Rework
Critique Style Requested: Initial Reaction
Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
I am not a fan of night/astro photos where the foreground looks as if it were made in broad daylight. Unrealistic. Enough light to provide some three dimensionality allows the focus to be on the sky, yet the context is realized. Comments?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
Milky Way display over a trio of tufa towers in Trona Pinnacles, a National Natural Landmark in the Searles Lake Basin of the California Desert Conservation Area.
Technical Details
Canon EOS 5D II, EF 16-35mm @ 29mm, f/2.8 @ 20 sec, ISO 3200; Gitzo tripod, RRS BH 55, remote trigger
Specific Feedback
Any comments, positive or negative are welcomed
A very nice opportunity for an interesting FG and a clear, dark sky. I could see just a bit lighter on the FG, though, to show the detail a little better – it is very dark on my monitor. For me, the bottom lighter area isn’t contributing anything. I would rather see the camera aimed higher to just exclude that area and show more sky.
The stars have a lot of strange shapes but that is just due to that lens. Regular lenses have only recently gotten better with handling stars.
Thank you @Diane_Miller for your comments and suggestions. I cropped the image to eliminate the foreground road and lightened the foreground. The irregular, stretched stars are most likely from the extended exposure and the earth’s rotation.
I find this a more pleasing composition. It’s always tough to balance land and sky in shots like this, but for me the drama is in the sky with the land being a supporting actor.
Thank you @Diane_Miller for your observations and suggestions. I wrestled with simply cropping the road but I decided that the far right section was weak and chose to remove it as well. I found that was a better resolution and it allowed a standard crop ratio, 2:3, to be used.
