Nighttime at Alien Throne (Full Spectrum Photo). From a recent trek to the badlands of northwestern New Mexico, this image was captured in the Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah Wilderness, which is a BLM-managed wilderness area. This is one of many remote badlands areas in that region, all of them different in character.

The Alien Throne has gotten to be a popular subject for photographers in recent years, so if you follow landscape photography, you’ve likely seen it before. But you probably haven’t seen an image quite like this one. It was made with my full spectrum-converted camera, a Nikon D800E which is modified to capture infrared and ultraviolet light in addition to visible light.

I normally use this camera for infrared photography by putting one of several IR different filters over the lens to block UV light and at least part of the visible spectrum. But in this case, there was no filter on the lens, so this image captures everything the camera’s sensor can see. And what it can see looks like it came from an alien planet.

Tech info: Nikon D800E camera (modified for full spectrum response) with Nikon AF 50mm f1.8 lens. Two exposures were blended: Foreground - 1.0 sec. at f/11, ISO 250; and Sky - 1.0 sec. at f/2.8, ISO 2000. The foreground was captured during deep twilight when there was still a little light in the western sky to reveal the rocks, and the sky was captured later when the sky was completely dark.

Image ©2023 James D. Peterson