The following two pictures were taken from Kilimanjaro's Karanga Camp--90 minute exposure. I'd like to think the shot came out nicely (alignment was unintentional, truthfully, but I don't really mind it), and I'm just wondering how most of you would edit this, and what other general improvements you would make. Post-processing is my next big venture--still pretty amateurish at this point. Just want to stick to basic post functionalities at this point. Using Aperture at the moment.
The first picture is the original, and the second is what I came up with after post. Lemme know what you think! For what it's worth, the noise in the second picture isn't so apparent when viewed at full resolution. Should have manually set ISO to 100, but alas, I left it at auto. First try at star trails!
A 90 minute exposure with digital? That's pretty amazing... I think you could use a layer mask to adjust the sky seperately, the background color is too light still. But overall you did a good job.
For what it's worth, I believe I increased the contrast and intensity a bit, brightened and polarized the sky with Aperture brushes, and then darkened the foreground.
Will, this brings back some fond memories. I did Kilimanjaro back in '05 and we stayed at Karanga Camp also. Sure wished I brought an SLR to give something like this a try.
I agree with Jim about further darkening the sky. You can do this with a curves adjustment with a layer mask. I also prefer not cropping off the foreground rocks. Looks like a tent guy line on the lower left -- I would clone that out if you could. I'm sure this image is going to be a nice memory of your time on the climb.
Will, Kilimanjaro Wow ! I think your trails look good in both examples, what I would look to work on for this shot would be the composition which in turn would take the trails to the next level. Here are a few of my suggestions , you obviously travel to some amazing locations ( i went to your blog site ) and this may help you next time you are in this situation. when I saw your shot the first thing I thought was a vertical orientation, when i saw the lit tents I thought they also make a wonderful foreground focus point with Kilimanjaro in the background. Since they were lit from the inside they would provide a beautiful fg lighting (similar to the shot you have in the blog of the lit tent city). Since you were using a 17mm wide angle lens you might try getting close to tent make this the focal point for the lead into the shot and juxtapose it with the mountain then position it so the point may lead to the center of the star trails. In a vertical orientation you would have more sky and then more trails which was your intended concept or idea for the shot. IMO your current Fg dose not support your idea enough for the trials. Great effort and I really look forward to seeing more of your work . Dean
Nice replies. As for the composition, well, it was pitch black, so I basically just put on the flash, fired a few test shots to see where the tents were, and then hoped for the best. Again, I wasn't planning on the camera having this type of tilt; I thought I had it straight.
Vertical comp is a great idea. The famous star trails over Kili pic (vertical comp) is one of my favorites of all time. I'm going to post a bunch more pictures in the coming days, and asking for some post processing tips. I always get a bit frustrated when I take shots of an amazing place (just traveled through Rwanda and currently in Uganda--both beautiful), load pics onto computer, and see that the colors don't really pop or the sky is too soft, and don't have the post processing chops to turn it into an amazing shot. But hey, this is all part of the process though!
