Questions And Answers
Questions and Answers
Reducing noise in the high ISO images
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: How do you get the noise to be so low at ISO 6400?
A: The Canon 6D does very well with noise to start with at ISO 6400, and is very manageable up to 12,800. . I open the image in Lightroom, and in the Detail panel I use the following for ISO 6400: Sharpening 40, radius 0.7, Detail 50, Masking 50, Luminance Noise Reduction 40, Detail 50, Contrast 0, Color Noise Reduction 20, Detail 50, Smoothness 100. This does remarkably well for ISO 6400. I then export the image to Photoshop. Sometimes I use Topaz noise reduction in Photoshop after I have finished processing the image, but not always. I do this more to soften the sky than to reduce noise. In the processing of the image I increase the contrast of the sky in "Curves", and this can make the sky look overly sharp and harsh in my opinion, so I try to soften the sky with some moderate noise reduction.
In my opinion it is bad to overly sharpen the sky. The sky has a great deal of contrast to begin with, white stars and dark background. The contrast is so great that it increases perceived contrast, and you don’y need to increase sharpness any greater. It makes the stars look “crispy” and harsh. Also extra sharpening will dramatically increase the perception of noise.
I also use Topaz Noise reduction on dark foregrounds as the noise there is much greater.
More Posts from Wayne-pinkston and Others
King of Wings with Comet 252/Linear by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This formation is called the King of Wings, and lies in the Badlands of New Mexico, south of Farmington, and north of Chaco Canyon. It is a "winged" hoodoo, and the massive eccentric wing is at least 30 feet, or 10 m long. You can easily walk under the wing. I am not usually claustrophobic, but every time I walked under it I had the feeling it would collapse on me, lol, so I qiuckly learned to walk around it. It has probably looked like this for millennia, but the eccentric weight on the rock must be tremendous. The camera was level, even thought the horizon does not look it. 14-24 mm lens at 19 mm, f/2.8, 20 sec., and ISO 12,800. Cheers, Wayne The small blue fuzzy object in the right center sky above the stone wing is the comet 252P/LINEAR. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog
Chimney Rock by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Chimney Rock, Escalante, Utah, USA. This was taken during a workshop with Royce Bair. His workshops are highly recommended. Escalante is one of the darker places I have seen in the USA. The sites are very spread out, and there is quite a bit of driving on dirt roads involved, but the scenery is great, and there are relatively few visitors compared to other places. This was taken with a Canon 6D, Nikon 14-24 mm lens at 14 mm, f 2.8, 30 sec, and an ISO of 8000. Phil did a great job of standing still for 30 sec. It's a lot harder than it sounds! Hope you enjoy! All comments are welcomed.
In An Alien Land on Flickr.
Goblin Valley State Park, Utah, USA. Canon 6D, Sigma 15 mm fisheye lens at f2.8, 25 sec. exposure, ISO 6400. For perspective, most of the "HooDoo's or mounds in the image are 6-15 feet (2-5 meters) high. Hope you enjoy!
Kiss the Sky by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Bristlecone Pine in the Ancient Bristlecone Pone Forest, California. Single exposure. Nikon 810A camera, 14-24 mm lens, 20 mm, f 2.8, 20 sec., ISO 12,800. Lighting with Low Level Lighting (LLL), lowlevellighting.org For more images like this please take a look at my website here . 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. Cheers, Wayne
Night on Fire by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Anasazi Part 4: The Anasazi were a Pre-Columbian Indian people that lived in the SW region of North America. This is the Anasazi or ancient Puebloan ruin called House on Fire or Flaming House ruin in Mule Canyon, Utah. The name comes from the appearance on the rocks just above the ruin. In the morning at a certain time the rock takes on a color that looks like flames. I wondered just what it might look like at night, and found that the warm lights on the rock did reproduce the appearance, perhaps even better. I shot the standard close up views of the ruins but liked this wide view as well, which is a bit more unusual. The ruins are tucked in below a large rounded or elliptical rock dome with the arching Milky Way overhead. Disclaimer: No rooms or ruins were touched or entered in the making of this photo. The lights were placed in the rooms using a fishing pole and string. (No fish were harmed in the making of this photo either!). This is a panorama of multiple vertical images combined in Lightroom. Nikon 810A camera, 14-24 mm lens, at f 2.8, 14 mm, 30 sec., and ISO 8000. If you visit these sites please treat them with respect and care. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Your time, faves, and comments are much appreciated! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog
Tower of Silence by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website Instagram Facebook Tower of Silence - Beautiful white hoodoo in southern Utah I was honored to be on the Podcast "F-Stop Collaborate and Listen" with host @mattpaynephoto. He interviews Landscape and Nightscape Photographers about a variety of topics. His relaxed style makes the podcasts enjoyable and interesting. He helps you see the people behind the photos. You can listen to my interview here: fstopandlisten.podbean.com/ Teaching point: There are now LED light panels with adjustable color temperatures. The standard Light Panels with warming filters (which make the color temp around 2700K) are wonderful for warm structures like the red rock throughout much of Utah and northern Arizona, but are not realistic for structures like these white Hoodoos. With adjustable color temperatures you can adjust the light to the foreground structures. Regular LED lights are too blue to be realistic, and can have a color temperatures up to 6500K. For this scene I wanted a more neutral color temperature that would show the white color of the hoodoos accurately and used a color temperature of 4000K to 4200K for these photos, which worked well.
Dreaming... by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Valley of Dreams, in the Badlands of NW New Mexico. The hoodoos are mostly mudstone hoodoos, with a softer clay like base and a harder rocky cap. This was taken with a Nikon 14-24 mm lens at 15 mm, f 2.8, 25 sec., and ISO 12,800. This is a single exposure. 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
Questions and Answers
About Panoramas
Question: Do you use a panorama head for your pano shots, or single frame ultra-wide angle?
Answer: When I call it a panorama I have taken multiple images and stitched them together, usually vertical images.
I use an Acratech Ballhead that I like a lot. I also use an Acratech Leveling Head which I love. The leveling head makes panoramas much, much easier to get all the images in a horizontal plane. There are lots of leveling heads out there, and this is the one piece of equipment that I would strongly suggest. As long as it works the brand does not matter. At first I only used it for panos, but then I started using it for every night photo and life got a lot easier. Once you level the camera and take that first long exposure photo, it is so much easier to recompose the shot. If the camera is level then you can just swivel it from side to side, or up/down (a little trickier) and the camera remains level. I can usually get the composition right in 2 shots rather than taking multiple shots. Sometimes it takes more, but it is a lot faster to get the composition right with the leveling head. Also you can switch from Hor to vert and not have to change much. I also use an Acratech “L” Bracket almost always when mounting the camera vertically and it helps a lot with panos. It’s much better to help preventing parallax.
I just wing it on overlap, and overlap a lot. I also use a Acratech Nodal Rail to position the focal plane over the point of rotation. This prevents parallax and the computer can reconstruct it better. In reality though, I only use the nodal rail when there is something in the foreground that is close, and parallax might be an issue. If everything is far away then I just use the L bracket and it all works out just fine.
I am learning double row panos, and using special software for that like PTGui pano software. If you want double rows think about this software. For the really high MWs I use the widest lens I have and do them vertically. I have had decent luck with my 15 mm Sigma fisheye lens vertically. I do some lens correction on each image in Lightroom or Adobe RAW and then stitch them together and it works out OK. Just do lots of overlap.
Cheers, Wayne
Questions and Answers
How to take vertical photos and panoramas:
Question: What do you use to mount the camera vertically for your panos?
Answer: I use an "L" bracket. Here are photos from a Google search:
https://www.google.com/search?q=l+bracket+camera&client=safari&rls=en&biw=1584&bih=1295&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwit5fCbseLPAhXJHT4KHaYqAu0Q_AUICSgC
It screws on the bottom of the camera, and will attach to the tripod head either horizontally or vertically. It is Much better than turning the tripod head vertically, with the camera hanging to the side. The camera, when vertically with the L bracket, is balanced over the center of the tripod, and is much more stable than if you turn the whole tripod head sideways. Also, because the center of rotation is closer to the sensor plane there is much less parallax. Parallax has not been an issue for me. I use an Acratex L bracket and tripod head. There are many brands, and you just need to make sure the L bracket fits with whatever tripod head you are using. You can also use a nodal rail to further prevent paralax, This helps to center the sensor plane right over the center of rotation. In my night images paralax problems have not been a issue however when using the Acratex L bracket. Hope this helps, Cheers, Wayne
http://waynepinkstonphoto.com
Abandoned Cathedral by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Inside an abandoned Cathedral in Madagascar. The red on the horizon is from fires. The local people burn the fields to clear them. There is no public electricity and so there is no light pollution from electric lights. 14 images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker, 11 light frames, 3 dark frames, 14-24 mm lens at 24 mm, f/2.8, 15 sec, ISO 10,000.
