Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 10, 2011 at 2:20 PM
I was invited by Shane McDermott to do some night photography last evening. Aside from two feeble attempts this summer, this was my first real attempt at star images. Seemed the major difficulty for me was getting the foreground subject in focus. Moon seemed to ba about 30%.
Nikon D90, Nikon 16-35, ISO 1600, manual exposure kept at f/4 & 25 sec, fluorescent WB. Did some WAG for contrast/brightness/sharpness, and used a noise filter in PSE9.
Any suggestions/critique always appreciated.
#1 Started the evening around the canyon floor. Tried to get the milky way in this shot.
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 10, 2011 at 2:22 PM
#2 Went to an area of hoodoos for a while
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 10, 2011 at 2:24 PM
#3 Some clouds started drifting in from the west, but tended to vanish as they moved east.
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 10, 2011 at 2:27 PM
#4 returned to the canyon floor and the cardinals/gnomes before the moon set.
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 10, 2011 at 2:29 PM
#5 (last one) as the moon was low to the west
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 10, 2011 at 2:30 PM
These sure seem to be darker than I would like and than when I processed them earlier.
Posted by Pam Colander on January 10, 2011 at 3:00 PM
Doug, I think these are awesome! A couple, 2 and 5, look a little darker than the others and I see what you're talking about with focus on the formations. What I did to get focus on my Morley church shots was shine a flashlight on the church to manually focus on it. Maybe you can go back in and selectively sharpen those areas? I am getting a sense of the MW in the first one What time of day did you take these? The skies look incredible and I would be very proud if these were mine. Did you get any with the moon or was it too low? You are on your way with night shooting!
Posted by John Mumaw on January 10, 2011 at 7:45 PM
Some excellent starry skies you got there, Doug. Pretty chilly, eh?
My favorites are the first three (esp. #3) showcasing those bizarre formations.
I think what you need to do is to consider light painting many of these with a warm light or making two exposures (one for brighter foregrounds) and then blending them.
Posted by Craig Myers on January 10, 2011 at 8:04 PM
Beautiful series of images, Doug. The verticals are my favorites. For me they use the great foreground elements to draw my attention skyward more effectively than those taken in horizontal orientation.
Posted by Paul Wegemann on January 10, 2011 at 9:47 PM
John's thoughts echo my own. Fascinating place and I love the skies.
Posted by Morris McClung on January 10, 2011 at 11:37 PM
Great capture and processing of the stars, and I'm right with John on his suggestions about light painting, or blending. Reallly nice first effort with these!
Posted by Lynn Scott on January 11, 2011 at 1:23 AM
#3 is my favorite. Need to learn how to do these. Great shots!
Posted by Jack Brauer on January 11, 2011 at 2:13 AM
#3 is really nice!!! I think the moonlight is good but yeah it could use a bit of brightening. Try putting a "screen" layer over it in photoshop. Or perhaps just for the rocks part.
Posted by Bill Brennan on January 11, 2011 at 11:05 AM
Thanks for sharing these images and your capture settings. The discussion about how to improve is also valuable info. Being in Tucson for the winter offers magnificent night skies to try out the suggestions.
Bill Brennan
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 11, 2011 at 12:56 PM
Thank you for the replies and suggestions. I will give processing another whirl again this evening.
Posted by Don Grall on January 11, 2011 at 2:36 PM
#3 is great!!! Love the detail in the foreground pillar while the background pillar is in silhouette, nice 3D effect
I think you have some great comps here. Judging by the light in 4&5, which was the least amount of light we had all night, all you need to do is open the shadows in the first three. I understand why others have mentioned light painting, but I don't think it is necessary, and defeats the purpose of relying on the even light the moon provided.
From what I seen on your LCD, there were no blocked shadows, so this might just come down to a processing issue. I agree number 3 is a really strong comp, let me know if you need a hand reworking it. Being your first solid star images, it is tough to know how to propose them, my tendency starting out was to leave them too dark as well. Keep playing with it some more, these are definitely worth it!
Well done, Shane
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 13, 2011 at 11:46 AM
Redo of #3. Increased exposure +2ev in raw of a duplicate and did an auto exposure blend in PSE9 of 2 jpeg conversions. Noise and despeckle filters used on resultant blend.
Posted by Doug Koepsel on January 13, 2011 at 12:08 PM
B&W conversion of redo. Added some contrast and darkened the conversion, but seems the posts here are additionally darker and shadow detail is lost.
Posted by Pam Colander on January 13, 2011 at 1:09 PM
There ya go! That color repost looks so much better and I can see quite a bit of detail in the shadows. The B and W doesn't look as good as far as sharpeness goes. I can see some shadow detail but not like I can in the color version. This is an awesome capture well worth prefecting Doug
Discussion
20 repliesNikon D90, Nikon 16-35, ISO 1600, manual exposure kept at f/4 & 25 sec, fluorescent WB. Did some WAG for contrast/brightness/sharpness, and used a noise filter in PSE9.
Any suggestions/critique always appreciated.
#1 Started the evening around the canyon floor. Tried to get the milky way in this shot.
My favorites are the first three (esp. #3) showcasing those bizarre formations.
I think what you need to do is to consider light painting many of these with a warm light or making two exposures (one for brighter foregrounds) and then blending them.
Bill Brennan
I think you have some great comps here. Judging by the light in 4&5, which was the least amount of light we had all night, all you need to do is open the shadows in the first three. I understand why others have mentioned light painting, but I don't think it is necessary, and defeats the purpose of relying on the even light the moon provided.
From what I seen on your LCD, there were no blocked shadows, so this might just come down to a processing issue. I agree number 3 is a really strong comp, let me know if you need a hand reworking it. Being your first solid star images, it is tough to know how to propose them, my tendency starting out was to leave them too dark as well. Keep playing with it some more, these are definitely worth it!
Well done, Shane