The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
My wife and I visited western Colorado at the end of May. We tend to not make reservations for camping or lodging whenever possible so as to allow us maximum freedom to roam. We left Durango one morning, not sure of where we’d end up that night. By late afternoon, we found ourselves in Buena Vista. We found a room and I decided to see if there were any good spots to shoot the Milky Way near there. Lo and behold, Cottonwood Pass was just 18 miles up the road from here! I have long admired images captured here, so I anxiously drove up there around midnight. I found a lot more snow than I was expecting! It’s tough to tell from this perspective, but I’m about 5 ft back from the edge of a broken off snow cornice. You can see a few fracture lines on the left side where the entire bank was becoming unstable. Pretty exciting night!
Specific Feedback
There was a very thin layer of high clouds on the right side, which bloated the brighter stars and further dimmed the weaker ones. I did some work with the liquify filter in Photoshop to reduce the size of the larger ones, and used a linear gradient in Lightroom to bring some texture and brightness back in. Does the sky look a little unbalanced as far as star brightness and visibility goes? I reduced the saturation of the greens to make the airglow a little less distracting. Some folks do a lot of work to remove airglow, but I like to show it off when it’s there. What do you think?
Technical Details
Nikon D850
Sigma Art 20 mm 1.4
ISO 6400, f/2.8, 10 seconds
10 light and 10 dark image stacked as RAW’s in Starry Landscape Stacker
Processed in Lightroom and Photoshop using the warp tool, liquify filter and the Ministars Action.
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Wow! And Holy Cow! The first thing I focus on (besides wondering why there haven’t been more MWs lately as it starts to rise) is the curves of the MW and the FG! I often don’t care for what a wide pano does to the FG but here it is perfect!! And the airglow is wonderful – I can’t tell it was subdued but it looks very believable. Star quality looks great – I wouldn’t have known there was any manipulation.
I’m confused about the acquisition and processing – this must be a super-pano. At 20mm I’m guessing two rows of maybe 10 frames each? Excellent, however you did it!
Thanks @Diane_Miller . One thing I forgot to mention was that I used PTGui for the pano stitch. PTGui has many more projections types. This was cylindrical. I usually use Equilateral. You can move the center up and down to help with the foreground. I also used the warp function under “edit” and the Liquify filter in Photoshop to move the edges up a bit to avoid that downward swoop you get at the ends. This is one row of 8 stacked images. Here’s an earlier rendition stitched in Lightroom.
Paul, I prefer your photo as first posted as it gives the milky way more space. Please do not remove the green airglow as I believe these patterns set your photo above others. My only criticism is the amount of white “dust” top middle left. Perhaps a median noise filter of 2 or 3 pixels will calm this area.
I think the airglow makes this image. I like both images. The OP is more expansive, and the cropped image draws more attention to the dust bands. It’s really interesting that you can see the red color of the giant Antares.
It’s a beautiful image and you did a great job putting this together!
-P
I don’t usually do an EP until several images have accumulated (unlike other categories with more entries where they can be awarded weekly) but this one is so strong that it’s a no-brainer!
Thank you so much Diane! I went out last night and got some more. I’m experimenting with a blended long exposure with a stacked sky and it’s kicking my butt! I’ll share some more soon!
