Baja Moonset

[dankearl]

Moon (yes it is the moon), setting over Laguna San Ignacio.
This was taken about midnight.

14mm, iso2500, 20sec. f2.8, D800

002_5045bp.jpg (http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=138802&stc=1&d=1394677326)

[Don Railton]

Hi Dan. Very well done... The clouds and stars combine with the moonshine beam to create a very humbling image. There is an amazing amount of detail captured with the D800. My wish to make this better would be for the LHS stars especially to be a bit sharper (is it due to their movement over the 20 seconds..?) and for the immediate foreground (leave the shoreline..) to be cropped out as I don't think it adds anything. My eyes easily get lost in the clouds and stars, don't need to come back to earth...

DON

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Dan, I was on the Baja Peninsula and the Sea of Cortez many, many years ago...this is a nice reminder of the area...I loved it there and would like to go back one day. I love the stars, clouds and setting moon in this comp, but not so much the foreground. I am favoring a crop from the bottom so that there is just a sliver of ground left to frame the water, but it may require cleaning up the cactus tops. Very nicely processed!

[Diane Miller]

Nicely flat and level horizon, great light in the sky. I'm intrigued that some of the stars are so much brighter than the others. I've found the opposite -- that they all tend to come out the same so that, for instance, the brighter stars in prominent constellations like the Big Dipper or the like don't stand out as much as I would expect.

[Jay Gould]

This is all about the sky and the water; the foreground is really a distraction.

[dankearl]

I enjoyed the desert scenery, but point taken, it is not for everyone….

[Jason Stander]

Hi Dan... wonderful image... the sky, stars and moon are very well captured...I do enjoy the desert feel to the image... if it didn't cut the shoreline I think it wouldn't have bothered that much... otherwise WD!:w3

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hey Dan.
I love the interplay between the yellow moonlight (was there a lot of dust in the sky, or was it "new moon"?), the moving clouds and the nice star detail you achieved.
I like the foreground scenery but feel the unnatural and uneven lighting you have there is what detracts from the image, I presume it's from a settlement/town behind you?
I would try and balance the exposure there, and remove the somewhat eerie green toning in the FG. My 2c.
:e3

[Don Nelson]

"My wish to make this better would be for the LHS stars especially to be a bit sharper (is it due to their movement over the 20 seconds..?)"

Don - if that were the case, we'd see similar artifacts across the starfield.

Those on the left appear to be lens aberration. See coma. http://intothenightphoto.blogspot.com/2012/09/overcoming-coma-in-starry-night.html

Dan - is this a crop to just the left side of an image with your wide angle lens? I am betting we'd see the same effect on the (cropped) missing right side. Otherwise it is a lens alignment defect ;-(

[dankearl]

Don,
It is the lens.
A Rokinon 14mm I got just for night photos.
It is highly recommended as a cheap f2.8 wide angle but mine has distortion on the left side.
Not much I can do, maybe I should have sent it back, but it doesn't bother me that much.
Star photos are so stylized anyway, not exactly how we view things, so I will just live with it.
This is full frame, no crop, the right side is just sharper at f2.8.

[Grant Yang]

I like how all the stars are different colors. I'm intrigued that the moonset gives off that yellow color.