Monolake, California - Bishop trip Part 1

What: This is Mono Lake in California.

Where: There are many many nice locations around Monolake for some nice tufa picture. This is one of them

When/How: So we left Bay area around 7:30pm on Friday night for a ~ 6hr drive. Got there around 1am and decided to sleep in the car for few hr until sunrise. BAD BAD idea. It drops as low as 30-35F early October. So while trying to get rest, I set up for a star trail shot of this clear, full of star sky.

The above was done at:
Focal: 18mm
F: f/7.1
EXP time: 1799.8sec - 30 min
ISO: 200

It was ok shot. Nothing special plus I was so tired from the road trip.

So we started out around 5:30am and walk for 10 min toward the lake. We set up and get ready. While everyone's setting up I gave the star trail another trial. This time it's much better at:
Focal: 11mm
F: f/5
EXP time: 668 sec
ISO: 200


Then we were playing around with the flash light trying to do light painting and wasted all the battery's life until sunrise and gave a beautiful purple sky color. I was able to get a good one at:
Focal: 25mm
F: f/4
EXP time: 55sec
ISO: 320
With a little post process, I was able to pull the color out of this one.


And this at
Focal: 5mm
F: f/14
EXP time: .62sec

Also from this same location, the tufa on land surrounding this little place make it looks like you are in a valley. These tufa are more or less 6ft. but from the look of wide lens lower to the ground with a fake tilt edit, it looks like we are in a valley :)