Another Night Barn

[Roman Kurywczak]

From this weekend in the Adirondacks with Nick Palmieri and Susan & Anthony Candelario. Susan had never done star trails b4......so I had this in mind since my last time there with Nick. This was a tough one because of a street lamp on the right side of the major road that was right next to us. Another factor was the lights of Lake Placid over the horizon. I knew these would be challenging and affect the image......but I liked the glow from both the city lights and the light that fell on th barn. I lit the side that is facing us with a big flashlight.....light inside barn is my headlamp. We tourtured pooor Anthony and came back for the night....errrr morning around 5am!
Canon 1D Mark lll with the 17-40mm lens at f4 and ISO 100 for about 1 hour all tripod mounted.

[Mark Farnan]

From this weekend in the Adirondacks with Nick Palmieri and Susan & Anthony Candelario. Susan had never done star trails b4......so I had this in mind since my last time there with Nick. This was a tough one because of a street lamp on the right side of the major road that was right next to us. Another factor was the lights of Lake Placid over the horizon. I knew these would be challenging and affect the image......but I liked the glow from both the city lights and the light that fell on th barn. I lit the side that is facing us with a big flashlight.....light inside barn is my headlamp. We tourtured pooor Anthony and came back for the night....errrr morning around 5am!
Canon 1D Mark lll with the 17-40mm lens at f4 and ISO 100 for about 1 hour all tripod mounted.

Hi Roman,

Love you night shots and I think the overall composition here is good.

However, few things jump out as nagging me, so few comments. Hope you don't mind ! (I'm new here, so let me know please if this is too much, too little, yada yada).

1. I think the Barn is 'overcookd' saturation wise. Checking in PS, there are a lot of blown pixels in the red channel on it. Same over on the Grass with the Yellow. Its really looking over cooked to me. (Calibrarted EIZO here). However, i'm wondering if thats due to sRGB compression from conversion down from Pro-Photo or similar ?

Either way, the red channel is taking a hammering. and I think if toned down some, it would look better.

2. Really nasty halo along the top and back edge of the barn. seems to be around 2-3 pixels wide.

3. That tree on the left is quite distracting. i think it would be better if it was either A: gone, or B: able to move aroud slightly further and get more of it, even if it covered up part of the back part of the Barn.

I think the horizon lights are fine, gave it a nice glow back there and didn't over do it. Isuspect the stree light is the cause of the bright grass ?

The balance of the star trails and the Barn are good.

At least you guys have a star to rotate around. All I get down here is a big chunk of 'nothing/blackness in the center !'. (Australia, no Pole star for those wondering).

Regards

Mark

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Mark,
No problems!......These are great observations and questions.

I purposefully went bold with the color even though I knew it wasn't everyones cup of tea. Why? I felt that the image was more about the barn.....so I went bold. I actually did tone it down some already.....as you were correct in seeing that the street light really lit the field and r side of the barn. I will process one a bit more natural.......but as I tend to like bolder, I'm pretty sure I will like this one best personally. Great observation on the tree too! When I revisit, I will also take 10 steps back.....to get more of the tree and more room to the right of the rotation. I will work on the halo......sometimes.....even I get sloppy when posting:bg3:.

Glad you jumped in as your observations were excellent!

[Robert Amoruso]

Mark,

Great critique and all points i was going to bring up. :w3

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hey Roman, I do like the bold colors too, but agree on the halo and ten steps back would be better...unless you have a chainsaw :bg3: Love the placement of the north star in the comp.

[Mark Farnan]

No problem Roman, glad it helped.

I don't mind 'bold', I quite like high saturation images. But 'blocked up' colour gets me, Its the blobby red thats loosing detail in the barn side that grabbed my eye. Not sure what your end goal is, but I look at images for the purpose of printing them, and the concern would be, that barn side would block up. However, I suspect this is one where it looks odd in sRGB on the web, but would be fine in ProPhoto if origionaly processed in there. Trying a quick GammutWarning, it seems well within gamut of an Epson with K3+ on a Baryta paper.

Do you happen to recall which rendering intent you used to convert downt to sRGB ?.

Regards

Mark.

[John Ippolito]

Your night sky images always inspire. I like the placement of the north star, and the glow from Lake Placid actually works well. The barn is a bit hot, but I think you were going for bold here, and delivered.

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Another lovely star trail image from you, Roman.
However same thoughts popped up in my mind as Mark's (even before I read his).
There's also a sharpening/masking halo around the roof of the barn.
Liked your idea of using a light inside the barn for its peeking out through that tiny window & the door-crack

[Andrew Aveley]

another great night image ! I like the "over" processed look here and think it has very art like feel.

[Harshad Barve]

Excellent image , I liked this as it is
TFS