Kalahari Night Skies

[Morkel Erasmus]

Hi everyone! Back from an amazing (albeit too short) 11 day trip to the Kalahari, specifically the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Mountains of images to add to my already backlogged processing list...but found time today for a quick one.

Shot this late one night in the Nossob Rest Camp after they cut the generators, leaving the place totally dark for me to play around with my LED torch.

I used this tree in the corner of the camp because I liked the fenceline behind it and the old aircraft hanger in the BG as defining line and shape for the BG (as opposed to just sky).

This is my first attempt at something I call "ISO-stacking" - which is basically just a blend of 2 images shot at different ISO settings. The first shot was at ISO-3200 and gave me a higher quality foreground, and the second shot was at ISO-6400 to suck more stars out of the African Milky Way. I painted the tree with my new LED Lenzer torch by bouncing the light off my hand for a warmer tone.

I treated the sky with Noiseware Professional.

All feedback highly valued!

Techs:
Canon 7D with 10-22mm USM @ 10mm
f3.5 @ 30s @ ISO3200-6400

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Morkel,
The painting is definitely better and I like how you got more out of the sky with the stacking! I also think you placed everything very well in the frame.....killer Milky way too! You nailed this one!

[Dave Mills]

Hi Morkel, agree with Roman that you nailed this one. Just enough painted lighting and the milky way really stands out.The 2 subjects play against each other well. Good one!!

[Tom Dolezal]

Very nice - excellent capture of the sky.

[Morkel Erasmus]

thanks very much for the comments guys...I will still try and do some TLC here to reduce the noise in the sky :)

[Robert Amoruso]

I agree.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I agree.

with what exactly Robert? :)