Milky way and a spot of light painting from last weekend

RichieTee

RichieTee

Messages
1,406
Name
Rich
I'm fortunate enough that I get to go down to the Isle of Wight regularly to see my kids which means that if im lucky, the camera can come out during the dark hours when the kids are still sleeping. On this occasion it was 3am (only time the milky way is visible at the moment).

Anyway. We started the night with a few shots of the milky way. I seemed notoriously hard to capture due to its low angle in the sky and light pollution but after a fair mount of time playing around with some images I got a respectable result with this one.


Castlehaven Milky Way Isle of Wight by evorichie101, on Flickr

Following on from that we decided to have our first dabble at light painting. Have to say I was quite impressed with the result I If do say so myself :)


Something different by evorichie101, on Flickr
 
Stunning! Really nice shot.
How much post work was done? I really need to do an all-nighter soon, it's just trying to get the clear skies to line up with my days off and no moon!

Jose Ferreira said:
I love the Milky Way shot - very impressive! Is there a way of know when and where the Milky way is visible or is just a case of waiting in the dark until it's visible to the eye?
Click to expand...

There are plenty of apps if you have a smartphone which will point you in the right direction although if you are somewhere dark enough, then you will see it.
 
Jose Ferreira said:
I love the Milky Way shot - very impressive! Is there a way of know when and where the Milky way is visible or is just a case of waiting in the dark until it's visible to the eye?
Click to expand...
Thanks Jose.
Well on that night it was not visible at all. I had a good idea where it was so framed the shot and used a stupidly high iso for about 30-40 seconds just to make sure I captured it. Once I was happy with where it was and the framing I set up accordingly and took various shots at different isos to play with in post.

zipzooka said:
Stunning! Really nice shot.
How much post work was done? I really need to do an all-nighter soon, it's just trying to get the clear skies to line up with my days off and no moon! .
Click to expand...

Thanks Aaron

I have to say that a fair bit of work went on in post to really bring the milky way out. But also to tone the foreground and other artificial lights sources back. I used a combination of LR and PS for processing
 
1 is really beautiful!
2 I really would like to try the steel wool one day, great shot!
 
Wow wow wow for no1. :clap:
 
That 1st image deserves to be printed large and displayed. Well done. :clap:
 
Like everybody else, I have to congratulate you on that milky way shot. Brilliant!
 
Really liking the Milky Way Rich, just had a browse through your flickr and some great stuff on there!
 
Milky Way shot is a stunner. Can you explain why you use ISO 4000. Still got loads to get my head round. Cheers.
 
bb40 said:
Milky Way shot is a stunner. Can you explain why you use ISO 4000. Still got loads to get my head round. Cheers.
Click to expand...
ISO 4000 is required to capture as much light as possible in the 30-35 seconds of exposure time you have before the stars start to blur due to the earths rotation. Some people go higher and in really dark areas you can get away with a lower iso. I took lots of pics at various ISOs so I have all bases covered when it comes to viewing and editing them later on.
 
RichieTee said:
ISO 4000 is required to capture as much light as possible in the 30-35 seconds of exposure time you have before the stars start to blur due to the earths rotation. Some people go higher and in really dark areas you can get away with a lower iso. I took lots of pics at various ISOs so I have all bases covered when it comes to viewing and editing them later on.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that Richie. I had a quick play the other night with different ISO settings but ended up with really bright images. I guess it's not as dark as it looks where I stay. Loads more experiment required. Thanks Again.
 
bb40 said:
Thanks for that Richie. I had a quick play the other night with different ISO settings but ended up with really bright images. I guess it's not as dark as it looks where I stay. Loads more experiment required. Thanks Again.
Click to expand...
No probs Will. Its amazing how much light can be captured when upping the ISO. The light beyond the hill in my image above was not visible by eye at all but had to be toned down in post processing as it was far too bright.

Good luck with it :)
 
Michal28 said:
This is really nice picture.. Beautiful ...
Click to expand...
Thanks Michal :).

Sko77y said:
Absolutely love #1! that sky is immense! Only problem with it is the lobster pot doesn't do anything for it, tad too bright and looks a bit blue on this computer. Without it I'd have it on my wall for sure!

Scott
Click to expand...
Appreciate the feedback Scott. I tried to warm the tone up as much as possible to reduce the blue tone in the lobster pot but what I have is about the best i could do with my limited PP knowledge. I included it as a bit of foreground interest as there seems to be a lot of milky way or night pics floating about with nothing more than a dark silhouette as foreground which doesn't do it for me. I could tone down the highlights on the pot so its not quite so "in yer face" I guess :) lol
 
That milky way shot...............:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop: beautiful !!!!, I work permanent nights in security and the place I am stationed, has no light pollution, so as soon as I get my kit I will be having a go. Thank you for posting these, they are incredible.
 
wannabe1 said:
That milky way shot...............:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop: beautiful !!!!, I work permanent nights in security and the place I am stationed, has no light pollution, so as soon as I get my kit I will be having a go. Thank you for posting these, they are incredible.
Click to expand...
Thanks Paul :). Make sure you get your pics up here once your under way with it. And good luck :)
 
Amazing picture in #1 - nothing really to add over & above the comments already... Have you ever used exposure stacking as I've been toying with that idea myself to get longer effective exposures / less noise, but without blurring?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top