Night sky overtaken by the dawn

[Michael Thompson]

I got this one Sunday morning on a northern Minnesota lake, the daylight is taking over and the stars and aurora pillars are fading fast. Canon 6D , Rokinon 14 mm at f4, 5 seconds 1600 iso, tripod.

[Glenn Pure]

Wow - fabulous scene and execution. I really like the remnants of the aurora and last of the stars reflected nicely as well.

[Don Railton]

Hi Michael,

Well done from me in getting up to capture this shot.. and you have a nice array of colour here.. From a composition point of view i would have left out the trees on the LHS border as much as possible, for me they are (slightly) distracting, and then cropping a little from the top?.. I also think the image could benefit from a little more processing... for instance, by using a curves layer and adding a simple 'S' curve to darken the lower mids and brighten the upper mid tones makes the colours pop more but the darks also go a little heavy towards a silhouette (but maybe you prefer this look??). If you want to keep detail in the blacks then you can counter this by using a luminosity mask to limit the effect of the layer in whatever luminosity band you choose..(darks > mids >brights).. Luminosity masks are a wonderful tool and there is lots on the net on how to use them if you have not already done so.. Look up Arron Dowling...but there are many others..

Don

[Don Railton]

Sorry Michael.. I forgot to add that I also thought it needed a little sharpening, and i did that selectively on the trees only using a mask... and have included my interpretation of your image, what do you think?

[Michael Thompson]

I Don, nice job on sharpening, I agree about cropping the left dead trees and some off the top, but your color edit looks a bit over saturated on my screen. thanks for the feed back...

[Adhika Lie]

Very very nice, Michael! I really like the centered composition of Ursa Major. I like the OP's color but would like to see the FG sharpened as well.

[dankearl]

I agree with a bit of sharpening, but like the OP.

[John Mack]

Nice color in this with a good composition. The stars are a nice touch.

[Colin Driscoll]

Lovely colors and I prefer the OP, but yes could do with sharpening. I suggest you consider using DxO viewpoint to straighten the inevitable leaning trees from using such a wide angle lens.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Michael...ditto on the sharpening and I too would prefer to not see the trees on the left side of the comp...gorgeous color in the sky!