Spent an evening near the summit of Mauna Kea (4207m) photographing the Milky Way with a Nikon D810a and 14-24mm lens. It was cold, windy and beautiful. The vertical shot over Mauna Loa (4169m) in the background consists of six four-second exposures stacked. The horizontal shot is three four-second exposures. The panorama is stitched from 19 four-second exposures.
Cloud cover in the low areas along Saddle Road and Kilauea Volcano surround Mauna Loa in all photos. Cinder cone silhouettes in the foreground. The real cool feature other than the Milky Way is the orange glow through the cloud cover. The glow on the left is from Pu'u 'Ō'ō - the newest volcanic eruption on the flanks of Kilauea. The glow on the right is from Halema'uma'u Crater. In the panorama the observatory on the far left is the University of Hawaii 2.2 Meter Telescope and the highest peak just to the left of center is the peak of Mauna Kea. These are preliminary edits so any suggestions are welcome. Also, if you visit Mauna Kea and find a glove near the summit it could be mine.
Joe;
I really like these a lot - and it's good to see someone else using the D810a. I find the camera handles high iso night shots really well - and in tune with what Andrey mentioned - I would be interested in your iso, f-stop and focal length settings for these. Thanks
I struggle with noise in my MW shots, I manage this in two ways.
- 2 exposure shot - foreground several minute exposure at lower ISO (watch out for hot pixels!)
- I like to use the (free) Google Nik Collection. Dfine2. It allows you to really hone in on noise reduction while maintaining details. You a an even brush the noise reduction on the foreground only if you really want to preserve ALL the stars.
tmiller9 wrote:
Joe;
I really like these a lot - and it's good to see someone else using the D810a. I find the camera handles high iso night shots really well - and in tune with what Andrey mentioned - I would be interested in your iso, f-stop and focal length settings for these. Thanks
Todd
Thanks Todd. All at f/3.2 and 4 seconds. The vertical shot at iso 12,800, the others at 8000.
BertoBuckeye wrote:
I struggle with noise in my MW shots, I manage this in two ways.
- 2 exposure shot - foreground several minute exposure at lower ISO (watch out for hot pixels!)
- I like to use the (free) Google Nik Collection. Dfine2. It allows you to really hone in on noise reduction while maintaining details. You a an even brush the noise reduction on the foreground only if you really want to preserve ALL the stars.
Good work keep it up!
Thanks. I want to go back and take longer less noisy exposures for the foreground. I definitely need to brush up on my noise reduction skills.
xelas wrote:
Those photos took my breath away ... and bring back the memories! Spectacular!!
How was the drive back down?!
Thank you very much. And glad to bring back memories. My breath was a little short at 13,000ft as well . I was cold and tired so I drove down the mountain slowly and carefully. Really not bad at all. I want to go back.
. I was cold and tired so I drove down the mountain slowly and carefully. Really not bad at all. I want to go back.