And when you think nothing can surprise you anymore, a fake photo of Deadvlei at night comes from somewhere. I don't google for Deadvlei night shots as the results are manageable and a good 30% are mine, but when you look at some reputable photographers' fake pics that are popping up around the internet today, you have to wonder what's in in their minds these guys do.
And although I'm well aware of how the community reacts, I would like to post a blog entry about Deadvlei at night here on my homepage. Lately it's no longer woke to post forbidden things in Namibia forums, although every Namibia tourist in his rented four-wheel drive car speeds down all sorts of forbidden slopes much too quickly.
genuine non-stacked single capture from the famous Deadvlei at night
But when it comes to spending the night in the expensive Sossus Dune Lodge and agreeing with the hotel management what amount is called for to make a pilgrimage to Deadvlei at night together with a guide, then it becomes too expensive for the scrounger. And quickly the right photographer, who takes on all these troubles and costs, is publicly pilloried and denigrated. You can all kiss my ass with your double standards. I was there three times in the night and never had a problem.
When it comes to photographing the Milky Way on moonless nights, there is no hotter place on this planet and period.
Nikon D4 AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm at 14mm f/3.5 ISO 3200 with 15 sec - Genuine Night shot from the Deadvlei - captured on 9. Mai 2012 at 19:14
However, I freely admit that visiting Deadvlei is only 10% of the price when it comes to taking good star photos home. Because if you look at the recordings by Art Wolfe, for example, which were still made on Fujichrome Velvia at the time, you'll be horrified by the lousy quality.
A lot more is possible these days....
However, it should not be concealed that it is anything but easy to get good recordings on a moonless night in a place like Deadvlei, because when it's really dark there you can't even see your own hand in front of your face. And that also means that you can't select a subject when looking through the eyepiece of your camera. You can not see anything. And anyone who has ever tried to illuminate a landscape with a flashlight and at the same time find a camera setting for a great subject knows that this is almost impossible. Which means nothing other than that you have to prepare the motifs for the night during the day and then only have to look for the right tree when it is dark.
Which, as I can tell you from my own experience, is not always easy either, as there are around a hundred trees in an area that is 1 kilometer long and almost 500 meters wide. Finding the right one here in total darkness is a challenge. Then you have to position your tripod at knee height because the stars are high up in the sky. Which inevitably leads to lying in the dirt behind the camera without the help of an angle viewfinder and trying to get the focus manually with the flashlight.
But only after the end of the long exposure at home on the computer does it become apparent whether you screwed up or were lucky, because the self-illuminated display is of no real help in absolute darkness. It displays every subject far too brightly. If you let yourself be deceived here, you will bring nothing but underexposed motifs home. If you want to photograph line traces as shown in the next photo, it becomes even more difficult, because not only the main subject is fixed, no, the exposure time of several hours also makes the whole thing an extremely tedious task, since the camera has to be released absolutely without blurring.
And if anyone notices that my line traces are absolutely circular... yes, that too is only possible with the appropriate software and an excellent Nikkor lens. Exposure time was 6600 seconds in total. Captured with my Nikon D810 and the incredible AF-S Nikkor 14-24mm at 14mm and f/2.8 at ISO 400 (yes only 400).
