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Thread: Bloodvein Milky Way

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    Default Bloodvein Milky Way

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    This was a rather complex shot. I set up my tripod about a half hour after sunset to capture what would become the foreground of the image. At around 11:30 pm I woke up and with the same tripod set up, shot 19 images including 3 black frames of the night sky/Milky Way. In post, I stacked the 19 frames using a program called Starry Landscape Stacker and this reduced the noise considerably. With that as my Milky Way sky I went into Photoshop and blended the stacked night sky image with a couple of the images I had taken for the foreground. Once the blend was complete I did the rest of the post processing in Photoshop using Tony Kuyper’s TKv6 luminosity masking panel. My biggest concern with this image was trying to get a “plausible” tonal balance between the foreground and the night sky. I would be interested in getting feedback on that and any other issues that folks may have that would help me improve this and future images. Much thanks.
    EXIF: The image was captured with a Fujifilm X-T1 using a Rokinon 12mm f/2 lens.
    Foreground: 12mm, ISO 400, .6 and 2.1 sec, f/14
    Night sky/background: 12mm, ISO 3200, 15 sec., f/2 focused to infinity.
    Sadly this image has lost a lot of its clarity and pop in compression, I guess. A lot of the detail is being lost unfortunately. Is there a way to rectify this? Anyway, I hope you are getting a reasonable facsimile.

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    I tried a different setting -srgb instead of prophoto and it seems to have marginally improved the image quality.

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    Kerry - I know that the image posting size changed recently but I can't address why your image did not post with the IQ you see on your screen. On my screen it is a beautiful image. Focus and detail front to back looks perfect. I like the trees, stars and light reflected in the water and the orange glow on the horizon. I had seen the image before and agree that the foreground is darker here than on the other site. Hopefully someone with more experience posting landscapes can give you advice on the best way to preserve the original clarity and and pop in compression.

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    I think this is a wonderful image Kerry...! and Kudos on the effort required to get the shots... In answer to your particular question on the balance between the FG and sky, I think you are about right or maybe slightly dark on FG.. This is based on viewing the image in PS on a medium grey BG as I think the White BG surrounding the posted image overpowers the image somewhat. I think it really needs a dark wide dark border. .

    Don

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    Quote Originally Posted by Don Railton View Post
    I think this is a wonderful image Kerry...! and Kudos on the effort required to get the shots... In answer to your particular question on the balance between the FG and sky, I think you are about right or maybe slightly dark on FG.. This is based on viewing the image in PS on a medium grey BG as I think the White BG surrounding the posted image overpowers the image somewhat. I think it really needs a dark wide dark border. .

    Don
    Thanks, Don. Compression issues aside, you're definitely right about the border. In Ps it is a dark charcoal grey and that certainly affects how the eye integrates the image. My next project is to learn something about printing so that I can have more control over presentation.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter Kes View Post
    Hello Kerry - thanks for uploading the image for me to evaluate.

    Once I had the image in PS, I could only see 'critical' sharpness in the lower right corner. The forest edge and the sky look to suffer from depth of field unsharpness.
    It looks like the focus was too close and may not have been on infinity (conjecture).
    The EXIF that I could read was 0.6s at f/1.0. I am not sure if this is cause by your stacking, but that is what I have.
    For this type of image you must push the aperture and ISO to stay within a shutter speed window of 30sec: otherwise you will see too much smudge due to sky movement.

    Peter
    I appreciate your finding the time to take a look. I'm having a hard time following your critique. I'm not sure what you mean by "critical" sharpness or what you mean by "the forest edge and the sky look to suffer from depth of field unsharpness." As to the focus being "too close," remember that this is a blend. The night sky was shot at infinity. The foreground had entirely different EXIF data which I have marked below the posted image for both the foreground and the night sky. As you can see the ISO and shutter speed for the night sky were 3200 and 15sec respectively so whatever "smudging" you are seeing is not do to nascent star trails (perhaps I missed the exact focus - I still find that tough to absolutely nail at night.)

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    Beautiful as presented Kerry...if your lens was focused to infinity to ensure the stars were focused as pin points of light then I would think that the smudging Peter is seeing in the distant trees could be from wind movement given the long exposures required.

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