I would appreciate feedback on this image. For me what is positive about this picture is how the sky came out. I have been struggling since I began shooting the night sky to get the feel of cascading stars in my night sky images. Typically I have been getting unsatisfactory, blocky results. But on my last posting @David_Kingham was kind enough to offer a critique. He suggested two things that kind of changed my world. First, he noted that the “blockiness” problem was due to lack of focus and that the culprit was likely the Rokinon 12mm f/2 lens that I have struggled in using since my first Milky Way attempts. I kept with it trying to get it focused but David suggested that best thing might be to stop using it and try another lens more easily and reliably focused. The second thing he said was, “expose to the left,” namely do whatever needs to be done – higher ISO, longer exposure, wider aperture – in order to get brighter exposures. With these recommendations in mind, I went back to the RAW images from my wilderness trip last August and discovered that I had taken one series of the night sky where I used my Fujinon 16-50mm f/2.8 lens just to see how it would do. I was so convinced that it couldn’t possibly do better than the Rokinon that I didn’t bother to give these frames a good look. It turns out, they were much better. This image is from that group. While I’m not thrilled with the composition, I am delighted with the sky in terms of focus, detail and visibility of all the stars, bright and more distant. And, by the way, I sold my Rokinon and bought a copy of the Fujinon 16mm f/1.4, which I think will be perfect for future attempts at astrophotography.
This image is a blend – a 17 image stack – 16mm, ISO 2500, f/2.8, 16 sec - blended with an image shot around sunset – 16mm, ISO 200, f/14, 1/8 sec. In the future I would boost my night sky to at least 3200 and something more like 20-22 sec. This time I was lucky because the moon was starting to rise and lightened up the sky for a brighter exposure.
Where I would especially like feedback is with regards to detail and colour. Since this is a blend, I can brighten the dark areas of the land to any degree I choose. My concern is over brightening to the extent that the image becomes unnatural looking. I tend to be conservative and wonder if this image would benefit from more detail in the landscape. How far can I go without it looking “weird.” The other area I’d like feedback is with regards to color – not so much colour balance but adding colour through colour painting. Are there opportunities for adding colour highlights that I am missing that would enhance this image? Any other feedback would, of course, be appreciated.
Hi Kerry, I like it the way it is.
These images are, in my opinion, almost inevitably unnatural. It would be impossible to see the Milky Way and so many stars, and still have so much stray light that you can distinguish distant details in the landscape. I think that you found a nice balance, so I appreciate that you tend to be conservative. But there will certainly be different opinions, I suppose, as I have seen many other night skies with a lot more detail in the landscape and even an airport in the rain under a clear sky with lots of stars…
Hey Kerry! Yea, I think you done quite well with this image. I particularly like the sky colors. In actuality, a night sky is quite orange-brown…not exactly appealing to the masses. Folks expect a dark blue night sky. That is typically how I process my night skies So, for me, your sky color is quite good. The only suggestion may be to brighten just the Milky Way. Either through luminosity masks, or the whites slider in Lightroom, or the highlights sliders in either levels or curves in Photoshop.
Cheers
I went back to your post on this topic and I didn’t see anything about “expose to the left”. Quite the contrary. You want to keep your exposure up as far as you can in camera and if needed bring it down in post. Under exposing in camera is a perfect recipe for noise and muddy images. When I shoot night images like this I rely 100% on my histogram to understand what I’ve captured. There needs to be clear separation in the histogram between the pixels representing the foreground and the pixels in the sky. The sky is clearly brighter and if I don’t see a clear separation in the histogram, then I know it is underexposed.
As David noted in his comments last time, I also would not bother with the 17 image stacks. I shoot a good deal of night images and they are all one exposure. Not even a separate exposure for the foreground. I think you are adding extra unnecessary work that isn’t adding value. Just my 2 cents worth.
Image: Looks pretty good, but I’d still prefer more light in the sky. As noted in a comment above, especially the Milky Way. Stars look crisp based on the sizes I can view.
I like your processing as it looks like you have kept plenty of detail in the foreground and it doesn’t look muddy. Your colors also look pretty good on this one, the sky doesn’t look overly blue or purple like I see in a lot of astro images. For me I would darken the sky and lighten the milky way up a bit more to make it pop.
Kerry, the processing here looks pretty good. I also like how Mars and it’s reflection came out, it was the “star” of many of my Milky Way shots from this summer as well. I think you got some very good advice from both David and Keith Bauer. Unless you are making very large prints, I don’t think there is the need for 17 image stacks. I usually do two exposures, one for the sky at ISO 6400 for 20 or 25 seconds at 14mm, and another for the land, either taken at twilight at low ISO or exposed much longer in full dark. I use the newer Rokinnon 14mm f2.4 lens, and I find it relatively easy to focus manually on the stars by zooming to see the stars in live view on my Canon 5D MkIV.
Thank you all for taking the time to offer feedback. It has been very helpful. First let me apologize, Keith, for my dyslexic moment - of course, I meant “expose to the right.” Keith and Ed - when you do a single exposure, to remove the noise, do you just use a brights luminosity mask to isolate the stars and then clean up the remaining the dark sky? As I said, Ed , I’m done with the Rokinon 12mm and hope the Fujinon 16mm 1.4 will do a nice job. I took the advice that most of you gave and brightened the galactic core in this image by dodging with luminosity masks and I’ve included the revised image here. Also, Ed, I’m embarrassed to say that I thought that bright star was Venus when, as you said, it was a very bright year for Mars.
Sean Bagshaw recently created a nice video on using the TK Luminosty Mask Panel to do Milky Way processing, including how he uses LM’s for noise reduction.
https://www.photocascadia.com/better-quality-night-sky-images-using-luminosity-masks/
Yes. I watched Sean’s video, in fact my post work for this sky mostly followed his process. Next chance I get I’ll give a single exposure a try. It will certainly save me some time in the field.
Kerry,
I think you’ve done a great job with the starry night sky. I’m not experienced with this photography so can’t offer much help or critique, but in general agree with Han’s comments. I think you’ve done a great job in keeping this “natural”
Lon
Han makes a good point. Almost all nightscapes we see are astrophotography with a landscape foreground. It’s beautiful in it’s own way but it would be nice to see an image of a night sky the way you see it in person. That’s not a criticism of this image in any way. Just an observation. It would be interesting if you increased the contrast to make the really faint stars disappear and the brighter ones bright.
Han does, indeed, make a good point. But, for me at least, these images are not about what I saw but what I experienced. I find the sense of awe and expanse is lost if I just take the image out of RAW and adjust the white balance. Because that is pretty much what I saw but I don’t feel, as I say, that it captures the experience that I had sitting out under the stars a thousand miles from nowhere.
If only our eyes had ISO 6400 / 20 second exposure time vision!
I think we all over-emphasize the detail in the sky/stars on these type of shots to give the feeling of what we felt at the time. I can also see why some would feel they look a little unnatural. I imagine really long exposures of moving water look unnatural in the same way.
I do love the sight of the Milky Way in the sky, even if only faintly viewed by my eyes. It always amazes me how much your vision improves once you get your eyes adjusted to the lack of light.
Kerry: I think you did a great job with the sky and bringing out the detail in the core. The luminosity, colors, etc… are all good.
The foreground while interesting does not blow me away.
I am thinking the water might look better a little cooler ; more blue.
I think I would experiment with brightening up the land to the right and the water.
Obviously this then gets more unnatural ; so have to do that to taste.
If overall lightening is not looking right lightening up just the highlight details in the water (where the waves are / water reaching the land for example) might bring out just enough little extra detail to make the shot more balanced overall.
The back trees and island look good silouetted but due to the wide angle lens also appear quite small in the overall frame.