Lighthouse Nightscape.

[David Cowling]

The image is of Happisburgh Lighthouse, or for those of you not well versed in Norfolk Speak it is pronounced Haisboro. This is my first night time landscape and it was intended to be a starscape but the clouds started to blow in from the sea as I was driving to the venue. There was a high degree of light pollution giving a horrible orange colour to the clouds. I have done my best to eliminate much of this in the processing but would welcome advice on how to make a better job. Also any advice on nightime photography in general. I used a 10 second exposure based on the 500 rule for a 24mm lens to keep the stars round and eliminate star trails. I quite like the fact that the clouds are there but am not so keen on the reflected colour.

Panasonic LX100. Tripod
10 secs @ f 1.7. Iso 3200.

[dankearl]

I think the clouds and the light pollution looks fine.
You might as well learn to use it, it won't go away....
I would go with a longer (15 or 20 sec.) exposure with lower iso if you can, although the noise level looks good in this frame.
I personally don't worry that much about star shapes, if the photo is interesting, no one cares about the shape of the stars.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi David - Interesting to see the striped lighthouse and I like the overall scene. If it were mine I might move it a bit more to one side or the other. I don't mind the clouds and light pollution. I might even consider cropping out the stars here. I do see some noise in the clouds.

TFS,
Rachel

[Don Lacy]

Hi David, lovely scene I actually like the clouds and light pollution. If this where mine I would darken the foreground just a bit and would run some NR on the clouds

[Diane Miller]

This is a very pleasant image, especially for a first attempt at night photography. I don't mind the almost-centered lighthouse as there are subtle but interesting sky elements on both sides that I'd hate to lose with a slightly different aim or a crop. Going to a high ISO with a small sensor is going to bring out noise. In this case there isn't much detail in the clouds and you could probably do some strong NR in the clouds and layer it back in with a mask.

You should be able to minimize the orange in the clouds with Hue-Sat Selective Color, but I don't have time now to try it. (Again, just mask it to the clouds.)

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi David, I like the overall look to this one and do not mind the clouds in the sky...I have a few of my own like that and I think they add some interest to the night sky images (I will post as soon as I have some time available to process the image files). I would prefer a little tighter crop to eliminate the building on the left and as an alternate I am wondering what a vertical with the lighthouse dead center and the lens pointed more upward would have yield?