One of my big goals for my family's recent road trip out west was to get a Milky Way pano over either Yellowstone or the Tetons. The night I tried to do it was a little cloudier than I would have liked, but I still like how this one turned out.
It's a pano of 13 shots stitched together in Lightroom (6 on top, 7 on bottom), taken from the beach at Fishing Bridge Visitor Center. I think the clouds gave Lightroom some trouble stitching even more shots together for a bigger pano, so thankfully I was able to get this one to work. The brightest building on the shore is the historic Lake Yellowstone Hotel, and the beacon shining through the clouds in the sky on the left is Mars.
C&C are always welcome, and thank you for looking!
5D Mark IV, 35mm f/1.4L II, ISO 6400 35mm f/1.4 8 sec
I wonder if the clouds are exaggerating the size of Mars? I also took a MW shot this past weekend and while Mars is really bright, it's not a large as in your photo.
I also shot a composite but have not yet edited it. In addition to the pano, I shot four pic's for each of the pano spots. I'll use StarryLandscapeStacker to composite the four into one, then PS to stitch the pano together.
I wonder if the clouds are exaggerating the size of Mars? I also took a MW shot this past weekend and while Mars is really bright, it's not a large as in your photo.
I also shot a composite but have not yet edited it. In addition to the pano, I shot four pic's for each of the pano spots. I'll use StarryLandscapeStacker to composite the four into one, then PS to stitch the pano together.
Thanks for sharing, great MW composite.
Steve
Hi Steve, that's a great thought about Mars. I was wondering why it looked quite that big also. I was thinking it was simply that I shot at 6400 ISO and it was the brightest object in the sky by quite a large margin, but I think you're right about the clouds diffusing the light to make it seem even bigger.
Thank you so much for the kind words, and for taking the time to comment!
Really great shot of one of my favorite places. I have never tried a pano stitch on Yellowstone Lake but will now. Your settings are interesting to me. The high ISO creates noise but you fought thru it and only used 8 sec exposures. What would have been different with 20sec exposures and ISO at 1600 maybe? Nicely done. Thanks.
lookoutscout wrote:
Really great shot of one of my favorite places. I have never tried a pano stitch on Yellowstone Lake but will now. Your settings are interesting to me. The high ISO creates noise but you fought thru it and only used 8 sec exposures. What would have been different with 20sec exposures and ISO at 1600 maybe? Nicely done. Thanks.
Thank you so much! I know if you went as high as 20 sec, you'd have visible star trails. I can see them on a pixel peeping level at 13 sec at the 35mm focal length. I think I could probably go to 10-13 seconds and not have noticeable star trails on a large print at 35mm, but I didn't want to chance it since I knew that I could get noise to an acceptable level at 6400 ISO on my 5DIV. Thanks again for the nice comment, I'm glad you like it.
Wow! After reading about MS ICE pano software over in this thread: https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1523827?b=2 , I downloaded it and gave it a try on the files that Lightroom wouldn't play nicely with from this shoot. With almost no fuss, I was able to stitch 14 images together and got so much more of the composition that I was hoping for! So pumped right now that I had to share.
For monitor viewing 6400 ISO will look great. For quality enlargement, well that is another issue altogether. Star Stacking or Tracking then becomes quite necessary.
