Balanced Rock in the Granite Mountains of Scottsdale, AZ.
Balanced Rock Timelapse Loop
Accessible via Granite Mountain Trailhead at 136th St & Lone Mountain Rd.
Timelapse sequence captured over the course of 3.5 hours, beginning at 20:20 and ending around 23:11. My goal for this sequence was to create a startrails image similar to the Sedona Startrails image I published recently, but clouds affected that plan.
Clouds moved in as soon as I began shooting, so I modified my plan. Clouds can ruin a startrails sequence. Any area with clouds will be as bright or brighter that the stars. So exposures with clouds must be removed from a startrails stack. This will leave gaps in the star trails in the positions the star were during the time of the cloud cover. In the case of this sequence, those clouds were present through most of the sequence and only cleared momentarily.
Moon as a Light Source
In this sequence I used the full moon as the light source. It rose as the sun set. I waited about an hour after sunset for astronomical twilight to end, then began shooting once the sky was dark enough. Look carefully at the sky and notice the stars moving behind the clouds.
EXIF
EXIF info for each of the 141 images captured to create this sequence.
Capture Date | 08/25/2018 | Focal Length | 14mm |
Capture Time | 20:20 AZ Mountain | Aperture | f/2.8 |
Camera | Nikon d7100 | Shutter Speed | 30 seconds |
Lens | AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8G ED | ISO | 100 |
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