ESS - 1st HM
by Arild Heitmann
Earth, Sea & Sky Gallery - 1st Honorable Mention
A Night To Remember
Truly a stunning experience standing out in a partially frozen river at night, in complete darkness, witnessing natures finest lightshow.
I never shoot the aurora just focusing on the aurora. I always take pride in doing these in the same way i do normal landscapes. My goal is to take aurorashots that would have value even without the aurora.
For this shot i covered the sky for the majority of the exposure (126 sec) and then revealing the sky for the last 20 secs. This made the foreground just as good as the sky.
Hope you like it! (had to compress it quite heavily to get it out on npn...)
-Arild-
ps. i`m extremely busy these days and barely have the time to post this. So i`m sorry for not being very active lately..
Comments
105 commentsThis is a special image, Arild. Congrats!
Ed
Has a film look as well.
Harry
Harry, regarding noise. I shot this at iso 800. The noise was only noticeable in the darkest shadowareas especially in the lower left corner. I used Noiseware on the default nightshot setting. That took care of it easily. So basically noise wasnt much of an issue in this one. Theres a big difference in iso 800 & 1600 on the old 5d. iso 1600 means you have to take care of the noise no matter what. Iso 800 is a lot better. I have a print of this one ready as we speak and it looks pretty damn good...
Bob
What did i use to cover the sky. A cloth...a really simple stiff kitchencloth :-) But its much better and easier to just use a piece of hard dark paperboard.
I have never seen the aurora in person but in videos I've seen the color seems to dance around the sky in constant motion. Your image and techs bring a question to mind. At such a long exposure why is there no movement in the aurora and it's reflection? I would have expected a wash of color. Just curious.
With work like yours I don't mind waiting so long to see more. Each has been stunning. And this one is definitely a great photograph and shows your understanding of your subject matter very well. Very nice technique. The FG hoar frost on the rocks is just as amazing as the light in the sky. Really great work.
Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI.
Max
Ian
Certainly one of the best landscapes that I've seen on here, ever.
Well done.
Geoff.
Sweeeeeet!!
This is one of the best NL shots I've ever seen.
Guy
Gary.
The slightly out of focus rocks is the downside of shooting wide open at infinity focus...its just part of the deal.
Chris
Congrats on a great EP! really beautiful !
Sandy
Congrats on EP.
Danny
My hat off to you.
thx everyone!
Ron Huff
Beautiful image!
Sandy