Lake of the Woods and Mt. McLoughlin in southern Oregon. The conditions were not ideal with a full moon and a mildly hazy sky from forest fires in the region, but I wanted to give it a try when I saw the Big Dipper over the mountain. The mountain is likely lit from the moon.
Canon R5; 17-40 at 17 mm; 30 seconds; f5.6; ISO 800
Allen, the first thing I notice when I open the larger view is how hard it becomes to find the Big Dipper! I’ve done a number of night shots and the first thing I notice is how many more stars the camera picks up that our eyes don’t notice. The hazy distance is almost certainly from distant city lights, the moon and the smoke. When your at a “Dark Sky” location, it quickly becomes apparent how much human light pollution there is and how far it travels. This is a fine view! I could see some burning-in of the lower sky and distant mountain, if you want to hide the haze. There’s an interesting streak of light in the dark trees that’s probably moon light hitting the trunk, but it look artificial so a bit of cloning may be good. My only suggestion for the future is to get there when there’s less smoke… This look very good as presented.
I’ve read about a filter to help accentuate constellation stars…it “bloats” constellation stars a little and hides smaller other stars. It was developed by night landscape photographer Alyn Wallace in collaboration with Kase filters. It is called a Starglow Filter. The Kase website shows it as “out of stock”, but if it ever becomes available it might be fun to use to make the Big Dipper stand out, if that is a goal.
Allen: This scene is really nice. I would certainly go back on a really dark night with no smoke in the air.
I think there’s more in this file than you’ve pulled out of it. I did a bit of work on the jpeg to give the sky a bit more presence, open up some of the foreground shadows (but found a couple of beach chairs that had to be cloned!!). Did a little work on the horizon (not very successfully). Night image processing is fun and challenging with no singular right answer.
Thanks, @Keith_Bauer . I like what you did to the middle part with the mountain and adjacent sky. Never saw the chairs until you mentioned them. Probably won’t be back any time soon-a good 5 hour drive. I would like the dipper to stand out more, but my attempts just made its stars look fuzzy.
A lovely scene! I might try to bring up a little more detail on the mountain but maybe not easy. The stars are surrounded by dark halos (probably from over-sharpening) and you should be able to re-process without them. The stars we see as larger do get lost in pictures. You might make the Dipper a little more prominent by cropping a bit from the bottom. The lens is showing some coma and chromatic aberration in the corners – common with most wide angles. 30 sec is beginning to show some star trails – that camera can go to ISO 1600 or higher with today’s NR software. My personal cutoff is 10 sec., although there is less movement toward the pole so maybe 15 sec. Bracket now and decide later.
I’ve been known to enhance the stars in the Dipper by adding an empty layer and carefully painting small white dots with the brush tool – just enough to emphasize the star a tiny bit. (Don’t neglect the “double star” in the handle.)
