I finally got around to looking at the July 2009 issue of Outdoor Photographer. I was puzzled by the lead image (light painted tree against Milky Way) in Tony Rowell's "The Art Of Astrophotography".
It bothered me so much I started comparing it to images of the Milky Way I found on a Google image search. The results of my image search did nothing to allay my suspicions so I'm left with this question.
Why does the tree appear to be casting shadows on the sky?
Edit: OK, maybe I figured this out. If the camera was tracking the sky for a couple of minutes before the tree was light painted that might create the appearance of shadows on the right side of the tree. It still doesn't look right though.
Yes really wierd at a glance but the camera is hooked up to some sort of motorized astronomy telescope which moves with the stars to keep them from blurring to get the long exposure. If you have ever seen animated celestial photography it's kind of like that. I'm not sure exactly how he does it but he did the McGyver thing where he left out much so we could not instantly go out and do it.
There's a post from Tony Rowell on NatureScapes explaining the shot. (It's a little ways down in the thread.) The tree moved across the image as the motorized mount panned the camera with the stars. So the blacker areas are where the tree was blocking the sky prior to being light painted.
"There's a post from Tony Rowell on NatureScapes explaining the shot. (It's a little ways down in the thread.) The tree moved across the image as the motorized mount panned the camera with the stars. So the blacker areas are where the tree was blocking the sky prior to being light painted. "
Makes sense to me. I had often wondered how a foreground could be included if using a tracking-equatorial mount. Light painting the tree so that it is frozen like in a flash image is a neat way to handle the issue – the black sky behind is a bit distracting, but, nicely tucked in the corner here.
Funny you post this, Steve and I recently saw this shot in the Mountain Light gallery and were confused as well.. until we read the caption. It does look really weird though, IMO, it looks more photoshoped than the image would look had it been photoshopped from two exposures! I think if you have one of those fancy tracking telescope mounts it's actually really straightforward to do.
Discussion
6 repliesIt bothered me so much I started comparing it to images of the Milky Way I found on a Google image search. The results of my image search did nothing to allay my suspicions so I'm left with this question.
Why does the tree appear to be casting shadows on the sky?
Edit: OK, maybe I figured this out. If the camera was tracking the sky for a couple of minutes before the tree was light painted that might create the appearance of shadows on the right side of the tree. It still doesn't look right though.
Cheers,
Makes sense to me. I had often wondered how a foreground could be included if using a tracking-equatorial mount. Light painting the tree so that it is frozen like in a flash image is a neat way to handle the issue – the black sky behind is a bit distracting, but, nicely tucked in the corner here.