Standing Tall Beneath the Stars

JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
This is another one from last week in Joshua Tree National Park last week. My focus was Deep Space Astro, but once my Star Tracker was set up and shooting Deep Space, I ran around with my other cameras. I had the D810 and Sony A6400 set up in different locations to shoot timelapses, and then I set up my Nikon D610 with the 14-24mm f2.8 in a timelapse mode, but the idea was to take single images out to process. I actually had this one set up close to the road because that's where I found these cool Joshua Trees that framed up well with the Milky Way. This one doesn't have any light from the car headlights in it, but my next one to process will be a shot where the headlights are lighting up the ground layer in a kind of a cool way. But for now, this one is just lit up by the stars. :)

25 secs
ISO 3200
f2.8
14mm
Single Shot, double processed, once for the ground and once of the sky.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

_D611040_dw.jpg
 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
I like seeing the Joshua trees down in front - makes it clear to the viewer where you are out in the desert. Nice one.
 
Ben Egbert

Ben Egbert

Forum Helper
Staff member
Love it Jim, you did a fantastic job with the ground layer. How did you blend the two versions? I have been using sky replacement. It usually makes a great blend, but sometimes it leaves parts of the ground layer sky visible, which is a problem if the ground layer is a 5 minute shot. I have not tried it with objects ticking into the sky like these trees.
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Ben Egbert said:
Love it Jim, you did a fantastic job with the ground layer. How did you blend the two versions? I have been using sky replacement. It usually makes a great blend, but sometimes it leaves parts of the ground layer sky visible, which is a problem if the ground layer is a 5 minute shot. I have not tried it with objects ticking into the sky like these trees.
Click to expand...
Thanks Ben, I do it the same way I have been doing it for years, use the Quick select tool and select the sky (No Feathering). Zoom into 100% and then use the Select Laso tool to finish it off. It doesn't have to be exact, when you are done and have flattened the 2 layers, just use the Halo Removal Tip I have in the Article Section, that will fill in the areas like around the Joshua Tree leaves.
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Douglas Sherman said:
I love this one, Jim. The angle of the Milky Way works perfectly.
Click to expand...
Thanks Doug! It's great to be able to come back from a location with several different night sky images, especially when this wasn't my focus, it was Deep Space Astro.
 
Tom Narwid

Tom Narwid

Well-Known Member
JimFox said:
This is another one from last week in Joshua Tree National Park last week. My focus was Deep Space Astro, but once my Star Tracker was set up and shooting Deep Space, I ran around with my other cameras. I had the D810 and Sony A6400 set up in different locations to shoot timelapses, and then I set up my Nikon D610 with the 14-24mm f2.8 in a timelapse mode, but the idea was to take single images out to process. I actually had this one set up close to the road because that's where I found these cool Joshua Trees that framed up well with the Milky Way. This one doesn't have any light from the car headlights in it, but my next one to process will be a shot where the headlights are lighting up the ground layer in a kind of a cool way. But for now, this one is just lit up by the stars. :)

25 secs
ISO 3200
f2.8
14mm
Single Shot, double processed, once for the ground and once of the sky.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

View attachment 39585
Click to expand...
Wow....that is a real beauty!
 
Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Jim,

One of your best in a long line of breathtaking MW work from you. This one is very special, I think the foreground illumination is 'just right' and looks very good, and the Milky Way placement color and exposure level is perfect. The capper for mem is the way many of the trees seem to be leaning in and reaching for the Milky Way - really gives this a surreal feeling of heightened awareness and a timeless feeling. Fantastic work that I am going to put in as the featured landscape image (even though you will not officially do that :) ) I will await the other version with artificial light that you mention, but hard to top this I'm thinkin' right now...

I also expect that even if I do get some good 'data' from any after sunset shooting on Haleakala next month I may need you to help me understand how to process it to bring the best out of what I got. can you post a single frame of the sky and maybe also what you used for the foreground exposure on this one?

ML
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Mike Lewis said:
Jim,

One of your best in a long line of breathtaking MW work from you. This one is very special, I think the foreground illumination is 'just right' and looks very good, and the Milky Way placement color and exposure level is perfect. The capper for mem is the way many of the trees seem to be leaning in and reaching for the Milky Way - really gives this a surreal feeling of heightened awareness and a timeless feeling. Fantastic work that I am going to put in as the featured landscape image (even though you will not officially do that :) ) I will await the other version with artificial light that you mention, but hard to top this I'm thinkin' right now...

I also expect that even if I do get some good 'data' from any after sunset shooting on Haleakala next month I may need you to help me understand how to process it to bring the best out of what I got. can you post a single frame of the sky and maybe also what you used for the foreground exposure on this one?

ML
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike, I am glad you liked this and appreciate your kind comments.

This is a single exposure. So the ground layer had the same exposure as the sky, I just double process the image with a layer mask keeping the ground and sky processing separate.

If you scroll a bit deeper you will see a thread you might have missed? It's the first thread I posted from my recent trip out to Joshua Tree, in it I posted the image straight out of the camera, and then my finished version.

And again my exposures are almost always the same:

25 seconds
ISO 3200
f2

I teach that one should take a longer ground exposure for the purposes of blending in if needed, in case the ground is just too dark in a single exposure. Of course you can't do that if you are shooting a timelapse as then you would have a gap in it. But if you aren't doing a timelapse, or are stopping the timelapse, you can easily switch over to shoot f4, drop the ISO to 800 and shoot for 10 to 12 minutes for a brighter ground image to blend in. If you are doing a timelapse and that isn't possible, you can always take one of your twilight images from before it's gotten to dark to blend in.

But, 99.9% of the time? I will never use those, even if I have shot those myself. I do it for back up purposes, just in case, but 99.9% of my night time images are always a single image.

Anyway, scroll down a bit further and find my other thread from Joshua Tree, it does have a SOOC image and the finished image.
 
Gramps Potter

Gramps Potter

Well-Known Member
JimFox said:
This is another one from last week in Joshua Tree National Park last week. My focus was Deep Space Astro, but once my Star Tracker was set up and shooting Deep Space, I ran around with my other cameras. I had the D810 and Sony A6400 set up in different locations to shoot timelapses, and then I set up my Nikon D610 with the 14-24mm f2.8 in a timelapse mode, but the idea was to take single images out to process. I actually had this one set up close to the road because that's where I found these cool Joshua Trees that framed up well with the Milky Way. This one doesn't have any light from the car headlights in it, but my next one to process will be a shot where the headlights are lighting up the ground layer in a kind of a cool way. But for now, this one is just lit up by the stars. :)

25 secs
ISO 3200
f2.8
14mm
Single Shot, double processed, once for the ground and once of the sky.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

View attachment 39585
Click to expand...
Awesome !
 
Bart Carrig

Bart Carrig

Well-Known Member
That is a beautiful image Jim, with very fine processing. I'm still working on a good MW image with foreground. I'll be working on your method. Thanks.

Bart
 
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