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Archive 2015 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Matt Anderson
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Candyland #4 *with edit

*added a second version per Jim's critique.

The Milky Way over Zabriskie Point with Panamint Range glowing in distance, Mojave Desert. The moon was waning at 1/4 phase, providing perfect ambient light balanced with the starry night. Three exposure double processed and blended together for a panoramic format. Localized white balance adjustments to maximize chroma tones embedded from within.

Some tips on taking shots like this...
Pre focus at infinity, and using gaffers tape, lock down the focus.
Set your white balance at a custom 6500 or so.
Minimize use of live view to keep the sensor from heating up and creating extra read noise.
Shoot 2 exposures, one for the sky, one for the landscape.
Double process the images with different white balances. Had I used the sky white balance on the landscape, it would be heavily casted yellow.

Does this look like the scene I saw before my naked eye. No!
The naked eye saw almost nothing. Barely distinguishable shapes from the dim moonlight. A sliver of horizon glow. Stars in the sky. The camera, a whole different story, er, image.

Here's a larger view at 1920px

Edited image per critique

Edited on Aug 22, 2015 at 09:47 AM · View previous versions

Aug 20, 2015 at 08:16 AM

jord217
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Groovy bro

If I ever decide to do mushrooms at Death Valley, at least now I'll know what to expect. Seriously though. I always like your artistic take on places. Nice to see something totally different than the norm. Good job.

Aug 20, 2015 at 08:33 AM

JimFox
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Hey Matt,

This has a very cool look, especially the ground layer. I like most of the sky, but the top part of the Milky Way feels a bit crunchy.

As for your suggestions, a couple of comments.

I don't prefocus at infinity. That only works if you are using a manual less. All AF lenses lost their Infinity hard stop when AF was introduced many years ago. Each lens I use to shoot stars at ends up having a different focus point for getting the stars in focus. Add in if you have an object closer to the camera, it gets much more complicated. Scenes like this work fairly well for having one focus point that will work for the ground and the sky.

I don't preset my WB to 6500. That seems like a totally unnecessary step (besides being too warm of a WB for shooting at night), you recount later in your steps that when processing you adjust the WB for both the sky and the ground. So why even hassle with manually changing the WB? Especially as when people do that and then forget to put it back to Auto WB the next day, they are left scratching their heads as to why their photos have such a funny tint to them. This step just seems like double work. I leave my WB in Auto since I know when I am converting my images I will be changing the WB anyway, and I can dial it in easily to exactly what I want.

Anway, I do really like how your ground layer came out in this, I love shooting stars with a 1/4 moon, it's perfect for lighting up the ground.

Jim

Aug 20, 2015 at 01:10 PM

Matt Anderson
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Candyland #4 *with edit

JimFox wrote:
Hey Matt,

This has a very cool look, especially the ground layer. I like most of the sky, but the top part of the Milky Way feels a bit crunchy.

As for your suggestions, a couple of comments.

I don't prefocus at infinity. That only works if you are using a manual less. All AF lenses lost their Infinity hard stop when AF was introduced many years ago. Each lens I use to shoot stars at ends up having a different focus point for getting the stars in focus. Add in if you have an object closer to the camera, it gets much...Show more →

The sky is processed extra sharp for the web image, I agree it could be tamed a bit.

Pre-focussing at infinity IMO is the only way to go when shooting all star images. First, it's super easy to bump the focus ring when working in the dark. Secondly, by pre-focussing ( say in your car using live view at a distant object such as a bright star ) and taping it down, you mitigate missed focus, a heated sensor using live while shooting (which does create much much more read noise, bad for night skies). If I was shooting at night, but the content was less then infinity, I agree, you need to focus for each shot. When I say prefocus, I'm not saying just set it at the infinity mark, because that varies with lens, with temperature, and so on... I'm saying prefocus the lens to infinity using live view or the viewfinder, and then tape it down. 14mm at f/2.8 gives acceptable sharpness starting at 7-8 feet. If I had an element that was closer, I'd refocus to something closer to hyperfocal. And if it's really close, I simply take enough shots to get all elements in focus.

I disagree about AWB as well. THE LAST THING I WANT IS THE CAMERA USING DIFFERENT WB SETTINGS ON A SPLIT IMAGE PANO. You want to lobotomize the camera so each and every shot is the same. By dialing in a safe WB such as 6500, you mitigate the camera making decisions for you which will create more work later. The camera should be set to as manual as possible.

My workflow involves WB manipulations to create the most in tonal and color separations. Even in black and white work.

Thanks for commenting Jim. We disagree on a few issues, but frankly. Creativity is a customized journey, which is so unique to each artist.

Aug 20, 2015 at 01:44 PM

JimFox
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Matt Anderson wrote:
The sky is processed extra sharp for the web image, I agree it could be tamed a bit.

Pre-focussing at infinity IMO is the only way to go when shooting all star images. First, it's super easy to bump the focus ring when working in the dark. Secondly, by pre-focussing ( say in your car using live view at a distant object such as a bright star ) and taping it down, you mitigate missed focus, a heated sensor using live while shooting (which does create much much more read noise, bad for night skies). If I was shooting at...Show more →

Hey Matt,

Thanks for explaining about your focusing to Infinity. Thinking about it, I probably prefer to not use the term infinity very often since there is no true infinity on the majority of today's lenses and can confuse new photographers.

I do agree totally with the importance of prefocusing though. It's probably the #1 most important thing to do when shooting the stars. The most common issue I have seen from people just starting out shooting the stars is that their shots are soft and out of focus. Because until they have tried it, most never realize just how hard it is to try and focus in the dark. So prefocusing, and placing some tape on the lens to lock in both the focus and zoom (if applicable) is super important. So thanks for explaining your thoughts on that in more detail.

And yes, creativity is the key and I know the creativity you bring to the table is much appreciated here. There is nothing wrong with the normal landscape photo, but I know it's fun to see you or others bring something new up. It helps to spark other creative juices, and I think that's important for all of our growth as individual photographers and artists.

Jim

Aug 20, 2015 at 05:10 PM

Matt Anderson
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Candyland #4 *with edit

JimFox wrote:
Hey Matt,

Thanks for explaining about your focusing to Infinity. Thinking about it, I probably prefer to not use the term infinity very often since there is no true infinity on the majority of today's lenses and can confuse new photographers.

I do agree totally with the importance of prefocusing though. It's probably the #1 most important thing to do when shooting the stars. The most common issue I have seen from people just starting out shooting the stars is that their shots are soft and out of focus. Because until they have tried it, most never realize just how hard...Show more →

Thanks for your thoughts and insight Jim, always appreciated !!!

Aug 22, 2015 at 09:38 AM

Bart Carrig
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Thanks Matt and Jim for the discussion and ideas. I'm just starting with night photography, and it's helpful to me.

Matt: This is a great image. I'd have one for our room, and one in our 4 year old's room: it's good for the spirit.

Bart

Aug 22, 2015 at 09:56 AM

mabidally
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Candyland #4 *with edit

I definitely like the first one more, amazing shot and colours you have shown.

Aug 22, 2015 at 11:52 AM

matthewsaville
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Definitely a good idea to have gaffers tape at the ready for stuff like this; I put it all over my lens caps, hoods, etc.

To be honest, since neither of the images' goal is to look perfectly realistic, I think the first one rocks! A gorgeous shot that I can honestly say is better than 99.99% of the photos taken at Zabriskie. BTW was this one single exposure? You put two exposures in your tips, but the EXIF was ambiguous. Oh wait I see, you listed it at the very beginning, which I usually skip past lol... Was it just a simple, "long exposure, short exposure" blend for keeping the stars from spinning, or did you use a tracker for the sky?

I ask because, unlike others, this shot looks perfectly blended at the horizon, from edge to edge, which is extremely difficult to do if the images are captured at anything other than nearly identical exposure settings.

Aug 22, 2015 at 04:38 PM

LSExplorer
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Actually I felt sad about the trend of the digital landscape photography when I saw this kind of photos.

Just my personal 2 cents.

Aug 22, 2015 at 09:35 PM

dgdg
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Candyland #4 *with edit

I had not seen the original without the edit. My first comment was going to be the black deep sky which you corrected.
The milky way, however, is blown and pure white. In the edit, this effect is worse. By adjusting your black point, you should be able to have nice sky background brightness without blowing the milky way. There can be nice subtle colors there with great detail. I think it would really make the image pop if the milky way were not stark white. If you intended to have the milky way this appearance, then of course, I'd leave it alone.
White balance is a matter of taste, whatever you have done it looks ok to me.
I love the foreground.

David

Aug 23, 2015 at 06:39 AM

Mark Metternich
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Candyland #4 *with edit

I always love your graphic like style Mr Matt, but on this one I am voting for a little tamer version especially of the Milkyway.

Aug 23, 2015 at 02:02 PM

Matt Anderson
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Candyland #4 *with edit

matthewsaville wrote:
Definitely a good idea to have gaffers tape at the ready for stuff like this; I put it all over my lens caps, hoods, etc.

To be honest, since neither of the images' goal is to look perfectly realistic, I think the first one rocks! A gorgeous shot that I can honestly say is better than 99.99% of the photos taken at Zabriskie. BTW was this one single exposure? You put two exposures in your tips, but the EXIF was ambiguous. Oh wait I see, you listed it at the very beginning, which I usually skip past lol... Was it just...Show more →

This is a three shot pano. Each shot is double processed, once for the landscape, once for the sky.
It's very important to get the vignette out of the images, so the blends are seamless. Shooting at f/2.8 will put a stop of dark-vignette on the edges. Correcting for that is imperative prior to merging. No astrotrac used here.
I actually had some more compelling scenes from the area, but I can't get the skies to blend seamless.

Aug 25, 2015 at 12:17 PM

matthewsaville
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Matt Anderson wrote:
This is a three shot pano. Each shot is double processed, once for the landscape, once for the sky.
It's very important to get the vignette out of the images, so the blends are seamless. Shooting at f/2.8 will put a stop of dark-vignette on the edges. Correcting for that is imperative prior to merging. No astrotrac used here.
I actually had some more compelling scenes from the area, but I can't get the skies to blend seamless.

So, it sounds like you're eliminating lens vignetting in the pano by simply doing tons of overlap. That is indeed how I went about it in some of my astro-landscape panos, too. F/2.8 os downright diabolical on the Rokinons I use, both the 14 and the 24.

Aug 26, 2015 at 01:47 PM

Arka
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Candyland #4 *with edit

The foreground is beautifully done but that Milky Way feels way too bright to me.

Sep 02, 2015 at 07:45 PM

roythegreat
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Candyland #4 *with edit

wow

Sep 02, 2015 at 08:38 PM

mabidally
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Candyland #4 *with edit

The first image has stronger immediate viewer impact. Opening up shadows to scrutinise all the shadow areas is a great tool when used carefully in moderation but it is also a new photoshop fad which is often overused and flattens the image.

Sep 03, 2015 at 12:08 AM

Weasel_Loader
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Candyland #4 *with edit

Nice work! Love the colors in the ground, but like a few others have mentioned, the Milky Way is a bit too bright and busy.

Sep 03, 2015 at 12:36 AM


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