Milky Way Over the Granite Mountains 2
Taken around 3 a.m. at the Granite Mountains in Mojave National Preserve, California.
This was an experiment with low-level lighting and light painting. My usual M.O. is to do a stacked sky background with ~20 images to get a less noisy sky. Here I did stack four sky exposures, but I also stacked the foreground to make *that* less noisy too. I had an LED panel light at very low level out of frame to the left, and took several shots holding a faint lantern at different angles to light the rest of the scene.
Lens: Rokinon 14mm f/2.8. The bright stars are enhanced here using the RealStars Photoshop action from Sebastian Voltmer.
Pleased overall, but I still have much to learn – the blending of the foreground and sky isn't great; I don't love that the top of the rocks is so deeply silhouetted, as it makes the composition look a bit fake to me. But I promise it's a real blend of the sky and foreground taken within minutes of each other!
Milky Way Over the Granite Mountains 2
Taken around 3 a.m. at the Granite Mountains in Mojave National Preserve, California.
This was an experiment with low-level lighting and light painting. My usual M.O. is to do a stacked sky background with ~20 images to get a less noisy sky. Here I did stack four sky exposures, but I also stacked the foreground to make *that* less noisy too. I had an LED panel light at very low level out of frame to the left, and took several shots holding a faint lantern at different angles to light the rest of the scene.
Lens: Rokinon 14mm f/2.8. The bright stars are enhanced here using the RealStars Photoshop action from Sebastian Voltmer.
Pleased overall, but I still have much to learn – the blending of the foreground and sky isn't great; I don't love that the top of the rocks is so deeply silhouetted, as it makes the composition look a bit fake to me. But I promise it's a real blend of the sky and foreground taken within minutes of each other!