The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

With its live oak and chaparral-covered foothills, Almaden Quicksilver County Park, located minutes from the suburbs of San Jose, at first resembles the other nature preserves ringing the Silicon Valley. However, at their height, mercury mining operations that took place there (quicksilver is another name for mercury) made the site the second-most productive mercury mine in the world, yielding nearly 84 million pounds. Starting in 1847 and for three decades, it may have been the nation’s most significant mineral resource, as it was essential in producing explosives for the Civil War and in amalgamating gold during the California Gold Rush. Carleton Watkins, arguably the most important landscape photographer in history, documented the site quite extensively.

Back then, 1,800 miners and their families lived in the area, but almost nothing remains of the structures that housed them. A number of mining structures still stand, of which the Almaden Quicksilver Chimney is one of the most prominent. Starting from the Hacienda Trailhead where a rusted collection of mining equipment is on display, sitting on a hill and surrounded by trees, the chimney quickly comes to view. Built in the 1870’s, it was used to release dangerous sulfur fumes from the Hacienda reduction works below.

Despite the fact that much of the region is now covered with thicker vegetation than in the 19th century, there are still numerous traces of the once-active mining hub. The most impressive is the rotary furnace that was built in 1940 to provide mercury for munitions during World War II and remained active until 1976, when mining operations ceased at the site. More than 100 abandoned mine entrances can be found in the park, together with sporadic pieces of machinery, foundations, and deteriorating roads that have left a lasting impression on the landscape. For safety, all of them have been sealed, with the exception of the San Cristobal Mine. I read that it was possible to enter the tunnel for a short distance, but was disappointed to see the entrance closed with a grid. Perhaps if I couldn’t enter the dark passage to experience what I imagined to be heavy and humid air, I could at least take a picture to remember this quick peek into the past?

While it was possible to insert a phone lens in the interstices, the grid pattern was only about half an inch, much smaller than any full camera lens front element. I knew right away that I would put to good use the automated focus bracketing of my new Sony A7R5 camera. Not only focusing manually a stack would have been quite tedious, but also the camera support was less than rock solid. In order to blur the grid to the largest possible extent, I had placed the lens as close as possible by resting its front against the grid, with the two other support points provided by two tripod legs. Touching the camera to re-focus would have risked minute changes in the camera position or lens focal length.

To illustrate how I made it work, first here is a picture taken with a 35mm focal length at the f/11 aperture I would normally use to ensure front-to-back sharpness. One can see how to tight grid pattern strongly intrudes into the picture, which is not especially desirable because the grid is contemporary.

35mm, f/11

As the aperture is opened up, the grid gradually gets thrown out of the depth-of-field area of the lens and starts to fade, but even at the lens widest aperture of f/4, it still remained quite visible.

35mm, f/8

35mm, f/5.6

35mm, f/4

Depth of field is inversely proportional to the square of the focal length, so by framing the tunnel more tightly, with a 60mm focal length, the depth of field is much diminished.

60mm, f/11

60mm, f/8

60mm, f/5.6

60mm, f/4

By f/4, the grid is sufficiently out of the depth of field area that it has become almost invisible. However, the shallow depth of field also means that only a slice of the scene, the traverse planks with the words, appears in focus. The solution is to do a focus stack with each of the component images captured at f/4. Even though the closest element of the scene, the plank at the top of the photo, is not that close, getting everything in focus still required 36 frames. Stacking them with Helicon Focus led to the final image after a few quick processing steps in Lightroom.

Focus stacking is normally used to extend the depth of field. In this example, I used it to selectively reduce it, which had the effect of making the unwanted grid magically disappear. The same technique could be used to blur a background while keeping a subject with extended depth entirely sharp.

Today marks the official start of the spring, while the weekend saw the re-opening of Yosemite National Park. The park had been closed since February 25, the second longest closure in memory – floods in 1997 closed the park for over two months. The closure of this winter was caused by unusually deep snow. On February 28, 40 inches of snow had accumulated in Yosemite Valley, a record for the date. Higher elevations had received more than 180 inches.

While those higher elevations are covered by snow each winter, snow is not a given in Yosemite Valley. Located at an elevation of around 4,000 feet, the valley hardly receives any snow some years. Typically, most winter storms blanket the mountains surrounding the valley with snow but leave the valley itself looking bleak and muddy. Seeing the valley floor covered with snow is a relatively rare treat, and even rarer is the sight of everything covered with snow. Perhaps right after a winter storm is when Yosemite Valley is most picturesque. Snow clings to every branch and rock, as mist fills up the air. Those were the conditions when two of the most well-known photographs of Yosemite were made: Ansel Adams Clearing Winter Storm (1944) in black and white, and Galen Rowell Clearing Storm over El Capitan (1973) in color.

Since my first visit in February 1993, I had been regularly returning to Yosemite Valley, not only for rock climbing but also to photograph. However, for several years, despite dozens of visits, I remained disappointed with the results of my efforts and felt I didn’t manage to capture any of the valley’s magic. Inspired by the two photographs above-mentioned, I decided to try a new approach. At that time, I was working as a computer scientist, so my excursions to Yosemite had always been at pre-planned times, on weekends except for the occasional longer big-wall climb. In the winter of 1998, I figured out that I could not just show up and hope something interesting may happen, but that instead, I should watch the weather conditions in order to come when something was happening. Naturally, that “something” was a clearing winter storm.

For my first post-storm visit, I left my home in Menlo Park, CA shortly before sunrise. The most direct route to Yosemite is via Oakdale and CA-120, but the highway climbs over to 6,000 feet elevation near Crane Flat before descending to Yosemite Valley. With fresh snow in the offing, I drove instead CA-140 via Mariposa, following the lower-elevation Merced Canyon and entering the park at El Portal (1,940 feet), near its lowest point. Delighted to see the first light highlighting a wonderland of fresh snow at Midpines, the high point of CA-140, I stopped to take a few pictures. When I arrived in Yosemite Valley in the late morning, I immediately regretted that pause. As the sun had already been up for a couple of hours, the snow was melting and falling from the trees. Most of them were bare of snow. High up the cliff, mist was still swirling along the rock walls, and a dusting of snow could still be seen. I quickly pulled out my large-format camera and used the longest lens I had, a 450mm lens (roughly equivalent to 90mm on full-frame) to frame a tight composition. The photograph is memorable to me because it was the first I made of a clearing winter storm in Yosemite. Without obvious landmarks, it evokes the power of the place. Yet, I immediately realized I had to adjust my timing for the next time.

Winter is the season when Yosemite receives the most precipitation. I was given a second chance that same winter when another storm with a snow level below 4,000 feet was forecasted to clear during the night. Because I was working in a research institute, it wasn’t a problem to be out of the office on a weekday. Leaving home in the middle of the night, I arrived at El Capitan Meadow, my favorite spot in Yosemite Valley, before the sun reached it, and immediately began to plan my photographs. For my first composition, I used a normal lens and included two focal points: the frozen oak tree detached against the sky on the right, and the snowy top of the Leaning Tower peeking between the masses of Lower and Middle Cathedral Rocks that attracts the eye with its brightness and contrast despite its tiny size – in a large print frozen trees are visible on the peak. In the summer, the shaded rock walls would look lifeless, but the fresh snow clinging to their steep faces created a beautiful tint by reflecting the blue sky. After setting up the large-format camera while El Capitan Meadow was still in the shade, I waited for the sun and made the exposure less than a minute after the entire meadow was lit.

Afterward, in a state of flow, I promptly switched to a longer lens for a study in textures, isolating a cottonwood tree caressed by the early morning light at the base of Middle Cathedral Rocks whose north face was strikingly blanketed by snow. The pine trees added a subtle hint of green, noticeable because of the homogeneity of the skyless composition dominated by the blue of open shade. Walking a few hundred yards to the bridge, I used the widest lens I had for that camera (a 90mm lens, equivalent to 18mm on full-frame) to include the entire scene with the two iconic rock formations, the Merced River, and El Capitan Meadows, taking advantage of wispy clouds.

This wintry moment turned out to be as fleeting as I expected it to be. Within an hour of the sun’s appearance, the conifer trees were already more dark-green than white. With snow on the ground, but not on the trees, the ground of a meadow appears distractingly bright compared to the rest of the scene. I drove a few minutes to the Valley View where I could use a foreground of rocks and water instead of a snowy meadow. Although the snow had been melting fast, not everything was lost as some mist was still hanging out high along rock walls while clouds remained wispy enough to echo the snow on the distant meadow and peaks. Unlike others, the image is of course a well-worn composition, but it was still the most satisfying I had made at that location.

I left the valley in the late morning, returning to work in the mid-afternoon with a broad smile. For the first time in five years, I was pleased with the way a Yosemite photography session had turned out. It could just be that with my penchant for climbing snow-covered peaks, a mountain scene without snow was missing an element that resonated with me. But I think it was a pivotal moment because, besides the experience and beauty I was privileged to witness, I felt that I had made something happen. The morning was productive. The two first images on this page turned quickly among the first set of prints (made in Cibachrome) that I ever sold.

I have too much gear in my closet that others could put to good use: Sony, Canon, etc… email me for photos, more details, or to make an offer.

Sony Alpha

Sony/Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm f/4 ZA OSS. $445. Designed by Zeiss, this was the best of the first-generation Sony zooms. An excellent lens, its optical performance is almost on par with the much more expensive Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM that I am now using. It is smaller and lighter, making it great for travel and hiking. Scratches on front element, a few scratches/wear marks on the barrel (its curled metal finish was easier to scratch than current plastic housings). Like for most of my lenses, this particular lens has been handpicked out of 3 samples after rigorous automated optical testing similar to that reported here.

Sony/Zeiss Vario-Tessar T* FE 24-70mm f/4. SOLD. Also designed by Zeiss, it was inferior to the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 as per my own review, but it is smaller and lighter for travel and hiking. Although I had the 24-105, when I climbed the Grand Teton, I packed the 24-70. Optics fine, a few scratches on the barrel (its metal finish was easier to scratch than current plastic housings). Handpicked out of 3 samples.

Sony FE 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS. SOLD The first Sony mirrorless lens to reach 300mm. A good performer, although at the long end not on the same level as the more expensive Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 GM that I am now using. A lighter and fairly compact lens (for a telephoto), it is great for travel and hiking. Optics and cosmetics fine. Handpicked out of 3 samples.

Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di USD Lens for Sony A + Sony LA-EA3 adapter. SOLD Until the much more expensive Sony 200-600m was released, this was the best choice for a super-tele zoom for Sony, as explained by Brian Smith. Although it is not a native FE lens but rather a Sony A lens, it is still a native Sony lens so it works better than other third-party lenses, provided you use the included adapter. Optically, in the 200-400 range, it is comparable to the much more expensive original Canon 100-400, which was my workhorse tele lens for a long time, but (obviously) it can go to 600mm without a teleconverter, making it a very versatile lens for wildlife – I used in Katmai for the bears. Handpicked out of 3 samples. The Sony LA-EA3 adapter let you mount a Sony A lens on Sony FE body with fast and accurate PDAF AF-C and AF-S with Wide, Center and Flexible Spot Focus Areas

Canon EF

Sigma 20mm f/1.4 Art, Canon EF mount. SOLD. Excellent condition. This is the widest f/1.4 lens available, and as such a great choice for astro-landscape photography. It is sharper (and wider) than both the Canon and Bower 24mm f/1.4. Handpicked out of 3 samples.

Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II . SOLD. Excellent condition. A solid performer and versatile lens, usable for astro-landscape photography in a pinch. Handpicked out of 3 samples.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 IS L. SOLD. This was my bread-and-butter lens when I used the Canon EF system – I’ve since switched to Sony and use an equivalent lens. This particular lens has been handpicked out of 4 samples after rigorous automated optical testing. It is in perfect mechanical condition, but the front element has a few pin-size scratches. They do not affect the image in any way, and I never felt it necessary to replace the lens, especially since it takes quite a while to do the testing and locate a good sample.

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 IS. SOLD. The first lens to introduce image stabilization – we’ve come a long way. With its good optical quality, reach, and light weight, it was my preferred telephoto choice for hiking. The 100-400 is more than twice its weight, while the 70-200/4 has a reduced reach. It is in perfect mechanical condition, but the front element has a hair-size scratch, again something that was not an issue. Handpicked out of 3 samples.

Canon EF teleconverter 1.4x. SOLD. Good condition. Works with L tele lenses and TSE lenses.

Ikelite Underwater housing kit for Canon 5D mk2 $1,500. Includes everything you need to shoot with a wide-angle lens: housing, Modular 8″ Dome Assembly and Extended Port Body, Strobe DS160, Charger, SA-100 Ball Socket Arm & Digital TTL Sync Cord, and Pelican Case suitable to shipping as check-in luggage. Ikelite is the least expensive reputable brand of housings, and they provide great service. Their housings are as reliable as any other major brand. The reason they are relatively inexpensive is that they are made of polycarbonate. Aluminum housings are smaller and the controls (knobs, shafts, etc) seem to work more precisely, but the price difference is substantial and probably not worth it unless you dive frequently. I’ve used this housing to make all the underwater photographs in Treasured Lands, and I am selling it only because it’s been a few years since I used my Canon gear.

Case Remote with cable for 5D mk2/mk3 $80. Provides remote control via smartphone (YouTube review). Unlike with other remotes, you can crucially see the image live on your phone’s screen. That capability is built-in with the Sony cameras.

Nikon/Canon

Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 Damaged. SOLD. When mounted on a Nikon body, aperture and AF appear to work OK. This lens was dropped, and as a result, the optics went out of alignment, resulting in images that are partly unsharp. Here are two full-resolution examples shot wide-open: example 1, example 2. Unfortunately, when I checked those images on the LCD, at normal magnification, they looked just fine. It wasn’t until I went home that I noticed the sharpness defect. The location was the Whitmore Overlook in Grand Canyon, and it takes so much effort to get there that I don’t see myself returning soon. So the lesson is to check images at 100% before you leave! The Nikon was a great lens, especially for night photography. Sold as is.

Novoflex Nikon G to Canon EF adapter. $65. Good condition. This is a “16:9 edition” adapter (description here) named after the technical lens site 16-9 . Back then, Canon made the only good full frame cameras, but all their wide-angle lenses were mediocre. 16-9 found the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 to be the best wide-angle zoom made at that time – it is still one of the best. They developed the adapter specifically to use that lens on a Canon EF body. Being a “G” lens that controls electronically the aperture, the 14-24 f/2.8 doesn’t have an aperture ring, so this required a special adapter with the capability to stop down the lens via a specially designed lever.

Bower 24mm f/1.4, Nikon Mount. SOLD. Good condition. Manual focus, manual aperture. A good night sky photography lens. I once owned the Canon 24 f/1.4 L II, which was considerably more expensive, but sold it because the Bower (also marketed as Rokinon or Samyang) turned to have much less coma. Coma is the bane of star field photography because it is almost impossible to correct in processing. Unlike for the Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8, I could have gotten the Bower in Canon mount, but I chose the Nikon version since with an adapter, there is no loss in functionality. Nikon lenses can be mounted on Canon EF bodies because they have a larger mount, but not vice-versa.

Vello Nikon to Canon EF adapter. SOLD. Good condition. Allows mounting of a manual focus, manual aperture Nikon lens (such as the above Bower) to Canon EF. The adapter is so small and thin that you just forget that it’s there.

Other

Gitzo 1325 mk2 tripod. SOLD. . Series 3 carbon-fiber, with 3 legs section and a large apex. Folded Length 26.4 in, Height Range 4.33 – 58.27 in, weight 4.5 lbs. Rock solid. Good condition, but note that the tube locks (which were not anti-twist, so require you to operate them in the right order), have become a bit sticky, something that may possibly be fixed by a thorough cleaning.

Arca-Swiss Monoball B1 Ballhead. $195. Many scratches, but solid operation. For many years, the Arca-Swiss Monoball B1 Ball Head has been the standard by which all other ball heads are judged. I find that lighter ball heads are sufficient for my needs, but if you are looking for a heavy-duty one, that one is silky smooth and super solid.

Dynamic Perception Stage Zero Dolly Complete Kit. $500. Just a few years into the time-lapse trend (that I joined for a while), standards raised dramatically with camera motion. What made it possible was the Stage Zero, the first commercially available dolly with integrated time-lapse controller. Dollies have since become more slick and refined, but the Stage Zero remains a workhorse which is almost impossible to break even shipped as checked-in luggage (in a ski bag, included). The original kit has a single 6 foot rail, but I include a second identical rail and hardware to join them for a total of 12 feet travel. Mine came with a connector cable for Canon, but with the appropriate cable, the controller works with other systems as well. Using this has given me a new appreciation for those with the dedication to lug this thing over long distances. It works fine close to the car, though, and if you’d like a proven dolly to try to take your time-lapses to the next level, that’s a fun piece of gear!

When Sony announced the fifth iteration of its high-resolution camera, the A7R5 (or A7R V) its AI-based autofocus got the most attention. Action photographers also benefit from faster data handling and a much larger buffer. Video saw several improvements, including UHD 8K with 10-bit capture. However, the sensor and stills resolution are unchanged from its predecessor, the A7R4 (A7R IV). Like others who mostly photograph landscapes, my initial reaction was going to skip this expensive upgrade because most of what it brought had little relevance to my work. However, I took a closer look, and after a few weeks of testing decided to keep the camera. Read on to find out why.

Besides being relevant for photographers trying to decide whether to upgrade, this in-depth write-up provides technical tidbits to those interested in current camera technology and shooting methods (for instance, the image stabilization results are quite instructive) as well as a few practical tips for A7R5 owners.

First impressions

Body and LCD. Compared to the A7R4, the A7R5 gains a bit of weight (723g vs. 665g) and thickness, but the base plate is identical and I can re-use the A7R4 L-bracket. Some of the thickness is for a new and clever rear-body flip LCD screen mechanism. The A7R4 screen could tilt only along the horizontal axis, whereas the A7R5 gains three axes of rotation, making it possible to position at almost every angle. The A7R4 screen was good for low and high shots. The A7R5’s is also useful for self-portraits, vertical images, and aiming the camera straight up from a mid-size tripod. You can even store it entirely away from view. In addition, it now supports full touch-screen functionality, including touch shutter.

Top: A7R5 (notice flexible flip screen and new menus). Bottom: A7R4

Viewfinder.The larger housing accommodates a big viewfinder which has a great 0.9x magnification (with a normal 50mm lens) comparable to the superb viewfinders of the film area that made looking through a SLR camera a joy. Peering into the A7R4, with its 0.78× magnification, the difference is striking. However, if you have trouble seeing the entire big viewfinder without moving your eyes, you can choose a lower magnification (Setup > Finder/Monitor > Viewfinder Magnification), although it would be nice if there were more choices to fit every eye. It also helps that the finder’s resolution increased from 5.76 Mp to 9.44 Mp, resulting in an unprecedented viewing quality for a digital viewfinder. This has to be enabled by Setup > Finder/Monitor > Display Quality>High, which is not compatible with Setup >Finder/Monitor > Finder Frame Rate > High, so you have to choose between high resolution and high refresh rate.

Top: A7R5. Bottom: A7R4

Buttons and dials. The layout of the controls is almost unchanged, which is a good thing. Two minor changes were maybe unnecessary but eventually inconsequential, and one is a definitive improvement. At first, I was alarmed that the C1 and video start buttons had been switched, breaking 8 years of habits, but then found out that they can be reassigned. The exposure compensation markings made it possible to zero its value without looking at a screen, but Sony dropped them because that dial can now be assigned a different function. There are even more customization options than before, to a point that may be overwhelming for some. The choice between stills, video, slow/quick modes is now made through a secondary mode dial, which usefully decouples them from the choice of the main exposure modes (P/A/S/M/presets) when recording video and creates independent video presets.

Menus. The redesigned menu layout is an improvement in terms of the organization over the A7R4, making browsing rather than memorization possible. Sony’s menus have gotten better over the years, but that also means that they have constantly changed. Although the grouping of functions is more logical, some things remain unintuitive. For instance, when deploying the Bluetooth remote RMT-P1BT, you would think that all the relevant settings are under the Network > Bluetooth menu, but it is not enough to turn the Bluetooth function on and do the Pairing there, you also need to go to the Network > Transfer/Remote menu to enable Bluetooth Rmt Ctrl.

Beyond those external changes, there is a more powerful image-processing engine. Besides making possible faster operation, it supports useful new features. This article focuses on the four of them that help improve image quality:

• Lossless Raw Compression
• Focus bracketing
• Improved Image Stabilization
• Motion-compensated Pixel Shift

Lossless Raw Compression

The first new feature of the A7R5 that caught my attention on its specs sheet was the availability of lossless RAW compression. What is it and why?

When the A7R was released, using a compression algorithm, Sony kept the RAW files to a reasonable size, comparable to other manufacturers. Unfortunately, unlike competitors, Sony’s compression algorithm was lossy, which means that the full data captured by the sensor could not be recovered from it by decompression. Their compression algorithm (explained here in great detail) works by rounding pixel values, and this can introduce visible posterization under some circumstances. In practice, artifacts occurred in uniform zones near high contrast areas. Brightening shadows made them more noticeable, such as in the example below.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, 2018. Sony A7R2, 24-105mm, compressed RAW. Compression artifacts are visible on both the left and right sides of the window frame.

Although some photographers have never observed such artifacts, they are easy to reproduce. In fact, I didn’t have to go anywhere to take such a picture, I had just to stand behind my desk! See the detail on the bottom left:

San Jose CA, 2023. Sony A7R5, 24-105mm, Left: Compressed RAW. Right: Lossless compressed RAW

Sony listened to users by releasing an uncompressed RAW option via a firmware upgrade for the A7R2 in September 2015. This format preserves all the sensor data and avoids compression artifacts, however, it remains less than ideal because the file sizes are huge. For that reason, I continued to mostly use compressed RAW, which is entirely adequate for most scenes, switching (or often forgetting to do so) to uncompressed RAW for high-contrast scenes.

File sizes with uncompressed RAW, compressed RAW, and lossless compressed RAW (unmarked default)

Finally, in 2021, Sony took advantage of the new processing power of its flagship A1 to introduce a lossless compressed RAW mode. In such a format, similar to a ZIP file, decompression allows you to expand the compressed file back to all its data, while the lossless compressed file is smaller than the uncompressed file, but not quite as small as a (lossy) compressed file, as seen in the example above. New with the A7R5, the lossless compressed RAWs can be recorded at smaller sizes of 15MP and 26MP in case you need the RAW format but not the full size of 60MP. Those files, downsampled from 60MP, are not subject to Bayer interpolation (see later section), and therefore higher-quality than native files of the same size such as those captured in APS-C mode.

Focus bracketing

Another feature that had been available in other brands and lacking in Sony cameras was automated focus bracketing. By automatically taking a series of frames focussed at different distances, the camera creates a stack that can then be merged by post-processing (I use Photoshop or Helicon Focus) for extended depth of field not possible with a single picture by the process of focus stacking. Individual frames can be captured at “optimal” apertures of f/5.6 or f/8, preserving image sharpness that is compromised by diffraction at smaller apertures, but doing so requires even more frames than if a smaller aperture was used. The technique has been indispensable in medium-format digital cameras even when their resolution was below 30 MPs, and as full-frame cameras easily surpass that territory, it can help unlock their full imaging potential.

San Jose CA, 2023. Focus stack, Sony A7R5, 55mm lens f/11. The closest point was located at 1.8 m. Selecting step size 4 resulted in 17 frames automatically captured.

Left: Focus-stacked image. Right: frame focused at the hyperfocal distance (4.5 m) and stopped down to the smallest aperture of f/22. At infinity (top), the focus is adequate, but details are blurred by diffraction. The close flowers were not within the depth of field area, which means that it is not possible to get everything in this image sharp with a single frame. Click to enlarge.

Taking the series of frames by focusing manually is tedious, time-consuming, and error-prone, especially in those situations where dozens of frames are necessary. Sony’s lack of automated focus bracketing was partly alleviated by third-party triggering devices or apps. For instance, the app Shutter, brought automated focus bracketing to the A7R4 and more recent cameras (but cannot support earlier cameras such as the A7R3). The app works, but has two major drawbacks: it depends on control via iPhone, and it is extremely slow, taking about 9 seconds between each frame. Keep in mind that a close-up focus stack can easily involve several dozens of frames and take several minutes. The A7R5 is the first Sony camera with built-in focus bracketing. It is easily accessed as one of the drive modes and operates at a more reasonable speed of about 0.4 seconds between frames. A drawback of making it a drive mode is that it cannot be combined with other drive modes such as exposure bracketing or pixel shift (unlike with Shutter). Fortunately, if like me you generally use the self-timer (another drive mode) instead of a remote release, you can combine it with focus bracketing by a custom option: Shooting > Drive Mode > Bracket Settings > Selftimer during Bracket.

You set up a near focus point, relative step width from 1 to 10, and the maximum number of shots up to 299, then upon shutter release the camera keeps taking pictures at increasing focus distances until the focus reaches infinity or the number of pictures reaches the set maximum (which I set up at a high 100 by default since the camera will stop automatically upon reaching infinity). In determining the actual step width, the camera takes into account both the aperture and the focal length, so you don’t have to factor those in your choice of the relative step width. Depth of field is proportional to the f-number and inversely proportional to the squared focal length. Opening the aperture by two f-stops divides the actual step by approximately two, doubling the number of frames. Doubling the focal length divides the actual step by approximately four. For an example, see the table below that indicates the number of frames in the stack with a close focusing point at 1.2 m (4 feet) which isn’t even that close – the Sony 24-105 focuses down to 0.4 m. Those numbers can be pretty large with longer focal lengths.

Relative step width		1	2	4	8
f/8	24 mm	8	7	6	4
	50 mm	64	51	34	21
	100 mm	252	195	129	78
f/16	24 mm	5	5	4	3
	50 mm	33	25	17	11
	100 mm	126	97	65	40

Number of frames in focus stack as a function of relative step width, focal length, and aperture

Choosing the optimal step width requires experimentation and I am still trying to figure it out, but in general, the standard default 4 seems to works well. With 8 steps, there is no focus banding, but contrast/resolution appears a bit lower. Unless you want to deal with a massive number of frames, it doesn’t seem to be a good idea to go to the smaller steps, especially with longer than normal focal lengths.

Sony’s implementation is no worse than competitors, but unlike Shutter‘s, it does not let you select the far point. This wastes a number of frames, especially in macro situations, and you cannot know in advance how many frames will be taken. In addition, I have sometimes seen a bit of variation between the faraway frames of stacks, which could indicate that the camera doesn’t reliably reach exactly infinity. That defect doesn’t make the focus bracket feature unusable, but it might be prudent to add to the stack a picture manually focused at infinity.

iPhone screenshot with Shutter App

When shooting large stacks, the much larger frame buffer (583 RAWs vs. 68 RAWs for the A7R4) is helpful. At first, the option to create a new folder for every focus bracket series appeared useful, until I realized that the file numbers start at 0 for each series. Apparently, quite a few designers think it is a good idea since the same thing happens with the panoramic series on the DJI drones, but I much prefer to have distinct file names for every image.

Improved Image Stabilization

Sony claims that a new system with a precision up to a single pixel level has enabled “up to 8-step compensation effect for stills” but this number refers to obscure CIPA standards. Besides the fact that Earth’s rotation limits stabilization performance to 6.3 stops, does anybody seriously expect image stabilization to be that effective? Eight stops separate a shutter speed of 1/400s and a shutter speed of 1/3s. On the other hand, Sony claimed 5.5 stops for the A7R4, so maybe there is some actual improvement. Since I didn’t find any actual measurements on the internet, I set out to figure out how much of an improvement there is.

To obtain each data point, I photographed ten times a frame-filling SFR Plus Auto target and ran Imatest to measure how sharp the frame was. The lens was the excellent Sony 55mm f/1.8 lens with aperture set in the f/4 – f/5.6 range. ISO was in the 50 to 800 range. The camera was hand-held with my left hand supporting the lens. I took each picture independently with reasonable (but not maximal) care, in single frame mode. Images were captured in RAW and exported from Lightroom with all sliders zeroed. The numbers reported are the average over 38 measurements within a frame of MTF 50 values (in LW/PH), which correlate well with image sharpness. To provide you with a reference point and put findings in perspective, here are how those numbers vary when the 55mm lens is stopped down while shot on a tripod at ISO 100.

In case you are worried about the effect of ISO variation on the measured hand-held results, I evaluated that variation by also photographing on a tripod so that by cancelling the influence of shutter speeds, the only variable left was ISO. Going from ISO 50 to ISO 800, MTF 50 went from 2610 to 2470, which is a (surprisingly?) relatively small variation.

Since the Sony 55mm lens does not have image stabilization built-in, it comes only from the in-body image stabilization (IBIS) system of the camera. I went through all four combinations of cameras (A7R4/A7R5) and IBIS on/off. Each point in the table and graph below is obtained by averaging measurements taken over ten frames.

Sharpness as a function of shutter speed.

The data isn’t perfect since ten frames are not that much, and trying to characterize the performance of IBIS with a single number is over-simplistic as what is being measured is the probability of getting a sharp image rather than image sharpness. However, there are still useful observations to be made.

• As expected, sharpness decreases as shutter speeds slow down, and measurements with IBIS off for each camera are similar.
• For any shutter speeds below 1/400s, there is degradation in sharpness compared to shooting at 1/400s (or on a tripod), regardless of whether IBIS is used or not. Keep in mind that this is a 55mm lens, for which traditional wisdom recommends a hand-held speed of 1/60s or faster.
• Even at 1/200s, IBIS improves image sharpness. The improvement increases as the shutter speed drops.
• Down to 1/25s, with IBIS, sharpness remains high (but your assessment may vary).
• IBIS on the A7R5 outperforms the A7R4 by a fairly consistent margin from 1/100s to 1/3s.

To find out the number stops improvement at a given shutter speed, we look at the MTF50 value with IBIS off and then find the slower shutter speed that yields the same exact MTF50 value with IBIS on. As this number varies with shutter speeds, it is a simplification to account for the performance difference with a single number. However, for a large portion of the graph, that number is consistent enough that we can read it as about 2 1/3 stops for the A7R4 and 3 1/3 stops for the A7R5, therefore a one-stop improvement: not anywhere close to the claimed values, but still significant.

Determining the number of stops gained with IBIS. Solid arrows: A7R5, dotted arrows: A7R4.

One could argue that landscape photography is best done from a tripod, but there are many situations when I choose to photograph hand-held, either for flexibility, trying to keep pace with non-photographers, or because I left the tripod behind for a long hike.

Motion-compensated Pixel-Shift

The Sony A7R3 introduced two pixel-shift modes for tripod use. The camera captures a series of additional frames as the sensor shifts by a few microns within the focal plane. Those frames were then composited in Sony Imaging Edge desktop software to yield images with improved resolution. How does that process increase resolution?

Bayer Pattern (courtesy of Colin M.L. Burnett)

A color pixel is supposed to be a location with a value for each of red, green, and blue (RGB). However, those values are not sensed by almost all modern cameras. Instead, they use a black-and-white sensor covered in a Bayer pattern of R,G,B filters. Instead of all three colors, each site only detects the brightness of one color. RAW demosaicing software, either in-camera for JPG generation or on the desktop, must make an estimate (interpolation) as to what the values for the two missing colors are. The exception are the Foveon (acquired by Sigma) sensors which use three layers to capture true RGB values at each pixel site. Because those values are captured rather than interpolated, they produce three times the amount of data as Bayer sensors. Foveon claimed that this translates to an image as detailed as one captured with a Bayer sensor with three times the number of pixels, but a more estimates puts one full-color pixel as equivalent to between 1.7 and 2.1 Bayer pixels.

In the first Sony pixel shift mode, the idea is to overcome the limitations of the Bayer interpolation by capturing full color information at each pixel. The Bayer filter is fixed, but the sensor moves. The shift is of exactly one pixel, and four images are captured to obtain a readout of the R, G (twice), B values for each pixel site by sampling all the positions of the 2×2 Bayer grid. The software composites those images to create an image of identical size but of higher fidelity, with true RGB values at each pixel instead of interpolated RGB values. Using the most conservative estimate 60 x 1.7, I expect such an image to be at least equivalent to one produced by 100 MP camera such as the Fuji GFX 100s.

The Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm, maybe the sharpest lens in the Sony system (and possibly all of 35mm photography) illustrates what is possible with a top lens, but I was curious to see if anything could be gained with a less stellar lens, such as my bread and butter Sony 24-105mm zoom set at the same focal length. A feature that works only for high-performance lenses is not as useful. Let’s do a bit of pixel peeping!

Sony A7R5, Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm, left: single frame, right: pixel shift composite of four images (click to enlarge)

Sony A7R5, 24-105mm, left: single frame, right: pixel shift composite of four images (click to enlarge)

Even with the zoom, there are subtle but visible improvements. I also tried another scenario with less than optimal imaging: high ISO. In the indoor scene below captured at ISO 4000, you can see that not only the pixel shift composite has better resolution (see how the label “Harmonia Mundi” of the Monteverdi CD becomes legible), the noise is also significantly reduced.

Sony A7R5, Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm, left: single frame, right: pixel shift composite of four images (click to enlarge)

The gain in resolution obtained by making a panoramic composite seem larger and that approach more straightforward, however with pixel shift, you simply use a different drive mode and press the shutter once. Until you decide to create the pixel shift composite, no additional work is involved over a single-frame image. The drawback is having to use the clunky Sony Imaging Edge software and manage much additional data. Unfortunately, when activating pixel shift mode, the RAWs have to be recorded uncompressed. Why this is the case is puzzling given that pixel shift images are captured at a modest 2 frames per second. Another inconvenience is that pixel-shift RAWs generated by Sony Imaging Edge are stored in a proprietary .ARQ format file (fortunately supported by Adobe Lightroom) that is close to 500MB each, which appears unnecessarily large. Pixel-shift TIFFs are 180MB like single-frame TIFFs but lose the flexibility of RAW files. I’d use the ARQs at an intermediate stage for applying corrections that benefit from the RAW controls such as white balance or highlight recovery. Unlike panoramic composites, with pixel shift composites, there is no need to recompose, deal with parallax, or with motion.

Motion? With the A7R3 & A7R4, even minute pixel-size motion in the scene (such as leaves on a tree) caused artifacts. That made pixel shift largely unpractical for outdoor scenes, to the point that I never bothered with the feature. All of this totally changed with the A7R5 as the 3.5 version of Imaging Edge software now has the game-changing option “Stabilize a composite image if it contains a moving object”. Since the processing takes place on the desktop, it is unclear why the software cannot perform this option for A7R4 images, but that is a fact prominently stated. Besides the A7R5, the only other eligible camera is currently the A1. Given how well it works, I hope that in the future Sony will offer an option to have pixel-shift images merged in-camera like the Panasonic S1R or Olympus E-M1. If that is not possible, at least Imaging Edge could have an option to create pixel shift composites in batch. Automatic detection within a folder (like Autopano does) should be easy to implement since the meta-data already identifies pixel shift component images.

“Deghosting” would be a more precise term than “stabilization”: it appears as if when the software identifies an area with motion between the component images, instead of attempting to composite RGB values, it corrects the motion simply by using the pixels of a single frame (with Bayer interpolation). If the camera moved, even by a few pixels, then the composite defaults to the first frame. The process works very well. Compare those two images taken from my window, the first with the motion correction turned off, and the second with the correction option turned on. On this windy day, there is no need to enlarge the image to see what happened without motion correction. On the other hand, less obvious, and therefore harder-to-spot artifacts show up at pixel level as cross-hatching. Even with close inspection I did not see any of those in the image with motion correction.

San Jose CA, 2023. Sony A7R5, Voigtländer Macro Apo-Lanthar 65mm, pixel shift composite of four images (click to enlarge). Top: motion correction off, Bottom: motion correction on

A second, more ambitious pixel shift mode is present. Its idea is to achieve sub-pixel accuracy by shifting the sensor by half a pixel to all four half-pixel positions within a pixel, quadrupling the file size and resolution. For each of the four positions, an intermediate full-RGB image is created using the 4-pixel shift method, so in total 16 images are captured. Like with the 4-pixel shift method, this is all activated by a single shutter press. However, capture time and storage are quadrupled to a whopping 2.2 GB for the 16 component images, and 723 MB for the composite image. The benefits are less obvious: achieving the full benefits of sub-pixel sampling requires everything in the imaging chain to work at a sub-pixel accuracy. Although there is sometimes an improvement over the 4-pixel shift, I found it difficult to assess, partly because it is tricky to directly compare images of vastly different sizes. Since this article is already quite long, I will spare you more pixel peeping.

Little Things

Timed Bulb. Like many digital cameras, the A7R4’s longest timed shutter speed was 30 seconds. To time a longer exposure, you needed to use remote control. The A7R5 brings longer timed exposures. If you use the BULB setting from the M mode as before, a stopwatch runs in viewfinder or monitor. If you turn Exposure>BULB Time Settings to On, you can program the length of the exposure from 2 seconds to 15 minutes (but why not longer, for example for star trails?). Note that this works only in mechanical shutter mode (Shooting > Shutter/Silent > Shutter Type). However, I wish Sony would have simply extended the shutter speed dials by 1/3 stops increments beyond 30 seconds.

Full-time DMF Sony has supported in all Alpha cameras a DMF (Direct Manual Focus) mode where both AF and the focus ring are active, however, in that mode some important functions were disabled. With the option Focus > AF/MF > Full Time DMF, the focus ring is always active regardless of the focusing mode (this was one of the selling points of the Canon EF Mount!).

White balance sensor With the addition of a new front-facing external light sensor (already present in early Nikon DSLRS), automatic white balance is more accurate than before. Even if you are using RAW, this can save time on color correction.

Greyscale Imatest SFR target, photographed with auto white balance. Left: A7R4. Right: A7R5

Dust control With small film cameras, dust wasn’t much of an issue because each frame was a new piece of film. Because of their sensors, DSLRs were much more vulnerable to dust, but at least there were a mirror and a shutter to stand between the lens mount and the sensor. In the Sony Alpha cameras, the absence of a mirror and a short flange distance left the sensor very vulnerable to dust. Using a brand A7R2 in 2015, I was shocked to see more than a dozen dust spots in each frame after a two-day architectural assignment mostly indoors. Olympus invented an apparatus with a piezo crystal ultrasonic vibration of the filter in from of the sensor around 35-50K Hz. The Canon 5Dmk3 adopted this system, automatically activating ultrasonic at every power cycle. This almost alleviated the need for sensor cleaning compared to the 5Dmk2. By contrast, the Sony cameras from the A7R2 to the A7R4 used the IBIS system to shake the entire sensor assembly on demand, at about 100 Hz. I wondered if Sony did not make that automatic because they wanted to minimize an action which is mechanically quite violent, like a cell phone vibrating. The A7R5 has adopted the ultrasonic approach, where only the filter glass vibrates to shake off the dust. Time will tell if this works better, but there is a second improvement, one that I had been calling for since the A7R2: if you turn the option Setup > Setup Option > Anti-Dust Function > Shutter When Pwr OFF, when you switch the camera power switch to off (which I always do when changing lenses), the shutter will close to cover the sensor. It is probably a good idea to clean the shutter with air from time to time before the dust can make it onto the sensor.

Conclusion

The A7R4 already had the best resolution and dynamic range of any digital camera, short of medium-format. Testing showed no change in still image quality in the A7R5 – if anything, an increase in noise was measurable but insignificant. The A7R5 adds many new or improved features. Although several of them are mostly aimed at action and video shooters, and outside the scope of this partial review, there are a number of other improvements that matter to landscape photographers. While none of them in itself is a breakthrough, except maybe usable pixel-shift for those who wish to achieve medium-format quality through computational photography, together they add up to a fully matured camera which has remedied the weaknesses of earlier Sony cameras. For this reason, I felt that the A7R5 was a worthwhile upgrade. If this review was useful to you, please consider buying the A7R5 from my affiliate links at Amazon or B&H.

Despite its small size, the National Park of American Samoa is one of the most beautiful parks of the system, graced with stunning white sand beaches, pristine coral reefs, towering sea cliffs, and lush, forested mountains. American Samoa, in the Southern Hemisphere, right in the center of Polynesia, is the southernmost US territory and the only one south of the equator. This makes the National Park of American Samoa the most faraway of the 63 National Parks, the reason why it is one of the least visited despite its great appeal. During the pandemic years, travel to American Samoa was almost impossible because of draconian restrictions. They eased up last summer, so you can again start planning to visit this unique park. The first (and for most, only) part of the park you will visit is located on the main island of Tuitula, and in this article, you’ll discover what I saw there.

Updated: June 2024

The unusual name of “National Park of American Samoa,” rather than “American Samoa National Park,” reflects its status unique in the national park system: its lands are all leased from Samoan villages of Fitiuta, Faleasao, Ta’u, Olosega, Ofu, Afono, Vatia, Pago-Pago, and Fagasa that are the true landowners. Under the Samoan land system, nobody who is less than 50% Samoan can own property. As its name implies, American Samoa is part of the U.S., and almost everybody speaks some English. One of the reasons American Samoa elected to remain a U.S. territory rather than a U.S. state like Hawaii was to perpetuate the validity of their land system. The lease agreement was signed between the American Samoa Government and the National Park Service in 1993 and is valid for 50 years. It marked the intersection of two widely different land tenure systems—the South Seas matai communal land arrangement kept by oral tradition, and the Western record-based.

Samoa is thought to be one of the original homelands of the Polynesian people, according to oral traditions and archaeological findings. 90% of people in American Samoa are either Pacific Islanders or Samoans. The majority of islanders speak Samoan as their first language, and they practice the Fa’asamoa (Samoan way of life). Many Samoans still maintain a close connection to their natural surroundings and rely on the ocean, coral reefs, and tropical rainforests for food and traditional rituals. The park is home to numerous significant cultural artifacts that are closely related to both the past and present of the Samoan people. Besides the scenery and ecosystem, perpetuating Fa’asamoa was a reason why the park was established. The Samoan people are some of the most friendly and welcoming I have encountered. A visit is a great opportunity to discover the vibrant and welcoming Samoan culture. The National Park Service even facilitates a homestay program which I took advantage of during my visit to Tau Island.

Traveling to American Samoa

The Samoan Islands are 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii and 1,800 miles northeast of New Zealand. They include the U.S. territory of American Samoa and the independent nation of Samoa. The only way to fly to American Samoa from the U.S. is with Hawaiian Airlines. The trip from Honolulu, Hawaii (HNL) to Pago Pago (PPG) takes five hours and is offered on a biweekly schedule except during summer when a third weekly flight is available to accommodate travel demands from Samoans. As of this writing, flights arrive and leave Pago-Pago in the evening on Mondays, Wednesday, plus Thursday in the summer. Because Hawaiian Airlines has a monopoly, that flight is quite expensive, ranging from $1,000 to $1,500, or an outrageous 170K miles. The less convenient alternative is to fly to Pago Pago from Fagalii Airport (FGI) in Independent Samoa, which will likely require an overnight in Apia because of flight schedules. The main airport of Independent Samoa, Apia (APW) can be reached from Nadi (NAN) in Fiji, Auckland (AKL) in New Zealand, or Sydney (SYD) in Australia. If you have time to stop at those places on your way to or from American Samoa, you could visit several of them for not much more than the cost of the flight from the U.S. Although American Samoa is part of the U.S., even if you are a U.S. citizen traveling from Hawaii, a passport is required.

Local logistics

For getting around, you could use taxis or the colorful aiga busses, but the most convenient is to rent a car. There are three rental companies. Avis is the only national company. Since the pandemic and as of 2024, they do not maintain an office at the airport, however their agent can meet you at the airport or your hotel, and they responded to email. The local Tropical Car Rental has lower rates, a desk at the airport, but did not reply to emails. Tautai Car Rental’s office was never open and they did not reply to emails.

The Tradewinds Hotel is a large business hotel located a mile and a half from the airport with good standard amenities. Both the Sadie’s by the Sea and Sadie Thompson Inn have a better waterfront location in Pago Pago. There are also AirB&Bs that are less expensive. Tisa’s Barefoot Bar, considered by some to be the best eatery on the island (their Wednesday Samoan Fest is a great experience), also operates a high-end B&B located on the beach. There are no campgrounds. Camping is prohibited in the national park, so would be on private land and require permission from the landowner or village chief.

While you can pay for your hotel and car rental by credit card, other transactions either require or are much smoother using cash in U.S. dollars.

The National Park

The park spreads over units on three islands, Tuitula (2,500 acres of land and 1,200 acres of waters) Ta‘ū (3,700 acres of land and 1,100 acres of waters), and Ofu (70 acres of land and 400 acres of waters). Ta’ū and Ofu are two of the Manu’a islands, that lie some 60 miles east of Tuitula and can at times be challenging to travel to, as the availability of commercial flights to the Manu‘a Islands has varied in the past years. All visitors arrive via Tuitula, which is the only developed island, even though it is certainly not set up for tourism like the Pacific resort islands. Unlike the Manu’a islands, it has the usual travel amenities: car rentals, hotels, restaurants, and stores. The parkland on Tutuila Island makes up around one-sixth of the entire island and is situated in the northern center of the island.

The Visitor Center

The national park visitor center is located in the harbor area, in the direction opposite to the park from downtown Pago Pago. Besides its excellent exhibits and very friendly staff, it is not to be missed for those who try to visit each of the national parks. If one contents themselves of a visit to the Northwest Alaska national parks consisting of a stroll from a quick bush plane landing, then the National Park of American Samoa is the most difficult to visit of them all, which is why many save it for last. If so, the park rangers there will provide you with a certificate of completion! Since that information is not included in the park literature, don’t forget to ask for precise directions to help you find trees with clusters of fruit bats, the only indigenous mammals on the islands.

The Coast

If you are used to visiting national parks by driving in, you won’t find yourself in unfamiliar territory, as there is one scenic road inside the Tuitula Unit. That road, Route 006, enters the park past the village of Afono, and although doesn’t stretch in the park for more than a few miles along the coast, it is scenic. Along it, you’ll find lush tropical vegetation, inviting sandy beaches, higher views over water from the bluff, and two moderate trails, the Lower Sauma Ridge Trail (0.5 miles roundtrip) and the Tuafanua Trail (2.2 miles roundtrip) which is adventurous with its sections with steep steps and ropes for balance. Both start in the forest and provide great views of Pola Island at the end.

Vatia is a quiet village with clear waters that offer good snorkeling, and homestays are possible. After driving past Vatia to the end of the rough road, which is marked as a hiking trail on the map, a short stroll leads to a beach with large round pebbles. From there, you’ll discover in both directions the most spectacular coastal views on the island. Since that side of Vatia Bay faces the east, I made sure to come at sunrise. On two mornings I witnessed very different conditions. On a stormy morning, I photographed the green hills to the south as silhouettes in a composition full of atmosphere and drama. A long exposure brightened the ocean water, linking it to the sky while creating a strong contrast with the dark rocks of the beach. On a clear morning, when the sun rose over the South Pacific, it illuminated the 400-foot cliffs of Pola Island to the north, covered with lush vegetation, as the waves filled the air with warm moisture. Recalling the Polynesian creation stories about the origins of the Samoan Islands, I imagined I was witnessing the morning of Creation itself. A shorter shutter speed preserved both the form and motion of a wave with an exposure timed so that it would form another line leading the eye toward the cliff.

The Mountain

The Mount Alava Trail is the longest and most well-marked hike on the entire island: 7 miles round-trip, with a 1,000-foot elevation gain from Fagasa Pass to the summit. The hike allows you to immerse yourself in the island’s lush mountaintop rainforest. Samoa’s palaeotropical (Old World) rainforests are unique within the national parks because they are closely related to those of Asia and Africa, as opposed to the neotropical (New World) forests of the Americas. The main trail follows a four-wheel-drive track, climbing to the summit of Mount Alava (elevation 1,610 feet). The summit can also be reached by a shorter, but much steeper route (5.6 miles round-trip; 1,610-foot elevation gain) from the Vatia village, involving steps with ropes for balance.

When I arrived there, clouds blocked the views. Pago Pago receives the highest annual rainfall of any harbor in the world. As I learned from previous days that the island’s weather can change quickly, I stuck around, photographing close-ups of tropical flowers in the soft light. My patience was rewarded when the clouds began to break apart. After the strongest Specter of Brocken display that I ever witnessed – centered around my own silhouette, gaps started to reveal distant ridges, creating atmosphere.

As the trail follows the ridge that marks the southern boundary of the park, the views are spectacular in both directions. When the clouds parted way, I was treated to views of Pago Pago Harbor on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other.

There used to be a cable-supported tramway that across the harbor up to the summit. This tramway, which was finished in 1965, was built to give television technicians a route to go to the TV transmitters installed atop Mount Alava for maintenance. Up until 1992, when a cyclone severely damaged it, it was also utilized by locals and schoolchildren, particularly the villagers from Vatia on the north Pacific coast. The tropical heat and humidity makes the Mount Alava hike tough, but that off-the-beaten path activity was hugely rewarding.

Today is our Lunar New Year, the Tết 2023 – a word infamous in American history for the 1968 offensive during the Vietnam War. From our family to yours, happy new year, and may your dreams come true.

As implied by its name, Lunar New Year is based on the lunar calendar, which is the oldest calendar owning to its simplicity: you just needed to glance at the clear night sky to figure out where you are in the month. It is based on the 29.5-day moon cycle: first day of moon is 1st of the month, full moon is 14th day of the month. The drawback is that twelve lunar months add only up to 354 days, less than one full solar year. To avoid getting out of step with the seasons, the Chinese had to add a 13th month approximately once every three years – kind of like a super leap year, making it a “lunisolar” calendar. This drawback led to the adoption of the Julian, and then Gregorian calendars.

Lunar New Year is often referred to as Chinese New Year, but the terms are not exactly equivalent. Chinese New Year incorporates specific elements from ancient Chinese culture and, on the other hand, some countries celebrate Lunar New Year on a different date and with different customs. Because of the historic influence of China over Vietnam’s history, Chinese New Year was passed on to the Vietnamese and has stayed quite intact. The main difference is in the animal zodiac, which runs on a twelve-year cycle. The Vietnamese have replaced the Rabbit with the Cat (much to my chagrin) – and also the Ox with the Buffalo, seemingly indicating a common motivation to honor agriculturally useful animals.

Other traditions are similar, such as dragon and lion dances, setting off firecrackers, and giving red envelopes holding money to children. We also dress up in the Vietnamese traditional national garment, the áo dài, a long (“dài”) split tunic worn over silk trousers, in modern times by girls and women. Our extended family sets up two lineups ordered by age, one for the adult women, the other for the children. Each child then offers a greeting to each adult before receiving their red envelope. In the pandemic years, we had refrained from indoor gatherings, so it was great to resume the tradition. I have traveled around the world to witness traditions like that in various cultures, but they are also taking place in suburban homes in America.

Naturally, I also try to photograph my family, although in retrospect I wished I would have devoted much more effort than I did to this project, despite the subjects recalcitrance. Sally Mann set the bar so high that it felt unreachable, but I later realized that just showing the passage of time in a consistent way could have artistic value. I have not shared images beyond a circle of friends and family, but since I have published so few images last year, today, I am making an exception. At some point, I might release this work in black and white, but due to the eye-catching hues in play here, I have kept the colors to convey the festive occasion.

Chúc mừng năm mới 2023!

This year, I took a break.

Please bear with me for a little digression. Many photographers limit their websites to a few hundred images. They believe that they must show only photographs that meet their standards of perfection, and that quantity is inversely correlated with quality. This has never been my approach, and not only because I based my business on the Internet from the start. A larger collection of images tells a more complete story and is more representative of my experience. In any longer art form, be it a novel, a movie, or a symphony, not all moments can be of transcendent beauty. It is the presence of more mundane and imperfect passages that makes those moments feel that way, and the whole piece true to life. In David Bayles and Ted Orland’s classic Art and Fear, an art teacher divides a class into two groups, one graded solely on the quantity of work produced, the other on its quality. At grading time, a curious fact emerges: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity.

For over a quarter-century, I had been producing and posting photographs at a prolific rate. Since I launched this website, I had been posting an average of 2,000 new images each year, mostly on a monthly basis with no interruption until 2021, as attested by the terragalleria.com timeline. In 2022, I posted a single image release with less than two hundred photos. What happened?

I work best on long-term, multi-year projects. In 2021, I completed Our National Monuments. There is always a period of release and floating that follows months of intense focus. I didn’t feel like producing much output. When such a situation happens, there is no need to force it, as creativity is cyclic. After fifteen years in business, I finally felt I didn’t have to take new pictures nor post any. Following a commitment to family made last year, I had no photo trips planned – besides a quixotic quest in northwest Alaska that didn’t pan out again. In the past, I needed to be in a particular mindset to look for photographs in earnest, which was generally linked to traveling to a faraway place.

Dubai is, if anything, far away from California. The time difference is exactly 12 hours, meaning that it is the opposite northern hemisphere location on the globe – the 16-hour direct flight from San Francisco was straight north over the pole. Although, because of the pandemic, my stay was limited to a short four days, it was exciting to try to photograph the futuristic and diverse city on a whirlwind tour. The impetus for that trip in February was an invitation from the U.S. State Department to talk about my work, as the USA Pavilion at Expo 2020 featured nine of my national park photographs as one of the exhibits. I was also grateful for the opportunity to photograph the pavilion for the firm that had designed and produced it. In a year light on productivity but heavy on honors, Our National Monuments won six awards including a National Outdoor Book Award and I was immensely gratified to receive the Sierra Club’s Ansel Adams Award for Photography which “honors superlative photography that has been used to further conservation causes.”

In April, Dr. Fauci declared the “pandemic phase” over, but that’s when our family caught the virus. Although the symptoms were mild, I felt general fatigue for months. By July, we felt comfortable resuming family travel. For our first destination, we chose the island of Maui. Not intending the trip to be about photography (at last), I did not plan to make landscape pictures. Although we did visit the two Haleakala National Park locations at the Haleakala Crater and Kipalahu, we missed the waterfall hike. One thing we did not miss was Ululani’s, which my daughter’s research determined to be the best Hawaiian shave ice – so finely shaved that you’d think it is sorbet.

My wife had found the Haleakala Crater hike tough. She decided to join me in walking several times per week. San Jose is surprisingly decent for hiking, with a wide choice of trails less than half an hour away from home. You’d think that mid-summer in hot and cloudless California is not a good time, but if you start early in the morning, hiking remains enjoyable, especially with a good hiking umbrella for shade. On those hikes, I initially refrained from even bringing a camera. I wanted them to be a family activity. I didn’t want to break the pace or go at an hour that normal people wouldn’t pick to hike. But I kept seeing photographs – a curse or a blessing? Eventually, I found a way to work within the self-imposed constraints.

The lack of mental focus from the lingering effects of the virus contributed to making most of this year a succession of eclectic pursuits to explore ideas outside of what had become my comfort zone. Those related to photography included reading about photography theory, studying and even teaching portrait photography, and thinking of ways to move forward. With the South Bay Area hikes, maybe I had the beginning of a more sustained project, which delighted me because of its local character. In the past, I released a collection of images after each trip. Because of their duration, they felt like a self-contained unit. That’s not the case with a hike of a couple of hours, so I will wait for this body of work to take shape. In the while, here are a few photographs from the last day of 2022 without rain (Dec. 28). The location, Henry Coe State Park, 15 miles away as the crow flies but more than double that distance by road, also happens to the furthest from our home to which we have gone for our local hikes.

If you’ve read so far, my sincere thanks for your interest in my work. I wish you and your family a slightly belated – everything I did was a bit slow – happy new year 2023 full of happiness, health, joy, peace, and beauty.

Arches National Park is, of course, renowned for its more than 2,000 documented arches, as well as other sandstone rock formations. However, as always, there is more to discover than the main attractions. Follow me along the less-traveled Courthouse Wash route where besides experiencing an unexpected desert river environment, you are sure to get away from the crowds that often overwhelm the park.

Arches National Park combines high visitation of more than 1.5 million annually and a relatively small area, making it one of the most crowded parks in the Colorado Plateau area. Think that you may beat the wait times and crowds by traveling off-season and getting up early? Look at this notice from last fall:

⚠Friday, Oct. 7 8:25am: The park is currently full, and we are temporarily delaying entries into the park. Vehicles attempting to enter the park should return in 3 to 5 hours.

Consider visiting nearby attractions. Check this account for updates before returning.

— Arches National Park (@ArchesNPS) October 7, 2022

No wonder that in 2022, Arches National Park felt compelled to issue an advance reservation system with mandatory timed entry tickets. Getting inside the park is only half the battle, as you are likely to find parking lots at popular trailheads totally filled and heavy foot traffic on the trails. By contrast, for most of the entire October day when I explored the Lower Courthouse Wash, an easily accessible hike, I did not meet another hiker. How is it possible?

Photographing an oasis in the desert

It could be that Courthouse Wash is not marked on the National Park Service official map as a trail, which is why I refer to it as a route instead, nor is it mentioned in guidebooks – even in Laurent Martres’ remarkably comprehensive Photographing the Southwest series. It could also be that along Lower Courthouse Wash, there are no arches to see – although Upper Courthouse Wash, which boats arches, is not much more popular. Instead of arches, the attraction is to experience a refreshing desert oasis hidden in the middle of a arid desert park with no other sources of water and little vegetation.

As part of a long-term project approach, I like to try to seek in each national park for a number of common subjects. Besides providing me with something to look for, this typological approach helps illustrate the key idea that each park is an individual environment, yet they are all interrelated. One such subject is autumn foliage, which manifests itself in a variety of ways across the different national parks. Like in any other desert, most of the plants in Arches National Park do not change colors in the autumn. The exception is the deciduous, water-loving plants found in riparian environments, of which Courthouse Wash is one of the most significant in the park.

Toward the end of October, willows and cottonwood trees turned bright yellow. A photograph of a cottonwood could be anywhere, so I sought to provide a sense of place by including an iconic rock formation in the image. From the bottom of the wash, none of them was visible. Near the beginning of the wash, I scrambled up slickrock for a higher viewpoint that showed the Courthouse Towers, after which Courthouse Wash is named. The backlight made the leaves glow and concentrated the attention on the shape of the rock towers, towards which the receding perspective of the trees led. Later in the day, I used low side-light to create a layered composition contrasting the foliage and the surrounding red rock, with a rock wall in the shade forming a clear delineation for the tree tops.

When walking inside the wash, the larger landmarks of the landscape are no longer visible, especially as I continued downstream, the canyon grew deeper and its walls taller. I reveled in the lushness surrounding me and in the stories of the place told by smaller details. Photographed backlit against a shaded canyon wall, the trunks of cottonwoods were rendered as a darker, unbroken shape contrasting with a continuous field of brilliant vegetation that filled up the picture. A closer look at the ground revealed an unexpected richness of plant life with fascinating textures and colors. Wildflowers that you’d expect in spring were still blooming in October, alongside fallen leaves. Adding to the juxtaposition of seasons, grasses were laid down horizontally along the ground. A testament to the power of powerful flash floods that sweep the canyon during the summer monsoons, they infused the photograph with movement. Those ground details are best photographed in soft light, so I sought them in the shade of the canyon walls.

Hiking

To immerse myself in the wilderness in primeval nature, and also enjoy the fun of finding my own path, I always love hiking away from the trails. However, in many environments, off-trail hiking is to be strictly avoided because of its impact on the vegetation. One such environment is the alpine tundra where owing to the growing season being limited to a month and half, the tiny plants have to work so hard for their survival that just a dozen footsteps will bring them to their demise. Another extremely fragile environment is the desert biological soil crust (also called cryptobiotic soil), which looks like patches of dark, knobby dirt, but is actually a living community of small organisms. Consisting of soil cyanobacteria, lichens and mosses, the delicate crust plays an important ecological role in the desert for soil stability, moisture retention, and plant nutrition. It can take anything from decades to centuries to recover from a single trampling. Arches National Park is generally full of biological soil crust. Although the National Park Service does not prohibit off-trail hiking in the park, the likelihood to encounter cryptobiotic soil is reason enough for refraining from wandering in many places. A desert wash like Courthouse Wash is not one of those places because the periodical flash floods hardly allow the formation of cryptobiotic soils. You are walking most of the time on sands.

When hiking cross-country, route finding can be a challenge, but hiking Courthouse Wash, I effortlessly followed the main canyon downstream. There are user trails on both banks, and by sticking to them, it is probably possible to hike the entire route with about only a dozen river crossings. However, with frequent patches of deep sand and occasional patches of quicksand, the sandy riverbanks didn’t offer consistent footing for a quick progression. Often I found wading straight in the creek easier, as the bed is formed by firmer sand. I wore shoes that work well when wet, just like I would do for a water hike like the Zion narrows, so getting my feet wet was the least of my worries. I suppose if you came during the summer, you’d even enjoy refreshing yourself in the swimming holes.

Directions

Lower Courthouse Wash stretches for 5.5 miles and is mostly flat. Ideally, you’d arrange a shuttle to hike one-way. Conversely, if you want to extend hiking, there are a number of side canyons to explore. The upper trailhead is located just north of the Tower of Babel and the only bridge on the park road, which is 4.5 miles north of the park entrance. Park at the large pull-out on the north (left) side of the road and walk across the road and into the wash at the bridge. If you seek a short walk, walking just a quarter of a mile will lead you to the first water hole and allow you to see this different environment.

The lower trailhead is located next to Moab along US-191. There is a parking lot just half-a-mile west of the highway bridge above the Colorado River from which you’d walk back towards the wash along the Moab Canyon Pathway. Since that trailhead is just outside the park, there is no fee and you can get in even if the park entrance has been closed to vehicles because it is full! East of the wash, the sizable Courthouse Rock Art panel includes both pictographs and petroglyphs and is located at the base of the cliffs overlooking the highway.

I am honored that Our National Monuments is the winner of the 2022 National Outdoor Book Awards for “Design and Artistic Merit”. It is the sixth award received by the book, after the previously announced wins at Foreword INDIES Book of the Year, National Indie Excellence Awards, International Book Awards and silver medals at Benjamin Franklin Awards and Nautilus Book Awards.

The National Outdoor Book Awards (NOBA) is the outdoor world’s largest and most prestigious book award program. It is a non-profit, educational program, sponsored by the National Outdoor Book Awards Foundation, Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education, and Idaho State University. The program, in its 26th year, has very high standards of fairness and objectivity. It relies on an independent panel of educators, academics, trade representatives, book reviewers, authors, editors and outdoors columnists from around the country.

Awards are presented in ten categories. Encompassing coffee-table books, the “Design and Artistic Merit” category is for books that are “graphically and visually appealing and use artistic design, photographs and/or other art forms”. Our National Monuments joins the ranks of exceptional books that I have admired (and greatly recommend) such as Bradford Washburn: Mountain Photography, The Living Wild and Edge of the Earth, Corner of the Sky by Art Wolfe, The Last Great Wild Places: Forty Years of Wildlife Photography by Thomas Mangelsen, and The Grand Canyon: Between River and Rim by Pete McBride awarded in the same category. The official NOBA review based on comments from the judging panels states:

The artistry of renowned photographer QT Luong is on full display in this stunning large format work… What a sumptuous treat this book is – but it is also a reminder that these areas need protectors.

The win is particularly gratifying to me because it was my first entry in this contest. I hesitated to submit Treasured Lands because of the requirement for nine copies (that’s 65 lbs of books!), a consequence of the rigor of the judging process. As the window for entry opens only for about two months, it was gone before I could give it a second though. Having subsequently learned about the prestige of the award, I regretted not having entered, however the program does not generally consider reprints, only first editions of books published within a year. Having missed that chance, I wondered if I would be able to produce another book of the same caliber. It was encouraging that upon receiving a pre-publication copy of Our National Monuments Jack Dykinga wrote “QT Luong has done it again”. Do not doubt that your best work is yet to come!

In terms of facilitating the creation of landscape photographs not possible before, high-sensitivity digital sensors rank high among other technological advances, as they have facilitated a new field sometimes called “astro-landscape photography”: photographs of landscapes with stars captured as points of light as the eye sees it. This article details all the technical knowledge that you need to pull out such images with general-purpose equipment consisting of no more than a tripod and a wide-angle lens. In the process, it brings you up to date with the current best practices and software tools developed in the past half-decade.

Petrified Forest National Park closes at sunset, but having obtained a backcountry permit, I was able to roam in the South Wilderness at night to make photographs of the petrified logs under the stars. Read the story behind this image. Sony A7R3, Nikon 14-24 lens. 10s at f/2.8, ISO 12800.

Exposure time for photographing stars as points

The technical challenge in capturing the stars as points is that they are dim and in relatively fast (relative) motion in the sky. How dim? My usual base exposure is f/2.8 – 30 sec – ISO 6400. Too long of an exposure time records stars as streaks rather than circles. With lower ISO, too short of an exposure misses faint stars, whereas higher ISO reduces resolution and increases noise.

The main factor in determining an exposure time that maintains stars as points is the focal length. The wider the lens, the smaller the magnification, and therefore the apparent motion of the stars. A long-established way to determine the length of the exposure in seconds is the “500 rule”: 500 divided by the focal length. For example, with a 16mm lens, the widest that many own, you’d use 31s = 500/16 (rounded to 30s in practice). Since that rule was designed in the film area when high-ISO film had sizable grains, it doesn’t hold up well with current digital cameras which are capable of resolving much finer details at high ISO. I found star streaking quite prominent even in medium-sized prints. Instead, I used a “300 rule” based on the same idea, which would give with the same lens an exposure time of 19s = 300/16.

Yet, such a rule does not take explicitly into account the imaging system’s ability to resolve details, and therefore distinguish a point from a streak. It depends on the pixel pitch and aperture, which determines the diffraction limits. Another consideration is that stars in the night sky are moving at different speeds. Stars closer to the celestial equator move faster, whereas a start near the celestial pole (Polaris in the Northern Hemisphere) hardly moves. This is accounted for by declination, which is the distance of a star measured from the celestial equator: it is zero at the celestial equator, and 90 degrees at the celestial pole.

In 2010, Frédéric Michaud developed a set of formulas called the NPF rule based on rigorous consideration of all those parameters (links in French – French education in mathematics is strong!). In 2017, Aaron Priest provided a write-up in English with a spreadsheet that brought more attention to this approach, and caused it to be implemented in several apps, including the popular PhotoPills, which is now the easiest way to use the NPF rule. As can be seen in the table below, NPF prescribes a shorter exposure time than even the “300 rule”. Photopill’s Default mode produces “Barely noticeable trails”, whereas the Accurate mode is “Useful for large prints” by roughly dividing the exposure time by two.

Lens	500 Rule	300 Rule	NPF Default	NPF Accurate
12mm f/2.8	42s	25s	18s	9s
12mm f/4	42s	25s	22s	11s
14mm f/1.8	36s	22s	13s	7s
14mm f/2.8	36s	22s	16s	8s
14mm f/4	36s	22s	19s	9s
16mm f/2.8	31s	19s	14s	7s
16mm f/4	31s	19s	16s	8s
20mm f/1.4	25s	15s	9s	4s
20mm f/2.8	25s	15s	11s	6s
20mm f/4	25s	15s	13s	7s
24mm f/1.4	21s	13s	7s	4s
24mm f/2.8	21s	13s	9s	5s
24mm f/4	21s	13s	11s	6s

Maximum exposure time for point stars with Sony A7R3 (42 MP full-frame) and commonly used wide-angle lenses

Those values assume a declination of zero, which is safe as it accounts for the fastest possible star motion. Photopills provides an elegant way to account for the actual declination. Tap on the button “AR” in the lower corner, point your phone in the same direction as your camera, and the NPF values will be updated accordingly in the AR display. Notice how the exposure time increases as you point your phone toward the celestial pole.

Photopills “Spot Stars” screen

Even though those explanations may appear overly technical, in practice there are just a few values to remember, or you can use an app. If you didn’t get enough exposure, you can also brighten in processing at the expense of a bit of additional noise. It’s not an exact science! Once you have determined an appropriate exposure time, then you use the lowest ISO that provides enough exposure for the stars, again something within 1 f-stop of f/2.8 – 30 sec – ISO 6400, or its equivalents such as f/2.8 – 15 sec – ISO 12800, f/1.4 – 30s – ISO 1600, etc..

Noise reduction

To be able to reach those shorter exposure times, there are only two possibilities in a single capture. You can use a faster lens. However, there are not many wide-angle lenses faster than f/2.8 and even with the fastest of them (f/1.4), you’d gain only two f-stops. Alternatively, you can increase the ISO, but this results in an image with less detail and more noise.

With earlier digital cameras, even ISO 1600 was a stretch, but recent cameras such as the Sony A7R3 make ISO 12800 quite usable once noise reduction is applied – even when the unprocessed image looks very noisy. One could think of luminance noise reduction and color noise reduction as two separate processes. In this example, processed in Lightroom, applying 25% of color noise reduction was enough to suppress most of the color noise. It could be cranked up to 100% without adverse effects on detail, but you’d lose some of the subtle color differentiation in the stars. On the other hand, increasing luminance noise reduction results in the loss of fine details. Besides an overall smoothness, notice how the faint stars disappear and how shadows turn to pure black as luminance noise reduction is increased. The result is still quite good, considering that we are looking at a 1,000-pixel-wide section of a 8,000-pixel-wide image.

Noise reduction with Lightroom. From left to right (1) original image; (2) Luminance NR 0, Color NR 25%; (3) Luminance NR 25%, Color NR 25%; (4) Luminance NR 50%, Color NR 25%; (5) Image stack. Click on image for full-resolution.

In recent years, Topaz Labs has introduced AI-based image-processing apps, sometimes with impressive results in sharpening and upsizing. Let see how Topaz Labs DeNoise AI compares to the noise reduction algorithms in Lightroom, which are quite good. DeNoise AI offers quite a few controls, including sharpening and color noise reduction, but for the sake of the comparison, they have been set to zero. There are also three different modes, and in this example “Low light” seems the most appropriate.

Noise reduction: Lightroom vs. Topaz DeNoise AI. From left to right (1) original image; (2) Lightroom Luminance NR 25%; (3) Denoise NR 25%; (4) Lightroom Luminance NR 50%; (5) Denoise NR 50%; (6) Image stack. Click on image for full-resolution.

Topaz DeNoise AI is an improvement over Lightroom, however there are still loss of stars. Wouldn’t it be nice to able to keep the level of detail of the original image, with the noise level of the image processed with noise reduction? Image stacking makes this possible.

Image stacking

There are few technical image quality issues that cannot be solved by combining multiple images. The idea behind image stacking is to average a set of multiple images of the same scene taken without moving the camera. When you do so with a large enough number of images, the difference between images, which is due to noise, is cancelled out. Trying out this technique with Photoshop is simple: first load the images with “File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack” with both the options “Auto-Align” and “Convert to Smart Object” checked. Then select the resulting Smart Object layer, and activate “Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode > Median”. “Mean” also works but is less robust, meaning that it can be thrown off by outliers, for instance airplane light trails.

More frames result in more noise reduction at the expense of your time and storage. How many frames should you stack? A stack of n averaged frames has the inverse square root of the noise of the original frames, resulting in the following table:

Number of frames	Noise compared to original	Noise reduction
4	1/2	50%
8	1/2.8	64%
16	1/4	75%
32	1/5.6	82%
64	1/8	88%

Noise reduction as a function of the number of stacked frames

I like 16 frames as a reasonable compromise, but if I have time, 64 frames are useful as they could also be used for a time-lapse clip of a few seconds.

Image stacking with SLS. From left to right (1) original image with luminance NR 0 and color NR 25%; (2) 4 frames; (3) 8 frames; (4) 16 frames; (5) 32 frames. (6) 64 frames. Click on image for full-resolution.

Stacking can be used to reduce noise in multiple situations when only shorter exposures are possible: windy conditions, hand-held cameras (use a rapid burst mode to minimize the difference between images), drone photography. Even when a longer exposure would be possible, stacking provides more flexibility as you can exclude some frames, for instance those containing a car shining its headlights towards the camera – an occurrence that would have ruined a longer exposure.

Apps for star stacking

When you try to stack landscapes with stars, the problem is that as the stars move, the scene is different with each image. Therefore, before proceeding with stacking, it is necessary to realign the stars to a reference image while leaving the landscape untouched. That would be very time-consuming to do manually, but fortunately, there are several apps to automate this task.

Starry Landscape Stacker screen for selecting the sky

The most proven app is Starry Landscape Stacker (MacOs only, $40). Although not as good at that task as the latest Adobe apps, SLS does a decent job at guessing where the sky is. All you have to do is complete that task using a brush – with the usual Adobe keyboard shortcuts! I have found that SLS is more effective at suppressing luminance noise than color noise, so when preparing images for stacking, I leave luminance NR at 0, but apply color NR at 25%. The app author recommends to make only the other following changes: exposure, contrast, white balance, chromatic aberration. Export has to be 16-bit TIFF. After the compositing is done, SLS offers a choice of six different combining methods, of which the first four all produce good results. I normally use “Min Horizon Noise” or “Mean Min Horizon Noise” (which often results in a slightly brighter image).

On Windows, the closest app is Sequator (free). The main difference is that you have to select the sky without assistance. The more recent Kandao Raw+ app (MacOS & Windows, free) is also worth trying. On my new 2022 Mac Studio, it always crashes while processing the stack, but it worked fine on my 2013 Mac Pro. The app is a general-purpose stacker offered as a bonus to users of Kanda imaging devices, but if you feed it a stack of starry landscapes, it magically works just like a starry landscape stacker. The app’s computational sophistication is belied by the basic user interface. Using it couldn’t be simpler: all you have to do is load up to 16 images and optionally designate a reference image, and the rest is entirely automatic. On images I have tried, including the Petrified Forest image, it compares well to Starry Landscape Stacker, except that some of the large stars have noise amplified around, and it doesn’t eliminate plane light trails, so I still favor Starry Landscape Stacker.

SLS (left) v. Kandao Rao+ (right). Click on image for full-resolution.

Stephen Bay, from whom I learned about Kandao Raw+, reports that it does a better job than Starry Landscape Stacker when there are foreground objects such as tree branches that both move and occlude the sky, so that is a use scenario to keep in mind, especially since the app is free and easy to use.

Standing under the night sky and seeing an uncountable number of stars has always brought a sense of awe. Modern cameras and software have now given us the tools to finally convey a bit of this impression in photographs.

P.S. The alternative to Image Stacking is tracking, where you mount the camera on a star tracker, which is a device that rotates the camera to counteract the Earth’s rotation so that an arbitrarily long exposure can be used to photograph stars. Tracking can produce even higher-quality results than stacking. However, the process is considerably more fiddly both in the field and in processing. The setup is more complicated, time-consuming, and prone to errors. If the goal is an astro-landscape (as opposed to an astronomical photograph of celestial objects only), since the landscape is blurred by camera rotation, sophisticated compositing is required.