Here's a shot from 3am this morning in Chasm Meadow. About a minute after I took this shot I was swallowed by clouds and couldn't see more than 2 feet in front of me. I had to abandon my sunrise plans but I'll try again another day. For those who are curious, this image is a composite of one 30" photo and one 90" photo. I need to go back and re-process it. Blending in PS Elements is a skill I need to work on.
Awesome. Blend actually looks pretty nice IMO. Those stars look sharp too. A little bit of color/chroma noise to remove, but that's normal in night exposures and the luminance noise doesn't look bad at all.
Did you make it to Chasm Lake and how much was it thawed if you did, btw?
Thanks Joshua. I'll fix those things. I didn't go to Chasm Lake as I was heading somewhere else for sunrise but from what I hear it is still pretty solidly frozen.
Erik, this looks really good and I think the park as mentioned above is a great location for you to explore future opportunities like this. If I may inquire, what ISO did you have to use on the 30 second exposure to get the milky way to show through?
Because all I have are F4 lenses this was shot at ISO 2500 so I probably can't print this any larger than 5x7. One of these days I'm going to get a good 1.4 lens so that I can actually create prints from scenes like this.
This is really cool. It was a good thing I had my GPS on my phone in the day light when I did this trip, but how the heck did you make it back down while it was dark and cloudy??? I was driving down to work this morning and was drooling over the clouds that were in that area at sunrise.
One of the better locations I've seen for use with starfields. Real nice composition as Morris noted.
Blend looks good, though you may wish to darken the foreground so it doesn't appear so much as a composite.
Did you experiment with lower ISO speeds for your 30 sec. exposures?
Cool! Glad you got something out of the venture. Rather than darken the foreground, i think i might darken the sky, so the space is more black than green.
Bingo!
I like the rework very much.
Seems to me that you were able to get most of the green out of the sky.
What little is left doesn't bother me. However, reopening the original starfield file in Elements and choosing a Tungsten WB (with tweaks, of course) may give you a better and/or more cooler version.
Again, congratulations on getting this successful shot!
I agree about the green but I like the first shot better...the milky way really stands out in that one.
Posted by Brett Deacon on June 9, 2010 at 10:44 PM
Great shot(s) Erik! I really appreciate your command of the technical issues involved in taking a shot like this. Did you have at least a bit of moon to help light the foreground?
Charles, to be completely honest, because of the thick fog I completely lost the trail on my way down. I had to navigate by the sound of the stream in the distance and finally broke through the fog and back onto the trail way down in Goblin's Forest! Fortunately I know the contour of the mountain pretty well or who knows where I would have come out.
Brett, you are right. A sliver of moon broke through the clouds for the foreground shot and that really helped a lot!
As for the green cast, I think I've managed to get rid of a lot of it it. Thanks for all of your input. I really appreciate it! You can find the final version on my website's home page. http://imagesofrmnp.com
Posted by Jack Garrett on June 10, 2010 at 10:44 AM
Erik, I just looked at this image on your home page and when you view this with the gray desktop background, it really pops....nice, nice, nice! Maybe we should get this forum to go with gray backgrounds
Discussion
30 repliesDid you make it to Chasm Lake and how much was it thawed if you did, btw?
Blend looks good, though you may wish to darken the foreground so it doesn't appear so much as a composite.
Did you experiment with lower ISO speeds for your 30 sec. exposures?
Have you tried just desaturating the green?
I like the rework very much.
Seems to me that you were able to get most of the green out of the sky.
What little is left doesn't bother me. However, reopening the original starfield file in Elements and choosing a Tungsten WB (with tweaks, of course) may give you a better and/or more cooler version.
Again, congratulations on getting this successful shot!
Brett, you are right. A sliver of moon broke through the clouds for the foreground shot and that really helped a lot!
As for the green cast, I think I've managed to get rid of a lot of it it. Thanks for all of your input. I really appreciate it! You can find the final version on my website's home page. http://imagesofrmnp.com
Ken