Posted by Monika Chace on May 30, 2013 at 10:47 AM
My husband & I went out to the White Mountains for our 25th anniversary while some of you were Spring Flinging. I don't care for many of the flashlight/headlamp illuminated night shots I've seen, so I just put the ISO at 8000 (10000 washed out the sky too much) and pulled out detail from the shadows in PP. I know it looks like I used a flashlight on the 2nd, but it's just the processing with green in the sky & bush. C&C welcome!
Posted by Monika Chace on May 30, 2013 at 10:50 AM
Spectacular! Which White Mountains? New Hampshire, California, Arizona?
Posted by Monika Chace on May 30, 2013 at 11:49 AM
Ooops, sorry, Don. California. The Ancient Bristlecone Forest outside of big Pine.
Posted by Doug Beezley on May 30, 2013 at 12:13 PM
Monika,
I really, really like the composition but the bristlecone seems a bit too "lit up". What would it look like with some judicious burning? Still, an excellent image.
Doug Beezley
Posted by Jack Garrett on May 30, 2013 at 12:24 PM
That first larger image looks like the tree is spitting fire....awesome catch and I love the color of the MW!!
Beautiful images of the ancient tree and milky way. I wanted to try something similar on my last visit, but the road was still closed and I didn't feel like hiking up there. So I plan on returning perhaps in a month for a weekend. These trees were designed for night photography. So much character.
Doug, are you referring to the image with 1 tree or with 2? But I think I see what you mean.
Peter, it'd would be a pretty good hike. I'd still like to ski in some winter. I think the road is usually open to around the campground. At least coming back would be a cruise!
First of all, happy anniversary to you both! That's really quite a feat these days.
You captured some magnificent images here, Monika! I like both of them a whole lot, and your repost of #2 perfectly addressed my only nit (as Doug noted already). Just superb work here!!
As an aside, I'm not much of a fan of light painting either, and have always thought it better to combine post sunset/pre sunrise images of the foreground with a later shot of the skies. However, your technique here is at least equal to that as these look very natural to my eye. Did you have much noise to deal with at ISO8000, and how did you deal with it?
John, I'm still playing with the processing, but what I'm finding is that as long as I don't try to bring out the foreground too much and leave a little mystery, there really isn't a problem with the noise. And in this case, the foreground isn't all that interesting. I did contrast noise reduction first, before any other processing. And Nik software, I think adds very little noise. I may add in the Reflector Efex silver foreground instead of shadow reduction/increasing structure. Work in progress.
Thanks, everyone for your suggestions, as always!
Posted by Doug Beezley on May 30, 2013 at 11:42 PM
Monika,
I like the repost of your image much more; outstanding. The sky near the horizon looks better, too. If only I could capture something that good.
Monika, I'm really jealous of both images. I've given myself an assignment to become proficient at night sky images this summer and you've set the bar quite high. Thanks for sharing and congratulations on the anniversary.
Discussion
13 repliesI really, really like the composition but the bristlecone seems a bit too "lit up". What would it look like with some judicious burning? Still, an excellent image.
Doug Beezley
Peter, it'd would be a pretty good hike. I'd still like to ski in some winter. I think the road is usually open to around the campground. At least coming back would be a cruise!
You captured some magnificent images here, Monika! I like both of them a whole lot, and your repost of #2 perfectly addressed my only nit (as Doug noted already). Just superb work here!!
As an aside, I'm not much of a fan of light painting either, and have always thought it better to combine post sunset/pre sunrise images of the foreground with a later shot of the skies. However, your technique here is at least equal to that as these look very natural to my eye. Did you have much noise to deal with at ISO8000, and how did you deal with it?
Thanks, everyone for your suggestions, as always!
I like the repost of your image much more; outstanding. The sky near the horizon looks better, too. If only I could capture something that good.
Doug Beezley
The repost looks just perfect.