Valley View Hot Springs

One of Katie's friends invited Katie and I up to Valley View Hot Springs just outside of Salida, Colorado. You're not supposed to bring cameras up there but I managed to get a few shots of one of the hot springs, the mountain range around the area, and some nighttime star photography. It got down to -1°F the night that I decided to do night photography, but I think the photos were worth it.

Steaming

This was one of the hottest hot springs. The temperature was pretty close to 100°F.

Filled

There were 3 hot springs on this mountain, all of them feeding into the next one. This was the last of the 3, and also the coldest, but more open than the other 2 for taking photos.

Small Cloud

The sunset was mostly cloud-less, but it still provided a pretty nice view.

Starry Night

The night sky was pretty magnificent since we were so far from light pollution. This particular photo was a 10 second exposure at f/1.8 ad ISO 400.

Swaying Trees

The trees were pretty still but there were a few small gusts of wind that made the trees less than sharp. This was a 5 minute exposure at f/1.8 and ISO 100.

Cabin

The hardest part of night photography is getting the subject in focus. This resulted in about a dozen photos of pretty quick exposures and a much higher ISO than I would ever shoot at (286k) to try and determine if my lens was in focus. This was a 5 minute exposure at f/1.8 and ISO 100.

Spiraled

This was the longest exposure I did at 10 minutes long. It was taken at f/2.2 and ISO 100. It was nearing midnight when I took this photo and the temperature was still dropping so I decided that this would be my last shot.