Ground Fog in Rim Country

What technical feedback would you like if any?

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What artistic feedback would you like if any?

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Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Taken after a rain on a Rim Country Lake. To go with the feeling of the fog, I kept the colors very muted, with only a slight yellow cast from the lights of Phoenix, 90 miles away. Bright spot and reflection is Jupiter. I toyed with toning it down, but opted to leave it as is. Also toyed with removing the grass in the reflection. Please share your thoughts. Thanks for any advice.

Taken with a Nikon D5, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8
Taken at 14 mm, 20 second exposure and ISO 4000

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The fog adds a lot to the night sky image. I am on the fence about the Jupiter reflection, as I find it pulls and holds my attention. Personal preference, but I would clone it out.

A beautiful night shot, Cheryl. Love the fog in it, and the reflections, but I do agree with Harley that Jupiter is drawing the attention. If this was my shot though, I would be so pleased with it. Well done.

I think the fog is awesomeā€¦ But it would be awesome in one picture where there was not a reflection. In this oneā€¦ I think I would have preferred no fog so that the mirror image would touch. However, we take what we can get and you made a beautiful image. I would not clone out Jupiter but I would use a radial filter and bring it down. Look how it shows in your reflection. Just cloning it out would be obvious.

Love the composition Cheryl, I would maybe reduce the saturated of the Jupiter reflection a little. I would also try darkening the upper right to help bring out the contrast in the milky way. Amazing the detail you did get with the light pollution you had to deal with. Something to try around April if go back and you should have about the same position there around 2am, this would help reduce Phx lights a bit. Jupiter has shifted now more east so that might help too. I think the fog is kind of cool.

i also love the composition Cheryl, you have interesting elements nicely distributed across the image. And the composition takes full advantage of the low lying milky way. And I like the white balance and colors you used here, they work very well for my taste. And the 20 second exposure did a nice job with the stars, both in the sky and the water.

Iā€™m in the same camp with @Harley_Goldman, I find the Jupiter reflection to be too much of an eye magnet, and i would clone it way, you want the eye drawn more to the galactic core. My other nit here is that the foreground rocks seem soft, Iā€™m not sure if that is due to noise reduction in post processing, or manually focusing on infinity to get the stars sharp, but leaving the foreground rocks a bit soft. I am not an expert in night-scapes, but have dabbled in it from time to time. I have had some success with manual/luminosity mask blending two exposures. One is for the sky focused at infinity and exposure at your typical Milky Way settings. The other exposure is for the foreground, at lower ISO, longer exposure, and focused on the foreground. This approach can help with foregrounds.

@Harley_Goldman,@Shirley_Freeman,@Drew_Armstrong,@ Dean_Salman,@Ed_McGurk, et al. Thanks all for your kind words and for your kindness sharing your thoughts. I agree that Jupiter needs to be less of an attention hog, so have played with tuning down and tuning it out. Sometimes the hang up is keeping it too ā€œas shotā€.
You are also right about the rocks in the foreground being a bit soft, exaggerated by my clumsy attempts at removing noise. I have only a little experience with luminosity masks, but next Spring when the MW is again visible, and l the lakes thaw, I will give the photo blending a try, another new challenge! Thanks.

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Cheryl, this is a great night shot, with an awesome number of stars in the sky. Yes, itā€™s amazing what a tiny bright spot like Jupiter in a night sky becomes in the camera during a long exposure. My though on Jupiterā€™s reflection is to leave the bright center by to use luminosity masks to darken the ring around it. Itā€™s also amazing how much light glow shows up in a dark sky from even a small town many miles away. This looks like a great spot to go back to on a clear night as it would be neat to have stars reflecting in the lake all the way to the horizon. The foreground rocks look a bit soft, almost like there was a bit of camera movement but that doesnā€™t make sense in a 20 s exposure unless there was some wind.

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I really love this shot, as I donā€™t think Iā€™ve seen a star shot with fog and mist in it near the horizon. The way you have processed it really gives the viewer the sense of being there. Iā€™m OK with the bright Jupiter, but am having a little (very little) problem with the dark rock on the left edge. It does enclose the lake but somehow draws my eye. Iā€™m not bothered by the soft rocks in front as itā€™s too dark to see them anyway.

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