Castlerigg Milky Way

drooke

drooke

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Dan
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I was lucky in the Lake District just over a week ago, the Saturday night provided a great sunset with cloud and just a few hours later most of the cloud had disappeared before moonrise. I headed to Castlerigg Stone Circle and captured the below. I've not photographed many stars before so was reasonably pleased with the result but I need to work on my focus and/or exposure length next time!

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Dan
 
Nice shot Dan, the brightest part, the galactic centre, is I think below the horizon now but you've captured the milky way nicely. Did you take any without light painting the stones for comparison, it looks like you have a nice silhouette of the horizon and trees there so you might have a nice shot without the bright stones too.

What settings did you use? What do you think you need to do different?
 
Thanks Alan. Settings for this were 16mm, f4, 20s at ISO3200 on a full frame body. The stars aren't that sharp close up, next time I'd like to play with different focus points and exposure lengths to try and improve sharpness.

I do have some shots without the light painting but I don't think it works for me. If just the stones were breaking the horizon then it might work but there are hills and trees as you say which doesn't work for me.
 
Your settings look fine and at 20 seconds at 16mm you should avoid trailing, a bigger aperture would help but I guess that's the biggest you have. Did you focus on the stars or the foreground? My preference is to focus on a bright star using live view then lock the focus but it's still a challenge! I'm probably heading towards a wider aperture lens particularly for this type of shot next year to hopefully improve detail and quality.
 
Think I was focussed on the foreground for these. But I did do some at just below infinity, but I can't remember which were which! Need to pay more attention next time :)

I've thought about a 14mm Samyang f2.8 for this type of shot, but can't justify it at the moment!
 
Foreground looks focused to me mate (y)

Its a great shot, colour looks good and the light painting not over done (y)

I think you should be well pleased with that, I was happy enough with the one (and only) shot I got there last year, this is much better, far more detail :clap:........the only other minor thought, possibly remove the lens distortion and a little ati-clock wise rotation to straighten it :)

I won't post it but I've done a quick edit, for me, it does make the stone circle look better :)
 
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Thanks for the comments @Phil-D and @Mardybum!

I see what you mean about the distortion at the edges Phil and the slight tilt to the left on the milky way. If I was there again I'd also try and get all of the stone circle in as I've cropped the edges too tight.
 
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