Red woods and night sky

Remarks and ratings appreciated

How can i improve this?

I tried some using my flash to light the the trees, but the results

were unatural. Also the overall contrast was to lower, and the flash

tended to reflect off of bits of dust and pollen in the air. What

about using a gel over the flash to simulate lantern light? Or how

about using a powerful flashlight (with or without a gel) to paint

the trees with light? Or is it fine as it is, with the only light on

the trees coming from my colman lantern? thanks rjw

a few things:

the first thing that strikes me is that perhaps the lens was not focussed at infinity (the larger than pinpoint stars are the clue). if you can set the camera and lens to manual focus, do so, and then use a piece of tape, or rubberband over cloth around the lens to make sure it stays locked at infinity and not drift or move out if it gets bumped.

second: WOW that's a clear night!

as for lighting up foreground, skip the flash for now. use a flashlight and "paint" what you want to illuminate. wrap a single layer of tissue around the lens of the flashlight to make it slightly more diffuse. you can try the flash as well, same trick to put a diffuser on it, and stand well back before popping it. also increase exposure time to a few seconds so that any dust/pollen in the air is not "flashed" into the picture. you might need to try slower film speed to get longer exposure without stopping down too much (diffraction). hope taht helps.

acer thanks for the comment

here are a couple notes

exposure time was 1 MINUTE, witch was as longist exposure that did not result in badly blured stars(arcs). As for focus I could actualy see some of the brighter stars on the ground glass, and focused until they became pinpoints. I will tape the focus ring down next time, this is a good idea. The larger than pin point stars could also be caused by stars begining to trail, some lens arbiration(coma and flare), or camra movement. I,ll upload one of the flash pictures so you can get a look. Thanks again -robin p.s. seeing was less than average on this night, due to wild fires.

Yes, I think that the best shot is somewhere in between. Easy for me to say..

Dennis

hmm. was the camera on a tripod? that might account for some of the blur. and as for focus, at I dont both to check thru the viewfinder for focus (i'll check the composition, see what's visible in the frame), and then just turn the lens ring all the way to infinity and be done with it. every few exposures, i check to see anyway to make sure it hasn't moved (tape looses stickiness out in the cold, and camera bodies/lens will get cold!)

if you weren't using a tripod, i highly recommend one; if not, lying the camera back flat on its back is always a sure bet in terms of stability. if you want to lean it against something, to to lean it near vertical or horizontal, so it will be stable and not tend to slip up.

another idea that occurred to me is that you can use a white cardboard piece, curve it around your lantern to use as a reflector, then you can walk around lighting up what you wish. as long as your lantern/reflector jig is ALWAYS facing away from the camera, you can walk in front of it and not have to worry about your body being visible in the picture (longer exposures work best). for experiments' sake you can practice with dirt cheap fast film, which for me happens to be fuji superia xtra 800, from walmart in 4pack of 24exp. have fun, lemme know if i can be of more assistance. I used to do more of this outoorsy nite photos, but the awful weather here is never clear :(

camera was on a tripod with the center suport and legs all the way down; I had to sit in the dirt and kink my neck to look through the view finder. Even then my tripod is on the light(+) and flimsy(-) side, Slik U6600 and it was somewhat windy. I should also say that I used a cable release for these. Here is one looking up with camera on rocks no tripod. No forground :( -rjw