I woke up yesterday, Friday morning, at 6AM to go to work. I was excited all day, because this would be my first Joshua Tree all nighter with my oldest daughter, (12 years).
I got home from work at 5PM, and my daughter and I started to pack up the car. We planned to leave Orange County at 9PM, to avoid Coachella traffic and also arrive at Joshua Tree at 11:30pm. We did just that. Traffic was smooth and light.
The night would be the first time I would get to really put my Fuji X-T2 and iOptron sky tracker to work. I had my iOptron all of last year, buy even my Canon 6D and Rokinon 24mm F/1.4 were too heavy for it. I could only get 30ish second exposures and then star trailing because the weight would pull the motor faster on the iOptron. Last year was frustrating in that sense.
What a giganticly huge different the X-T2 and lens weight reduction has yielded. I can now easily get 4 min exposures with pin point stars...as seen in this image. I imagine I could go longer if I wanted, but 4 mins was the longest I tried.
We ended up leaving the park at 6AM this morning. We went straight to my other daughter's soccer game at 9AM. After the game, I crashed for 3 hours, woke up and worked on this edit.
FujiFilm X-T2
Sky = Single exposure and tracked, Rokinon 21mm F/1.4 @ F/2, ISO 800, 4 mins
Earth = Single exposure, Rokinon 12mm F/2 @ F/8, ISO 400, 60 secs.
Ryan (guessing that is the right name, hopefully),
Wow -a truly awesome result! The blend of the 2 exposures works very well, and the exposure times are very good. I especially appreciate the fact that you did not process the landscape portion of the image to be too bright - this still gives a good balance between some detail but still looking like a more natural night shot. Very well done IMHO.
Thanks for posting the gear and exposure info too, always great to see that. I have a full blown tracking mount that I use for deep sky astrophotography with full size telescopes, but it is generally impractical to just take anywhere. I have been trying to figure out which of the small trackers like you used here is the best bet. I also atm do not have a very good night camera either, as my 5DSr is great for lighted landscapes but gets a bit noisy for night shooting.
Anyway, love this result, great color and detail in the sky, and a wonderful composition and exposure for the ground, blended together very seamlessly!
another_mikey wrote:
Ryan (guessing that is the right name, hopefully),
Wow -a truly awesome result! The blend of the 2 exposures works very well, and the exposure times are very good. I especially appreciate the fact that you did not process the landscape portion of the image to be too bright - this still gives a good balance between some detail but still looking like a more natural night shot. Very well done IMHO.
Thanks for posting the gear and exposure info too, always great to see that. I have a full blown tracking mount that I use for deep sky astrophotography with full size telescopes, but it is generally impractical to just take anywhere. I have been trying to figure out which of the small trackers like you used here is the best bet. I also atm do not have a very good night camera either, as my 5DSr is great for lighted landscapes but gets a bit noisy for night shooting.
Anyway, love this result, great color and detail in the sky, and a wonderful composition and exposure for the ground, blended together very seamlessly!
Wow...thank you for all the feedback. The X-T2 I just got about 2 months ago continues to blow me away. Fuji just announced another firmware update for this camera a few days ago that essentially makes it a new camera. I'm really excited about the focus bracketing it will be getting, (like the Nikon D850).
As for the tracker. I bought an iOptron Sky Tracker Pro last year, ($300ish dollars on Amazon). It is their base model I think. I could not get more than 30 second exposures with my Canon 6D, because it and my Rokinon 24mm F/1.4 were too heavy and would "pull" the motor causing star trailing. My Fuji/Rokinon gear dropped more than half the weight and no longer do I experience the same situation. The night sky I posted was 4 minutes. I'm guessing I could go 8 if I wanted.
Next time I go to a dark sky, (next month), I think I'll try an 8 min at ISO 400.
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Fred Amico wrote:
Very nice, Ryan. Looks like that Fuji and you are feting along quite well.
Love love love it, and the new firmware announced last week. Wow...focus bracketing incoming...
