Falling From Grace

Hi Robert, Welcome to NPN!
I thought this was another post by Jared Antencio (see his post from March 11, a few pages down) The scene is pretty familiar, especially after youve seen it a bunch of times. But if its done well it doesnt really grow old. I like your comp better, since the track leads to the n star here, which is cool. But i like Jared's foreground better since it has better contrast in the playa and better color contrast to the sky. Overall, a cool shot and nice intro.

Very cool Robert. It feels just a wee bit too bright for me in the foreground but not seriously so and perhaps there is a slight mushiness in the foreground as if a touch of movement occurred or a slightly to narrow depth of field which is rendering the foreground a little soft..Great effort though and welcome to NPN.

Welcome to NPN Robert, and thanks for a wonderful first post. I love the elliptical nature of the star trails and the way you composed the rock, with its track leading to the center of the star trail. The playa is just a tiny bit on the bright side IMO, but nothing that can't be fixed easily. Can't wait to see more posts from you.

Like Stan said, it's a familiar scene but one that's hard to get tired of. The composition is quite effective and overall this is a very fine shot. Seems like there's a bit of a tilt based on the angel of the line where the playa meets the mountains, but I've never been to this location so perhaps there's just a natural curvature.

Very cool shot and great processing. Something about the comp that doesnt balance to my eyes...maybe it's the strong right to left that wants me to leave the frame. I probably will be in the minority here. Welcome to the party!

aF

Welcome to NPN Robert. Nice image. This is a great place to get wonderful feedback as you are seeing already. I love the watermark.

Robert: Welcome to NPN and thanks for a terrific first post. I've never seen this place first hand but must say this is a unique take on this subject. Nicely crafted image.>=))>

Welcome to NPN and what a great first post. The rock trail leading from the center of the star trails makes for a great comp.

Now how cool can you get for your first post? How'd you get the oval (instead of round) star pattern? 14-24 do that?

Very nice image here! I know that Floris, for one, would approve.

Welcome to NPN Robert and NICE first post! I personally like the star trails and love the oval shape you captured. I would prefer a slightly higher vantage point to maybe get a little more of the playa pattern and more of the trail behind the rock, maybe at the price of sacrificing just a tad of the immediate foreground, but this is still a terrific shot. As is, I would crop a tad off the bottom eliminating some of the softer focus and also eliminating whatever it is behind the watermark in the LLC? Looking forward to seeing more of your work!

I like the foreground as is...From a pure photography perspective the foreground may be a bit bright for the night sky, however if you were to print this image I would prefer foreground with a little bit more detail than a darker foreground.

Nice first post.

-Jay

Robert, this is terriffic! The foreground comp and lightness works fine for me.

Sweet shot Robert! Impressive blend for sure. I like your low-angled perspective here, it puts more emphasis on the rock and makes the image a little stronger and more unique. There does seem to be some softness in the lower part of the frame which kinda detracts a little. I recommend a slight crop to the bottom for the reasons Jared mentioned and a ccw rotation to level out the playa. Welcome to NPN!

What a shot to join in on! Great trails, love the side lighting on the fg. Great detail and clarity to the patterns and lines in. Really nice technique to get it too. Well done.

Thank you all for your warm welcomes and for your insightful comments and thoughts! It's all very appreciated!

Robert,

Welcome to NPN and the Landscape Gallery! An outstanding first post despite this being such a popular location. But I will certainly say this is a pretty fresh take and certainly technically wonderfully executed. 420 exposures???? I think this technically qualifies as a "composite." Seriously, 1 sheet of film over the same total time span and you could have been napping during the exposure. All kidding aside, great job with this.

I think this is perhaps one of the best digital star trails images I've seen. Amazing how this was put together. Great job withthe comp and the lighting of the foreground as well.

Welcome aboard.

Lon

I love the shot. Excellent star trails and a great composition. I tend to like darker images and the land portion could be a bit darker for me, but that's just me. Don't change a thing and keep up the excellent work!

Did you say 420 exposures... or you had lots of 420 while shooting this? Great shot and very well done...looks like film trails...

Great image Robert! I love the composition. Very creative use of an icon once again!

Welcome to NPN Robert. Incredible first post. The sky truly rocks, not even a hint of noise. Lovely colors too. Great work and welcome aboard!

Michael

All of the feedback suggested in the comments has led me to revisit this image. For that, a sincere thanks to all!

Of particular concern was the softness of focus in the foreground mentioned by Ian, Jared, Tyson, and a few others. Truth be told, I'd forgotten that I'd captured a few images for potential focus stacking. One of those has now bee put to use...and the softness in the foreground is gone (as is whatever was hiding in the llc of the image behind the watermark).

Also the slight rotation....once I really looked again....it was there. And it had to go away.

I'm always conflicted by the choice to maintain the dim colors of the late/early twilight sky in these images...or to drive toward a more "true-night" feel by just using the sky from the star trails shots. In this case, I ended up going a little further toward the dark than in my original post, deciding to use an exposure that was captured a few minutes later than the one used in the first post. Reason for this was that I thought that having the color in the sky only around where the rock was "coming from" seemed to accentuate the visual path through this image. But that's open to critique as well. I just think that it's a tough call...

@Tony - the oval-ness of the pattern is due to this being shot at 14mm...the wider angle really accentuates the movement of the stars as they approach the edges of the frame. You'd not have seen nearly thee same amount of oval-ness had Polaris been in or around the centerline of the lens... Actually, I did a complete second Racetrack trails shot this particular evening (having picked out a second rock before the sun went down). That composition doesn't show nearly the same amount of oval in the trails...and yet it was shot with the same rig...with the lens set at 15mm.

@Lon - I know....420 images sounds ridiculous...and a bit like self-torture once back at the computer. But the intervalometer let me rest while it was all going on. ;-) I've been playing with exposures of different lengths for these star trails shots, in an attempt to make these images less painful to process, but I've settled on 30s exposures to assure that the noise is kept to an absolute minimum. I also believe that this makes the removal of meteors, shooting stars, and airplanes simpler....as they rarely span more than one frame....and it seems that you risk less of an impact to the actual trails when you remove them on these shorter exposures. Where the 30s approach seems to make the most sense, though, is for the removal of satellites that are not geostationary. Since a single one of these guys can trash a complete exposure that's a few minutes in length, I've found that removing their impact is a lot easier working with a set of frames in which each one has a very minor impact. Lastly, I've found that exposures more than 30s get royally messed up if you happen to have the moon rise during your hours of shooting (the background level of the frames jumps up from true black as the moon rises...making the stack behave badly when every layer you're combining is being combined as a "lighten" layer. But, after looking around this forum a bit in the recent days, it's clear to me that there are a number of people with a LOT of experience in this realm...and I claim to be little more than a new guy at this start trails stuff! ;-)

Finally, to Jay's point...if the foreground on this were to be made any darker, I fear that the the print result on most mediums would be muddy (no pun intended) and detail would be more difficult to resolve. So, again...just trying to find a balance... ;-)

Anyway....enough of my musings...here's the refreshed version. Please tell me I didn't make it worse! ;-)

A wonderful first post, Robert. 420 exposures does sound a little like post-production hell, but the result is undoubtedly superb! The repost with the sharper fg is perfect. My only observation is that the slightly messed-up pattern at the bottom of the frame is a little distracting to the otherwise very clean, graphic lines and shapes of the image.