Starry Desert Skies

I recently returned from a brief foray into northern Arizona. One of my objectives for this trip was to do some night photography so I ventured out to Stud Horse Point one evening to do just that. I'm pretty sure I've posted a shot similar to the one above a while back, but that image had too much noise to be considered for anything other than a small print. To remedy that, this time I utilized a two image blend with the hoodoos shot at twilight (iso 100, f/11, 30secs) and the sky about an hour later (iso 800, f/2.8, 25 secs).

I'd like to get people's opinions on the color shot above versus the tinted b&w below. Normally, I'm a color guy, but in this case I'm not yet sure which I prefer. Both of these images are dark (done intentionally...I didn't want to get carried away with the treatment of the foreground) and are best viewed in a low light environment, if possible.

Here's the b&w

Nice work Guy..great job with the blending! I like #1 better because of the subtle colors but the B/W works ok too. I need to get out and try this sometime.

Guy....both have its own beauty. In my opinion ..there is no comparison. To confuse you more, I love both!! If you give me two prints and ask me to choose one..that would be the first, color version.... Excellent work....beautiful blend....

I guess I'll say color, because I lean that way 90% of the time, but both are excellent.

These are nice! I think I prefer the color version. I drove out to this spot to shoot a night scene last year, but it clouded up on me...so now I'm inspired to get back...

Very nice. The B/W seems to offer a little more foreground detail, but I think I like the color the best.

Both have different moods but color for me. Great shot too, nice work.

Color one works for me.

Oh yeah everybody go and checkout Guys website, he is holding out on us...checkout some of his recent southwest stuff, very nice!

This is just spectacular, Guy! The blending is excellent as is the entire image.

While I also prefer the color by a very small margin, I really like how the foreground has more detail and especially how much brighter (and more plentiful) are the stars in the b&w version.
Any way you can get that to transfer to the color version?

And yes, you can see more from Guy's recent sojourn into the desert at his blog.

Thanks everyone! I did add a bit more contrast to the b&w version which helped bring out a bit more fg detail (and stars). I'll have to do the same to the color and see how I like it. Thanks for pluggin' the blog and site, Jody/John. Should've done that myself right off the bat.

Wow! Nice stuff, Guy. I prefer the color image, but with the brightness of the B&W version.

Sweet image. Very nice blending technique. I prefer the color image as well.

Defnitely the color--great shot, Guy!

These are really sweet. The gradients in the horizon and the different colored stars really make the color version. Great work!

Great vision, Guy. Love the color version.

Ooooh! Color, for sure! Awesome.

This is really cool. My only nit is that the flow and direction of the lines in the image are strongly right to left, and the "arrow" shape created on the left side of the comp tends to take the viewer's eye out of the frame. This might have been better framed horizontally.

Otherwise, really nice image, and the composite works very well.

I like the color version better. Love the slight color variations. I like that the foreground is dark enough, but still shows enough detail. Very nice.