Neitherworld

At night, light is every bit as important to photography as it is

during the day. Unless you want to artificially create your own light

with painting techniques, waiting for just the right moment to capture

the landscape under night skies is crucial. Out here in the Arizona

desert I wanted to record the summer constellations of the Milky Way

while illuminating the cracked surface of White Pocket in natural

light. The only way I was able to do both with a single exposure was

to shoot at ISO 3200 using an aperture of f/2.8 and exposing for 30

seconds (any longer will produce star trails) while the moon was still

very low on the horizon. Although the moon appears full in this

image, what I saw of it was only a tiny sliver, almost completely in

shadow. The brightness created here is simply a result of the camera

recording more light than we can see with our eyes. I blended another

image focused for the foreground with the same specs to ensure proper

depth of field throughout.

Marc,

A very well done image of the night sky and landscape. Iy appears that you used a short focal length lens (14mm to 18mm) due to the very little motion seen in the stellar background in the 30 sec time exposure.

The color shift is a bit towards the magenta, expected from using ISO 3200, so I readjusted the balance to be more nature.

.

I like magenta hue here. The Milky Way looks fabulous in that hue and the haziness on the left side of the sky too. It gives a nice and smooth texture of the sky. I wouldn't change a thing here. I would have only taken slightly darker version of this scenery. I think it might work very good too.

Or maybe you already did it. 

Regards,

Kristina

amazing scenery and composition again. i notice some noise/banding on the foreground, which is no surprising given the darkness and the specs above. the image is still working very good even so, in my opinion. but i would suggest to crop out those included rock formations (?) on the upper right edge ( or was it intentional to give the photo a bit of imperfection ?:) ).

Guys, thanks.  It doesn't seem like I'm seeing exactly the same thing here, as I'm not noticing noise in the foreground (maybe a little heavy on sharpening?).  The moonrise light is just like sunrise light - it's quite warm, and I think the first rendition represents that.  I had to desaturate the Milky Way area and shift further towards blue as it is. 

I like the original image.  Entirely agree about the difficulty in using natural light in such shots to expose the foreground.  I have tried this and know the challenges.  I like how well the dust clouds show up in this image. 

When I was visiting Red Rock Canyon (NV) last year, I tried a long exposure shot (I have posted it earlier:  photo_id=11879050) - even though it was very dark where I was, in the long exposure the lights from Las Vegas lit the peaks.. :-)

Another excellent image...as is!

I don't see the noise on my monitor and I think that's all it is--differences in monitor setup. I notice that the images I upload from home are darker on the monitors at work and lighter on my girlfriend's monitor. Too bad there are no universal settings.

Amazing milky way effect ! , WR

Ali

Just a superb image, I'll have to try this sometime.  I'm not seeing any noise or banding though I do agree with Zsolt with regard to the orphaned bits of rock on the right side of the image.  There is no reason not to crop or clone them out as they are a bit of a distraction once noticed.

I have no comments for improvement, so I'll just add that this is a fabulous shot under difficult conditions and really does make me feel like I'm there.  Thanks for sharing... Mike

Love the FG, love the Milky Way, not feeling the moon. To me it only detracts from an inspired composition. It sounds like you felt that you needed its light for the proper definition on the rocks, and if so I'd simply suggest using another sky BG without the moon and bringing it in to this FG. And maybe while you're at it change the orientation to vertical and let that glorious night sky command the top 2/3rds.

Nitpicking aside, this is a really cool place very well seen! Thanks for posting, Marc.

Very nice composition

Best regards

Xavier Corcobado

xcorcobado.blogspot.com

This is a fantastic image, Marc.  I was in White Pocket (only for the day, unfortunately), and I think that this is one of the best images that really represents the feeling and mood of this place.  Keep them coming!

Paul

Very impressive one of the White Pockets.  I tried but never near to yours.  Thanks for telling us how to do it.  Great work as usual.  Best Regards,