Questions And Answers
Questions and Answers
Processing Airglow
People have asked me a number of questions about equipment, issues, and technique in Nightscape or Landscape Astrophotography. Since many of these questions are recurring, I am going to post the questions and answers here. I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability!
Q: Very nice panoramic in a wonderful place. One question Wayne, always in your picture I'm looking the airglow, Are you lucking or a special technique? ;-), thanks, Regards.
A: Thanks for looking Gabriel. The answer is both, sometimes lucky, and sometimes processing technique. There is frequently some degree of airglow present, but not always. If the airglow is present then the processing workflow I use does enhance it along with the light pollution. Lots of people try to get rid of the airglow and make the skies more uniform in color to meet their own and others expectations about the night sky. There are actions and workflows to get rid of these colors. Instead I go the opposite direction and enhance them to some degree if they are present. I start in Lightroom and then export to Photoshop. If you make the sky blue from the outset in Lightroom, it covers up most of the airglow and decreases light pollution to some degree. It can also make the airglow and light pollution a less pleasing color. If you initially make the darkest part of the sky a neutral "greyish" in Lightroom it will bring out more colors in the sky near the horizon later in processing. The subtle colors are less suppressed, and when you make the darkest sky more neutral it actually makes the colors of light pollution and airglow a more pleasing color and less of a "ugly" color. I export to photoshop and increase contrast in the sky in curves, and later make the sky bluer at the end. I describe the process here:
http://lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes
More Posts from Wayne-pinkston and Others
Stillness Reigns Over The Alabama Hills by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This was taken in the Alabama Hills in eastern California, near Mt Whitney. For those who have not been there, it is a wonderful place for night photography, or any landscape photography for that matter. There are numerous large rock collections separated by largely flat ground, making it easy to get around. This panorama was made from multiple vertical images shot at 14 mm, f/2.8, 20 sec., and ISO 10,000. Processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. My daughter served as my photo assistant this summer, and that is her standing on the rock.A big thank you to Eric Gail (www.flickr.com/photos/dot21studios/) for finding this spot. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog
The Sailing Stones of Death Valley by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook The Sailing Stones or Walking Rocks of the Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park, California, USA. The Playa is an extensive "dry" lake bed at a height of 1130 meters, 3608 feet, in Death Valley NP. It is 4.5 km long and 2.1km wide. The Moving Rocks have long been a mystery, leaving behind long tracks as they move without human or animal intervention. It's a fascinating and mysterious place at night. Cameras were set up to monitor them during the winter, and it is now thought that the stones move due to ice in the winter. A temporary pond can form and ice over. As the ice sheet breaks up the ice panels are blown by the wind and push the rocks along the semi frozen lake bed. This is a composite image with focus stacking, all taken at the same sitting and position. There is one exposure focused on the stars and distant mountains, one on the middle ground, and one on the stone, other camera factors unchanged. The rock was too close to get it all focused in one shot. Hope you enjoy, Eric Gail masterminded the trip to this site. Thank you Eric! Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Cheers, Wayne
The Tree Sisters by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr:
The Three Sisters, Goblin Valley State Park, Utah. The lighting is done with an LED light panel, made for video, with a warming filter that comes with the light. The light is too blue without the warming filter. This is an F&V Z96 panel I got on Amazon.com. It is placed on a 10 foot, 3 m high lightweight tripod (from B&H Photo), turned down to the lowest setting and left on the whole time. You can hardly see any light at all. I call this Low Level Landscape Lighting , or just Low Level Lighting (LLL). This is not classic light painting. Once you get it set up you can move around, get different angles, etc. (This discussion is in response to a question I received). Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Cheers, Wayne
http://waynepinkstonphoto.com
Alcove by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Swipe Left: Large alcove or cave in Central Utah. This is a panorama of multiple images. Several photographers accompanied me to this alcove during the Nightscaper Conference last spring. Note the 3 photographers in the image, 2 on the right, 1 on the left. They give some perspective. There is Low Level Lighting with 2 small Goal Zero Lanterns in the alcove and a LED light panel outside the alcove to light up the far ridge. There are several nice features in this alcove. There are petroglyphs on the left ( not visible on this image), a window in the roof (image to follower), and a small pond in the foreground with reflections of the stars. I’d love to come back some time when the pond has more water. 14 mm, f/3.2, 20 sec., ISO 12,800. Thanks for looking! Wayne
Whispers of Time Past by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is false Kiva in Canyonlands National Park, Utah. this is a bit of a different take on the composition, shooting from the far left corner, and covering the whole opening of the cave in a panorama. The right rock wall (outside the alcove) usually looks like a large dark void at night, so I decided to light the wall to give some definition. This was shot with fellow photographer Eric Gail, and the shadows on the ceiling of the cave were his idea. He had the idea of using an Indian Headdress to cast a shadow on the walls, using a small headlamp. The effect was really interesting to the eye as well as in the photo. The sky was nice and clear except for lots of smoke in the air from the wildfires in the Western USA. The smoke mostly stayed near the ground and created the ruddy coloration just above the horizon. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Your time, faves, and comments are much appreciated! Please join me at: Website Facebook Blog
Beyond Perception by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is a panorama from Joshua Tree National Park taken last spring. There is some light pollution on the horizon that adds some color. I did a series of photos from Joshua Tree that kind of got pushed aside by more recent photos. This panorama is a combination of 11 vertical images taken with a Canon 1Dx camera, Nikon 14-24 mm lens, at 14 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec, and ISO 6400. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family out there. Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, Colorado, at night. This was taken near the end of August along the North or NE side. The Visitors Center and primary roads are along the South side, but the North side is much quieter. I was not aware of this park until I was introduced to it by @pinkstonian. For "Lord of the Rings" fans, this is as close to Mordor as you might ever see. The canyon is very dark, narrow, and deep. In some places it is much deeper than wide. The dark rock is much different than the red rock canyons of nearby Utah and Arizona. This is a composite of 2 images, 20 sec, ISO 12,800 for the sky, 300 sec, ISO 1600 for the foreground, both at 14mm, f2.8. Cheers, Wayne http://waynepinkstonphoto.com
Question and Answers
Using the Nikon 14-24 f/2.8 vs. Rokinon-Bower 24 f/1.4
Question: Wayne, do you shoot with the 24mm because there is less distortion when you stitch the images together? I'm just curious why the rokinon 24 vs say the Nikon 14-24 at 14mm , which is a wonderful lens. I understand the rokinon has a larger aperture but at 24 mm, max exposure time is reduced. Obviously you knocked this image out of the ballpark - would love to know a bit more about the lens choices for panoramas. Thanks and keep up the fantastic work.
Answer: Well, first of all, at 24 mm my version of the 24/1.4 is remarkably sharp, even at f/1.4. It is sharper and has less coma than the Nikon 14-24 at f/2.8. The Nikon is a wonderful lens, and is my most used and versatile lens, but if I am shooting at 24 mm then the 24/1.4 is better. Second, it lets in more light. I can push the histogram more to the right. There is some danger in overexposing the stars, and I was concerned about that, but it worked out. I actually took the pano at several settings and chose the best one. By pushing the histogram more to the right, I get much more detail in the foreground, and that was the goal. For example, some photographers have argued that if you shoot the same photo with an ISO of 6400 and 12,800, all other settings being equal, the 12,800 will actually have less noise in the darker foreground areas than the 6400 photo. The histogram is pushed to the right, the foreground looks lighter, asnd there is less noise there. This is because the dark pixels in the dark left side of the each have less information than the lighter pixels in the right side of the histogram. Less information in each dark pixel equals more noise in the image. The more you push the histogram to the right, the more information you have in each pixel and relatively less noise. Of course you have to avoid overexposing the sky. Overexposure is rarely a problem in night photography, lol. Anyway there are some people that advocate shooting at higher ISOs for that reason. There are discussions on the internet about it. Hope this helps! More light into the camera is good, especially when you are working at the limits of the cameras sensor!
Colorado River Confluence by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook This is a photo on the East Rim of the Grand Canyon near the confluence of the Colorado and the Little Colorado Rivers. This lies in the Navajo Nation and you need a permit to go here. Permits can be purchased in nearby Cameron, Az. This is the site that is involved in the "Grand Canyon Escalade" bill, a bill that proposes to built tourist resort and a tram gondola down into the canyon, at the confluence of the 2 rivers. In this photo the Little Colorado is hidden behind the rock to the left. As you might expect, there has been a great deal of disagreement and discussion about the bill in the Navajo Nation. Many of the council members oppose the bill. The bill was defeated but there are signs it make reemerge with some changes. The project would include a hotel, visitors center, and a parking lot on the rim. There would be a tram gondola down to the canyon floor at the rivers confluence, a cafe near the rivers, and a river walk. The area currently is deserted pristine land. You have to drive 20-30 miles (30-50 km) down dirt roads to reach the site. There literally hundreds of miles of dirt roads around the East Rim covering a vast area. There are multiple spectacular viewpoints looking over the Colorado and Little Colorado Rivers, and the river views, in my opinion, are better than from the North or South Rims. In 3 full days of scouting and 3 full nights of shooting I did not encounter a single human. There are quite a few free ranging horses and a few cattle. I also encountered a few coyote. Note - If you go there you will be a long way from help, so take plenty of water and gas. This is the site of the proposed Escalade, but there are actually better views of the 2 rivers, which I will post soon. By the way, this is a single exposure taken with the new Sigma 14 mm f/1.8 lens, taken at f 1.8, 25 seconds, and ISO 12,800. I would now have been able to get this detail within the dark canyon without the wide aperture, at least not in a single exposure. For more images like this please take a look at Wayne Pinkston Photography . Thanks for all the kind support! Hope you enjoy! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family. It's a pleasure to post here.
Bell Tower by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This one’s a bit abstract. We are looking up at the night sky and Milky Way in a bell tower of an old abandoned Cathedral in Madagascar. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL). The light inside the tower was a Goal Zero Micro Lantern, an omnidirectional light. The light outside was a Cineroid LED light panel set on 4000K and turned to low. ___________________________________________ There is a very large window in the front of the bell tower in the shape of a cross. Most of the glass has been broken out. ___________________________________________ There are 19 images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker. 14-24 mm lens, 14 mm, 15 sec., f/2.8, ISO 12,800. Thanks for looking, Wayne
