How a Photographer Captured the Artemis II Launch With 14 Cameras

Photographer Steven Madow has been photographing rocket launches for over a decade, however arguably no rocket launch he has photographed has been as massive of a deal because the Artemis II launch on Wednesday, April 1. Madow arrange 14 totally different Panasonic Lumix cameras to cowl the monumental occasion, together with seven distant cameras on the launch website. His excellent photographs are the results of years of follow and planning.

Preparation, Logistics, and Credentials: The Challenges of Photographing the Artemis II Launch

There are so many challenges surrounding a rocket launch, starting from sensible, like arrange distant cameras and nail the shot, to logistical ones, like credentials. For a significant NASA rocket launch like Artemis II, there have been much more hoops to leap by means of than standard.

“NASA credentialing is really tough,” Madow tells PetaPixel. “I started my journey as a rocket launch photographer over 10 years ago and gradually have been trying to figure out the path through credentialing and getting access. All of that fun stuff. During Artemis I, I had gained credentials for SpaceX, the Space Force, lots of these other companies, but not yet NASA.”

For Artemis II, Madow partnered with Space Explored, a web site devoted to sharing all of the inspiring tales surrounding spaceflight and exploration.

“Through Space Explored, I was able to get credentialed,” Madow says.

“This has been years and years and years of trying to pull this together and be able to get to the Artemis II launch,” the photographer explains.

“I’ve kind of viewed every launch that I photographed leading into this, all of the remote cameras, all of that, as helping me sharpen my skills and almost practice to be able to pull off this launch.”

In the previous few months, as preparations actually ramped up, Madow has been doing intensive analysis and planning to dial within the exact digital camera setup he might use. He wanted to decide on particular digital camera and lens mixtures, in fact, but additionally work out what his choices could also be relying on the place NASA authorized photographers like him to arrange.

Fortunately, with years of expertise underneath his belt, Madow could be very conversant in overcome most of the typical pitfalls surrounding photographing rocket launches. He has perfected his publicity settings, body photographs prematurely, and his distant digital camera setup, together with maintaining it powered.

Rocket launches are inherently unpredictable, although. Artemis II was delayed a number of instances throughout mission prep, and the precise launch time wasn’t decided till Wednesday afternoon, hours earlier than liftoff. Then there are the safety issues. Madow and different credentialed photographers have been bused out to the launch website final Sunday to arrange their cameras. Fortunately, Madow says that he had loads of time to dial every thing in there, however some launches give photographers simply 10-Quarter-hour to arrange all their gear.

Setting Up Seven Remote Launchpad Cameras

“I had seven different launchpad cameras,” Madow says. “NASA gave a small group of photographers, a few dozen photographers, access to setup remote cameras.”

Since this launch was such a notable occasion, all of Madow’s cameras even needed to be sniffed by safety canine. “Lots of security,” Madow says.

Each location solely permits photographers one tripod, so Madow had a number of cameras on particular person tripods. These cameras are all inside particular distant digital camera circumstances made by Camptraptions and are triggered by sound.

“I have this special trigger on top, made by MIOPS. What it does is just sit there, patiently and listens and listens and listens,” the photographer explains. “When there is a loud sound, rockets are really great loud sounds, it wakes up the camera and starts firing away like crazy.”

As an apart, the very first thing Madow did when he was given entry to his distant cameras following Artemis II’s profitable launch was run over them and make a loud noise to hear for the sound of his cameras firing again up and snapping some frames. It was an enormous reduction for Madow to listen to his cameras firing off in response to his loud noise.

“I’m like, ‘Yes, my camera is still working!”

The Orion spacecraft was already on the launchpad on Sunday when Madow and the opposite photographers have been organising, so he might exactly plan his compositions.

However, some points of the launch remained mysterious even days earlier than takeoff, together with the day and time of launch. It might have been mid-day, afternoon, night, and even nighttime. Of course, these all have dramatically totally different publicity necessities, however Madow needed to be prepared for all of them.

“And I didn’t know this launch could have moved to Thursday to Friday. It could have been later in the evening. So I also had automated dew heaters just in case, which fortunately I didn’t need. But with these cameras, so far, I’ve actually only collected, I think, four of the seven cameras. Some of them were collected by some friends, so I’ve got to grab them in a day or two, but all of them performed flawlessly, which is not the case with every single launch,” Madow says.

“So they did exactly what I had programmed them to do. None of the batteries died and the cameras, the Lumix cameras, performed perfectly. And from an exposure setting standpoint, the closeup rocket engine shots were maxed out.”

The close-up rocket launch shot Madow rapidly printed, which has additionally been his most viral photograph ever, was shot at ISO 100, f/16, and along with his Panasonic GH5’s quickest mechanical shutter pace, 1/8000 second. Although this specific photograph was captured with a GH5 and a Lumix G Leica 50-200mm f/2.8-4 lens, Madow had a variety of Lumix cameras readily available for the launch, together with different Micro Four Thirds fashions and full-frame Lumix S-series cameras, corresponding to an S9 and S1R II.

“Just a wide range, GH5, G9, G9 II, S1R II, really spanning as wide as 12mm on Micro Four Thirds, so 24mm on full-frame, up to about 150mm, which really is pretty crazy because I’ve got things like this before where I’ve had to use 800mm, so we were pretty close [for the Artemis II launch].”

Although the close-up rocket launch photograph is considerably predictable — it’s all the time extraordinarily vivid — different photographs have been much less predictable given the assorted doable launch instances.

“What I’ve been experimenting with over years and years is being able to use exposure bracketing on these remote cameras. So effectively, I do a five shot bracket set at negative one EV as the center point and I’ve had to figure out, and the only way to figure this out is from actually shooting other launches,” Madow says.

“I’ve had to figure out how can I get the sound trigger to effectively work and trigger the exposure bracket. The first time that I put a camera out there trying this technique, I got one set of brackets. So you have five shots, they weren’t very good, and now I’ve been able to really develop this technique where it’s just taking bracket after bracket after bracket.”

A Decade of Experience Led to This Moment

Not solely has Madow realized rather a lot about overcoming technical and logistical challenges over his a few years of photographing rocket launches, however he has additionally gained an important sense of calm that served him very nicely this week for Artemis II.

“Some of it’s the technical side, and some of it’s the mental side. A lot of it just making sure I’ve prepped these cameras, tested these cameras, and know exactly what’s going to happen,” Madow says. For Artemis II, he was capable of decelerate, take his time, and never rush. Part of that’s that NASA offered credentialed photographers beneficiant entry and time to arrange on Sunday, however one other half is all the teachings Madow has realized over time. Some of them, he admits, have been hard-learned. Behind many profitable photographs are failed ones, it doesn’t matter what sort of pictures somebody is doing.

“I think, to me, the most challenging but also the most exciting thing about this sport or art, whatever we want to call it, of setting up these remote cameras is when I’m composing,” Madow says. “I’m out there, maybe in broad daylight or whatever, and I’ve got to be thinking, ‘What’s the Sun angle going to be at the time of launch? Where’s the rocket going to be? Where’s the plume from the rocket going to be within the frame so I can make sure I’m not cutting it off?’”

“You’re trying to imagine and think through this future scenario because you don’t have access to the camera once it’s setup, of course. It’s a fun game play, and when played correctly, the results are really cool.”

It’d have been comprehensible for Madow to be tremendous nervous concerning the launch, however he says he’s an optimist, which made him extra excited than anxious.

However, by Wednesday morning, there was a really actual likelihood the launch could be scrubbed and delayed a day or two. In many circumstances, that’s not an enormous deal, however for Madow, who had prior work commitments for his main job, a delay would have meant lacking the launch. His distant cameras would nonetheless have been there, in fact, however he would have been unable to witness the launch in individual and take photographs from the press website.

“I was thinking, ‘Oh man, I really want this to go,’” Madow remembers.

And go it did.

“There are these troughs and valleys of excitement, some worry, some concern, and then just elation and maybe even relief,” Madow says of the particular Artemis II launch itself.

The launch itself, the fruits of years of laborious work by 1000’s of individuals, is over so quick. A couple of minutes after liftoff, Madow says he was simply there, reflecting on what occurred.

“There’s pure joy, and then after a few minutes, reflection and relief that it went and that I was there at the press site to experience this in person,” Madow says.

“There’s a bit of pressure, like, ‘Oh man, I’ve got to really deliver for myself.’ And I also love just being able to share this [experience] with the world,” the photographer says. “So definitely tons of joy, times of relief, and excitement for what this launch represents as well. That is absolutely not lost on me.

“Humans are curious. Humans are explorers. I think it’s one of the best things in humanity to be able to do things that are interesting for discovery’s sake, for interest’s sake. And I think that what is more inspiring than a lunar mission and then NASA. So it gives me lots of inspiration and certainly I hope that folks find inspiration in the photos that I produced.”

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Image credit: Photos by Steven Madow (website, Instagram, prints)