Flow & Logistics
We travel light: one body, two primes, tracker, and sealed batteries. Camps stay off crest-lines to keep dunes pristine. Each ridge is approached from windward to avoid collapse and preserve the shot.
- Exposure pairs: tracked sky + static sand foreground.
- No artificial light; red headlamps only.
- Card swaps done inside sealed bag to block sand.
- Tracker leveled on small plate; recalibrate every move.
- Lens changes discouraged—plan focal lengths per ridge.
Light & Capture
Blue hour sculpts form; full night reveals the sky river. We keep shutter under 20s for untracked foregrounds, and 45–60s for tracked skies at 0.5x sidereal to retain star shape.
ISO: 1600–3200
Aperture: f/1.8–2.2
Shutter: 10–20s / 45–60s
WB: 3800–4200K
If wind lifts, we pause tracking and shift to fast handheld silhouettes (1/160–1/320) to keep crests crisp. Noise reduction stays minimal; stars remain pinpoint, not smeared.
Key Frames
- Crest Echo — blue-hour contour; single exposure, CPL off.
- Star River — tracked Milky Way + static dune; hand blend.
- Wind Lines — 0.6s to show sand streamers without softening crest.
- Moon Edge — thin crescent over dune spine; 1/10s to keep sharp horizon.
Cross Links
Head to related sand-and-sky stories: