Comet, Hale Bopp

Like Kyle, my interpretation of this photo is also mental and spiritual: I think the photo provides a wonderful juxtapositon of the universe "out there" and we humans here on earth.

Phenomena such as light, wind, movement through time, great expanses, etc. all come together here.

 

Great photo Daniel -- thanks for educating amatuers like myself.

the sound in the background is that of my pretty $700 camera being thrown in the can. I give up.

An inspiration for us amateurs playing around with long-exposure techniques. Thank you!

This should be one of the top rated photographs

in the site. From searches I've made here, only

a handful pics have better than 8.4 in both

categories.

Wonderful work. I am insanely jealous.

To the poster above, methinks the windmill is a bit out of focus since the lens was at f/1.4 -- not the deepest field of focus. Doesn't matter, though.

This is not for Photo Of the Week, but for Photo of the Decade. Wonderful. Outstanding. Gorgeous.

10/10!

Beautiful. I like the shallow depth of field on the windmill because it looks like the panes (is that what they call them?) are moving in the wind. At least it does when viewed on a computer monitor; dunno if the effect would be as good on a print.

 

Loved your comment about having lots of crappy star photos in your history! That makes me feel better about having lots of crappy wildlife photos, especially when starting to photograph a particular type of critter whose movements are new to me. They do tend to improve as one knows the subject better!

Looks pretty good. Although I know it is hard to take Astrophotos and make them look interesting, at first glance I would have a tendancy to believe this one was run through Photoshop and the windmill added, but I could be wrong. The scale of the comet versus the windmill are what tips this off to me. It would be nearly impossible to do a naturally occuring shot like this.

Hi guys, I cropped this to about 100mm but the transparency in the sky was truly exeptional from a storm covering town like a blanket, best time to shoot.

 

It's wonderful to have the neg. on this because even A.P. questioned the possiblity of a "Sandwhich". I did use all the information on the film by using by burning and dodging tools before tugging on Photoshop curves or levels adjustments. I use this alot to allow newsprint to retain the range of the printed image.

 

I got into photography at first to "Shoot" the moon, planets and stars when I was 10 years old....alots happened in my life since then. :-)

Scott, your comment on the scale is right up there with Samuel Dilworth's "...obviously fake colours" comment regarding the Cheyenne Tornado POW. You need to get out of the city and away from the light pollution more often. This comet covered a huge area of sky, if the sky was dark enough to see the whole tail.

 

Great shot Daniel.

Easy there on the Photoshop ethics war. It is one of those images that will always be subjest to attacks on it's validity. I have just down loaded a folder with a few more star pics from a story I did on snowmaking, it won an award in the Colorado Press Association in 2000 for best photo essay.

http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder.tcl?folder_id=124725

I have recently began my foray into astrophotography, this is a super image very well conceived and composed, excellent exposure, just at the limit of the sky fog? Have you done any guided wide field sky shots or shot through a scope at prime focus? I'd be interested in seeing those photos as well if you have!

 

Great Job!

I visited the site for the first time and this one

is really beautiful

Now that I looked closer at the rest of the windmill (which I think is actually a weathervane/water pump) I see that it is actually out of the focal range. Was this intentional? I know how hard it is to get low-light shots with a smaller aperture since most cameras only go up to 30 seconds or the crude Bulb and stopwatch routine, hopefully with a cable release. http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=214533 Since the blades were clutched, or not moving, I am glad it is blurred otherwise there would be no sense of motion.

Great

Great Stuff

Excellent photo! I love it - especially with the windmill thrown in as a piece of Americana! Superb!

I've gotta go with double tens, too. This is only the second photo here to which I've been inspired to give a perfect score :). A really outstanding photo, well conceived and executed. Great job, Daniel!

Well... euh... Don't you ever do this again to all of us! How come can you do such amazing photos?! It makes us feel like beginners with an APS camera (and most of us probably are - maybe not with an APS camera...). Or else give us the kind of magic you have ;-)

 

I ve'also seen your portfolio. My 'serious' comment is: this picutre is 'bad' compared to the others (please notice I've rated this photo as 9/10), meaning that other photosare EVEN more superb than this one!!!!

 

So: GOOOOOOOD JOB!!!

Dan, I've looked at all the images you've put up on photo.net -- absolutely stunning! You have several images in your portfolio that I rate 10/10. The photo of the horses under the rainbow was unbelievable. Thanks for sharing your work!

Dan,

As some one mentioned, astrophoto's can get a little boring sometimes. The Windmill deffinently makes the image and is something not the typical amatuer astronomer (of which I am one myself) would think of! As for the use of Photoshop, every respectable astrophotographer knows that its the way to go.

I am a budding photographer myself and find your folder very inspiring becuase I love astronomy, planes, nature etc...

Hopefully I will some day have good images to show people also.

Good job,

Bill A.

 

My congrats for making the top of the list!!!! What can i say but E.T. phone home. In retro-spect i remember all the excitement when Hale Bopp was first visisble to the naked eye. I would climb out on a three story roof to view it then go down and point it out to the neighbors below. You have captured the excitement 100 times over again for mankind to view once again, around the world through this technology. What an absolutley, stunning photo. A piece of Americana, reminds me of a Norman Rockwell painting but with his subjects mankind, outside the canvas, looking to the heavens above. Bravo!!!-Michael Joseph Hoard

I had a look at your portfolio,- it's simply the best I have seen so far on photo.net. Adelaide S.A.

 

 

 

 

Fantastic. Great work. Congrats.

Maybe I'll go back to playing pool.