Questions And Answers:

Balanced Rock by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Balanced Rock in Arches National Park, Utah. There is a light panel creating some illumination on the foreground, and Balanced Rock itself is also partially lit by reflected light from a hand held halogen spotlight. This was shot with a Nikon 810A camera and a Nikon 14-24 mm lens at f 2.8, 30 sec, 14 mm, and ISO 6400. This night I was shooting with Eric Gail, an excellent photographer and now friend I met here on Flickr. Check out his wonderful gallery here: www.flickr.com/photos/dot21studios/ Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy!  Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Small Canyon in Nevada by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Small Canyon in Nevada. 7 images stacked in Starry Landscape Stacker. 12 mm fisheye lens, f 2.8, ISO 8000, 25 sec. Why 7 images? Who knows, probably lost count, lol. Love that “red” Navajo Sandstone! Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Peek-A-Boo by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This is a panorama of several photos taken with a 12 mm f/2.8 fisheye lens. I’ve included 2 photos. The first photo is the image after the distortion was corrected in Photoshop. The second image is before the correction. Note the angled horizon in the second image. The camera and lens were pretty severely angled to get the entire opening in the image. There is Low Level Lighting (LLL) with 2 Goal Zero Micro Lanterns. One is behind me to my left and one is down the ravine to get some light on the more distant walls. Both are turned to low and are covered with a handkerchief to further diffuse and lower the light. The Goal Zero Mini has a very nice neutral to slightly warm light colour temperature. 12 mm, f/2.8, 25 sec., ISO 8000. I actually like the one with the crooked horizon a little better, but someone will complain, lol. This recess is somewhat like a cave or alcove and somewhat like a small canyon, not sure what to call it. Maybe a cave-yon? 😂 The Milky Way lines up beautifully at certain times of the year making this a great spot. This is in the Navajo Nation and you need a Navajo guide to go there.

Among the Hoodoos by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook This was taken in the badlands in northern New Mexico. There are multiple areas you can visit outside of the better known Bisti Badlands. In this photo I was using Low Level Lighting to try and create a sense of depth to the field of hoodoos in the foreground. If you want a guide to the area consider contacting Kialo Winters at Navajo Tours USA. To all Night Photographers - There will be a large Nightscaper Conference in Moab May 1-3, 2019. There will be multiple speakers over 3 days and nightly excursions. You can find more information here: intothenightphoto.blogspot.com/ Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Great Barrier Island, NZ by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Beach Panorama on The Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. 14-24 mm lens, 15 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec., ISO 12,800, 14 vertical images. ________________________________________________ The 2 brighter dots beneath the middle Milky Way arch (one brighter than the other) are the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. They are dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy. We do not see them from the Northern Hemisphere so I’m pretty excited to capture them. 😀

Madagascar Cathedral by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Panorama 12 frames, 14 mm, f/2.8, 15 sec., ISO 12,800 This is the shell of an abandoned Cathedral in Madagascar. I've added a crop from the center section. The red on the horizon is from fires. The local people burn the field and multiple fires could be seen at any one time. The glow from the fires could be seen from long distances at night. A big thank you to @worldpixorg and @ryanplakonouris for arranging this trip. @worldpixorg is a charity organization using photography to raise money for charitable causes. Hope you enjoy, Wayne Pinkston

Fly Away... by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is called The King of wings. It is a winged hoodoo in the badlands of New Mexico. I saw a photo of this hoodoo about 2 years ago and had a real itch to photograph it. Last year I went there and it happened to be the wrong time of the year. I returned this spring and finally got the right night and season. The trail there is not very long, and if you do it just right it is not all that hard. The trail is unusually unforgiving though, especially at night. You can be 3-4 meters, or 10-15 feet off the GPS track and not be able to pass. You may be just off the trail and on a ridge rather than in a ravine. This is especially true at night when vision is limited. It is an unusual place with a partial skeleton near the base, probably from a cow. This is a panorama of multiple vertical images. There is Low Level Lighting, or LLL, to give some detail to the rocks. This is lighting that is very dim and left on the whole time, done with LED light panels. I am not sure of the size, but it is easy to walk upright under the "wing". There must be a massive amount of weight cantilevered from the base. 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

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.

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.

Shiprock by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is the iconic Shiprock for which the town of Shiprock is named in NE New Mexico. The rock rises 1583 feet (482 meters) above the desert plain, and can be seen for miles around. It is sacred to the Navajo people. The formation is similar to those in Monument Vally about 90 minutes to the West. This photo is Panorama of 11 vertical images combined in Photoshop and taken with a Canon 6D camera, and a Bower 24 1.4 lens at f 1.4, 20 sec, and ISO 6400. I wanted to get a more horizontal Milky Way and so this was taken relatively early in the night, near the crossover from twilight to true dusk (darkness). The illumination is from a very small crescent moon to my back, as well as some light pollution. The presence of the moonlight also tends to make the sky bluer in the photos. The yellows and oranges are not a sunset! The sun set to my back. This is light pollution from the town of Shiprock (population of around 8,000) approximately 10 miles (16 km) away. There are many reasons why this photo almost did not happen. I did not know that this monolithic rock even existed and I was traveling across northern New Mexico to get to the Bisti Badlands near Farmington. But you can see this huge rock for an hour or more as you drive across NW New Mexico. As I stared at the rock my driving dazed brain started to think "I wonder what this looks like at night"? And then there is no easy access to the rock. The nearest paved access is more than 2 miles (3 km) away and was on the wrong side of the rock (south side). As I was riding around I noticed a couple filming off of a dirt road and pulled over to talk. The woman seemed to be a Native American and assured me the land was not private or restricted. When I told her what I wanted to do she pulled a map out of her car that showed a maze of dirt roads. She showed me how to get to a position north of the formation and how to avoid impassable ravines and ridges. Thank you nice lady! And then there was the light pollution. It is best to be shooting away from the light pollution, but this time I had to shoot right into the brightest spot. I had doubts that the photo would succeed. As it turned out the light pollution could be used to enhance the photo. It is not a truly "dark" night photo, but is still interesting. And then I was supposed to be in another park, but the nice park ranger told me I could not shoot there at night as he gave me a speeding ticket. This was not the way I wanted to meet a ranger. And then the sky was so hazy near the horizon that night that I believed there was no way to get a clear photo. I just went ahead with the attempt just because I was already there. Anyway it turned out to be more colorful and interesting than expected. Thanks for looking. All comments are appreciated. Hope you enjoy!