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Archive 2015 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

matthewsaville
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p.2 #1 · p.2 #1 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

lighthound wrote:
I just want to know if you have to call ahead to make reservations for that camp spot and where is the bathroom and shower located.

Killer shot! You have 3 majors in this image and they all play very well together. The tent really makes this image IMHO.

Question, did you have to nudge the sky image around to get it to wrap around Half dome like that or was that natural?

No kidding, man! Actually I recorded video of my last ~15 mins approaching the Diving Board itself, that is one grueling slog for anyone who is not in the absolute best shape! Not sure if I can embed videos here, but I don't think so...

In response to your question, indeed the milky way wraps around Half dome like that, in the late spring / summer. This was taken on July 1st I believe of last year.

I usually dislike the "rainbow" effect that you get when stitching such a wide view of the milky way, because it does indeed look kind of silly and fake, but if you consider the angle of view being seen here, it's actually about as accurate as you can get. Here's a screenshot of the original frames. I actually wish I had gotten one more frame on the right, (and left?) ...as the scene would have also made a gorgeous 16:9 or 1:2 ratio panorama.

http://photos.matthewsaville.com/photos/i-FtV94dv/0/L/i-FtV94dv-L.jpg

My friends and I use apps a whole lot to track the movement of the moon, stars, etc. It's extremely useful. Even google earth can be used in "night mode" to display the milky way, although an astronomy friend of mine insists it is extremely inaccurate and only a half-decent indication of the actual milky way. (I'd love if any fellow astro shooters can expound on this!)

=Matt=

Mar 09, 2015 at 01:27 PM

Doug C
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p.2 #2 · p.2 #2 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

matthewsaville wrote:
Very good question! The best way to do panoramas like this is to blend the individual composite frames for sky and earth first, and then take each of those PSDs / TIFs into Photoshop for the Panorama. Either way it's a bit CPU-hungry, but it's not too bad on my 2011 Macbook Pro (and considering they're 36 MP images, and I've since down-graded to 24) ...so I'm sure most folks will be okay!

I'll probably try and record a video tutorial on how to do this, either for SLR Lounge or for my own personal site, http://www.astro-landscapes.com

=Matt=

I'd be interested in this tutorial as well!

Mar 09, 2015 at 02:58 PM

Chuck D
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p.2 #3 · p.2 #3 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

You did a beautiful job in the capture and the processing. The tent glow adds the touch that really makes it visually pleasing.

Mar 09, 2015 at 06:06 PM

Steve Perry
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p.2 #4 · p.2 #4 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Really sweet image. I'd be tempted to take out some of the green / cyan, but it's all personal taste.

Mar 09, 2015 at 06:15 PM

JimFox
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p.2 #5 · p.2 #5 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Hey Matt,

Thanks for showing your 4 images here. And a good job with stitching them, that is not an easy task by any means.

Jim

Mar 09, 2015 at 06:57 PM

matthewsaville
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p.2 #6 · p.2 #6 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

As a few folks suggested, I gave the sky a shot at being a little darker. Thoughts?

http://photos.matthewsaville.com/photos/i-rWS99Ds/0/O/i-rWS99Ds.jpg

http://photos.matthewsaville.com/photos/i-Lxkw3Bf/0/L/i-Lxkw3Bf-L.jpg

(It seems to have revealed some sort of aurora-like bands in the sky, any thoughts on what this could be, as far "south" as Yosemite?)

Mar 09, 2015 at 11:24 PM

lighthound
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p.2 #7 · p.2 #7 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

I think your edit looks great.
As for the bands, I have no idea but I suppose it could be the aurora. It has reached as far south as Florida before albeit very rare.

When I was young I remember seeing the aurora while living in the southern tier of New York. At the time I had no idea what it was that I was seeing but asked a few people and they said what I described sounded like it was the Northern Lights. Most everyone I told said I was crazy because we were not far enough north. It has since become common knowledge that it is possible as we have learned much more about our little star and our magnetic fields.

Strangely, what your image shows doesn't look like a normal aurora light show but it is very similar to part of the light show I saw as a teenager. Except the beams I saw radiated out of the middle of the sky where there was nothing but dark space and stars.

Thanks for sharing and explaining your images. Again, very nice work!

Mar 10, 2015 at 09:34 AM

Doug C
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p.2 #8 · p.2 #8 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

I love the edit!

Mar 10, 2015 at 04:20 PM

chasphoto2015
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p.2 #9 · p.2 #9 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Simply Awesome photo. I could sit under those stars for days. Not so much on the ledge to sleep though.

Mar 10, 2015 at 04:42 PM

aFeinberg
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p.2 #10 · p.2 #10 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Agree about the iso. Dont really need to go that high for the sky. But the d800 can put out great files. Plus Ive been printing large high iso files off of old equipment for years

Great capture. Darker one for me.

aF

Mar 10, 2015 at 05:56 PM

matthewsaville
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p.2 #11 · p.2 #11 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

aFeinberg wrote:
Agree about the iso. Dont really need to go that high for the sky. But the d800 can put out great files. Plus Ive been printing large high iso files off of old equipment for years

Great capture. Darker one for me.

aF

Thanks for the kind words!

I'm not really sure what to say about the ISO being "too high"... Here's what the histogram looked like for the completely un-edited sky files... http://photos.matthewsaville.com/photos/i-7TZkKkG/0/L/i-7TZkKkG-L.jpg

Mar 10, 2015 at 08:27 PM

Mark Metternich
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p.2 #12 · p.2 #12 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Looks awesome man! I too would not mind a darker rendering of the sky.

Mar 11, 2015 at 12:42 AM

Ben Horne
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p.2 #13 · p.2 #13 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Very cool shot! I really like the addition of the tent for a sense of scale. I prefer the darker sky version because it also allows the sky to hold some more color than the original. Well done!

Mar 11, 2015 at 09:26 AM

JimFox
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p.2 #14 · p.2 #14 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

matthewsaville wrote:
Thanks for the kind words!

I'm not really sure what to say about the ISO being "too high"... Here's what the histogram looked like for the completely un-edited sky files... http://photos.matthewsaville.com/photos/i-7TZkKkG/0/L/i-7TZkKkG-L.jpg

Hey Matt,

I have shot a few times, like my last time out at the Temples in Capital Reef where it was so totally dark, I had to crank it up to 10 or 12,000 of the ISO. But looking at your histogram, myself, I usually shoot the sky a stop darker, that could be where some of the comments are coming from too in regards to wanting a darker sky in this. And lowering the ISO would be where I would get my shot to be a stop darker.

Now as for the Half Dome part of the shot, why did you shoot at 3200 instead of ISO 400? That one I don't get. If you are going to have to blend a ground layer in, then you should get the ISO down as low as reasonable, which is usually about 400. Now... since you were shooting pano's, and ISO 400 and f5.6 or f8 would get you into the 15min or so exposure range, that would mean an hour of shooting just to get your ground layer since it's a 4 shot pano. So if that's what your thinking was, I get it. But in that case, personally I would still have gotten it down to ISO 1600 I think.

Anyway, don't let everyone's helpful comments and thoughts take away from what you have here as a wonderful image! It's truly awesome! And for some of us who have had a dream of shooting from up there for many a year, the closest we are getting (at this point) is in being backseat drivers here...

Again, a really sweet and special shot here! And thanks for being open about sharing your shooting on this.

Jim

Mar 11, 2015 at 02:20 PM

matthewsaville
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p.2 #15 · p.2 #15 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

JimFox wrote:
Hey Matt,

I have shot a few times, like my last time out at the Temples in Capital Reef where it was so totally dark, I had to crank it up to 10 or 12,000 of the ISO. But looking at your histogram, myself, I usually shoot the sky a stop darker, that could be where some of the comments are coming from too in regards to wanting a darker sky in this. And lowering the ISO would be where I would get my shot to be a stop darker.

Now as for the Half Dome part of the shot, why did...Show more →
Well again, the histogram still had a large chunk missing on the highlight side, even in the ISO 3200 image. And while I did darken it in post, I certainly didn't darken it by 3 stops.

So, I could have gotten away with 6400 for the stars and 1600 for the earth, maybe. But my noise levels would have been about the same or worse, I suspect.

That, plus as I mentioned, I was already hard-pressed to pull off a ~5 min exposure at ISO 3200 due to the warmth of the weather. If I had gone down to 10 mins, heat-related noise would have been far, far worse. As it was, the star alignment already looks a bit off due to the 5.5 minute intervals betweeen shots, 10.5 min intervals would have definitely wacked out the milky way too much to stitch properly. (Also I prefer in-camera long exposure NR to dark-frame subtraction, so a 10 min exposure would have been a ~20 min exposure, too)

I'll definitely be experimenting with post-producing my night images much darker in the future, but I don't think I'll give up my initial exposure methodology. :-)

Mar 11, 2015 at 02:50 PM

Bob Kane
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p.2 #16 · p.2 #16 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Hardcore wrote:
Very nice Mathew. I like it as well. Sky seems a bit light to me but that is personal preference. Is that someone camping in what looks to be a lit up tent?

I'm with Hardcore--my preference would be for a darker sky. Picking the nit over a terrific shot.

Mar 11, 2015 at 03:35 PM

dgdg
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p.2 #17 · p.2 #17 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

I like the sky a bit darker as seen in the edit.
As said, picking a nit over a great shot.

For the night sky, usually we have a set shutter speed and aperture, so it's only the iso we can adjust for proper exposure. As far as how high to go with ISO, my thoughts are -
A pure sky shot without city glow on the horizon or other bright light source (moon, lighthouse, etc.) should have a single histogram peak around 30%. It looks too bright on my camera's LCD, but it's the perfect balance for noise and detail. In post correct for vignetting, then adjust the deep sky black point to about 30/30/40 r/g/b. Should be a great starting point to tweak as desired. This method also accounts for light pollution, if present.

David

Mar 11, 2015 at 04:29 PM

Fast6
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p.2 #18 · p.2 #18 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Awesome result. Here's a question for you (or for anyone else inclined to answer): When making night-sky panos, how do you rectify star movement between the frames?

Mar 11, 2015 at 05:37 PM

michael49
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p.2 #19 · p.2 #19 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Ben Horne wrote:
Very cool shot! I really like the addition of the tent for a sense of scale....!

+1.

Love it.

Mar 11, 2015 at 06:56 PM

matthewsaville
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p.2 #20 · p.2 #20 · The Diving Board - Half Dome Under The Milky Way

Fast6 wrote:
Awesome result. Here's a question for you (or for anyone else inclined to answer): When making night-sky panos, how do you rectify star movement between the frames?

For the most part, you don't. You pray it stitches.

If I had been able to get away with 30 sec exposures for the foreground as well, (if the moon had been shining a bit and I had been able to expose the sky and foreground both at ISO 1600-3200) ...then a ~30 second gap between photos isn't too big of a deal. But yeah, at 5.5+ min intervals, I was just crossing my fingers and hoping for the best.

Since it's a panorama that required a bit of warping, the constellations etc. are already not going to be perfect. And when you blend the different pano frames, you might end up with a bit of duplication here and there. But as long as you don't notice a seam, it's a success in my opinion. Dedicated astrophotographers would probably cringe at such a general approach, and I wouldn't blame them; I usually refrain from "rainbow-ing" the milky way like this. But half dome just begged the composition, and I couldn't resist.

I might return to this location this year or next, and re-shoot the image using the new Rokinon 12mm fisheye. That thing is SO wide, it might just cover almost this exact frame without any stitching!

=Matt=

Mar 11, 2015 at 07:06 PM

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