

www.avisekhphotography.com

nikon

d850

sigma

14mm f1.8 art

tripod

really right stuff

astro tracker

star tracker

benro polaris « less

Sets appears in: • Namib-Naukluft National Park • Nature more » • Dusk Night & Dawn « less

Groups appears in: • Illuminations • THE IMAGINATIVE CAMERA more » • ☆The Power of Now / Die Kraft der Gegenwart ☆ « less

Camera: Nikon D850, f/1.8, 15 sec, 14mm, ISO 3200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D850
Lens:	14 mm f/1.8
Aperture:	f/1.8
Exposure Time:	15
Focal Length:	14mm
ISO:	3200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Manual
Exposure Mode:	Manual
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Gain Control:	High gain up
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop 25.2 (20231104.m.2388 fdf2b8a) (Windows)
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