[Scythels]

Hey folks,

 

I figured since I'd gotten into such long and lengthy discussions regarding optics in the past few days I should post some images for everyone's sanity

 

Sadly I haven't shot anything but some private portraiture since the beginning of winter - times have been busy. 

 

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Enjoy!

[davidmanze]

Nice images but the Milky way does it for me!

[Fils de Crao]

yes, the milky way is my favorite

[JJ_SO]

Mine too. I'd like to learn more about that star-sky shooting.

[Scythels]

The milky way shot is a tricky composite.  The sky is a panorama four vertical images wide at f/2.8, 15" ISO 3200.  The foreground is a panorama four vertical images wide (if memory serves) at f/5.6, 120" ISO 1600.  A sub-set of exposures at ISO 400 was also taken to recover the grass lit by the lamps below.  The exposure times are for each frame.  I also took a set of 10 dark frames for each exposure time and subtracted them before making the panoramas.  I made two seaprate panoramas, one for the foreground and one for the sky with the same white balance and then used photoshop to blend the two together.  The camera didn't move between them other than rotation, so alignment was difficult but not impossible. 

 

There are a couple of halogen floodlamps from a neighbor's farm that spill light into the field which is where the foreground light mostly comes from.  Unfortunately there was some red channel clipping in the fog above it that couldn't be totally recovered.  There are some fireflies in the immediate left foreground.

[popo]

A nice shot of the milky way, even without landscape, has long been a goal of mine. And not looking like one I'll actually do any time soon. Best tip I can give is to get away from light pollution, which is what I'm not doing myself. The core region is also best seen in (northern hemisphere) summer so again you have less dark hours to try that.