Critique Style Requested: Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
A Summer night last year in Joshua Tree National Park. I just wanted to catch the Milky Way in all its glory. It is hard to avoid city glow when capturing the full breadth of the Milky Way in Summer. I did reduce the brightness.
This is 7 images stitched together.
20mm, f/2.8, 25 seconds, ISO 1600
COOL!! I love the silhouettes! Good job of managing what I assume is different brightness across the frames. It looks like quite a bit of red and green airglow.
I wouldn’t have minded having another frame on each side, especially the right, but it’s so cool it’s hard to wish for anything more.
Wow Mark, what a wonderful night sky image. I love the silhouettes of the foreground trees. The sky is magnificent!! I can’t think of a think I would improve. Nice job.
Full arch Milky Way panos are one of my favorite things to do, so I automatically love this image! I do think another frame on each side would be helpful, but doesn’t wreck the image not to. What body are you shooting? On the technical side of things, I suspect you can go a lot higher on your ISO. Having your exposure too low can result in more noise that a higher ISO might. You’re already at 25 seconds, which at 20mm might already be a tad too long for spot stars. This means about the only way to gather more light is to increase the ISO. I bet 3200 or even as high as 6400 would be beneficial.
A beautiful Milky Way image, Mark. Using the Joshua Trees as foreground and getting low enough to give them prominence was a great idea.
Mark, this is a lovely Milkyway Pano. Having the easily recognizable Joshua trees for the skyline adds a fine touch of land balance. When you’re in a dark sky area, it’s amazing how much city glow can be seen from far away cities (or even smaller towns).
@Diane_Miller , @Paul_Holdorf , @Dennis_Plank , @Mark_Seaver , and @Donna_Callais - thanks very much for your thoughts it was fun to get down low and shoot this.
Yes, I wish now I had taken one or two more shots to extend the edges. At the time I thought it was enough, but it could use a little more room.
Paul, I used a Nikon D750. It is somewhat ISO invariant, so I think I could have gotten away with 3200, maybe even 6400 as you said. Topaz DeNoise really helps! I e also been able to get pretty decent night sky shots at 15-20 seconds, so maybe next time.
