NikonGear'23
Images => Nature, Flora, Fauna & Landscapes => Topic started by: Airy on September 14, 2016, 22:46:32
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Shooting a starlit garden or landscape is impossible here in Lille, given the massive luminous pollution. Even in less polluted areas, I never managed to get any interesting picture. Moreover, exposure time of most digital cameras are limited.
Has anyone managed to get a good starlit picture ?
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You mean only the stars as a light source? The night sky is about three orders of magnitude (1000times) dimmer than a full moon, so it would take several hour-long exposures to get any exposure on the landscape, and of course any sort of light pollution will ruin that. Or are you just trying to catch the stars?
I have never had the occasion to try something like that. On the occasion that I've been to areas without light pollution (i.e. deserts in my case) there was always at least a partial moon.
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Yes, stars as a light source. Possibly with some moonlight (10 stops down are indeed a lot).
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I have some with a bit of moonlight. This means that the scene is essentially lit by the moon, not by the stars. There was some light pollution as well.
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Nice shot. WB setting ?
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Airy,
Here is a scene with no added light other than the stars ... and some light pollution from behind the hill, I'll see if i can find another one in a darker location
my intention has always been to capture the stars, not the ground lit by the stars, but it does sounds possible
exposure was 30 sec f2.5 iso 3200 with the D800
1. unedited, neutral profile, lightroom
2. added a graduated filter to the ground, pulling exposure +3 , contrast +100, clarity +50
3. found another without added light on the ground, 20 sec iso 1600 f1.8, +3 EV on the ground, significantly noisier , and magenta tones
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Thanks Armando. The last one comes close to what I was hoping to see, despite your mentioned shortcomings. I particularly like the visual ambiguity between the milky way and what I think are clouds above the horizon, then the noisy foreground repeating the same kind of pattern... plus traces of human presence (boats ?).
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yes there is a boat anchored in front of this area
and a small town 40+kms away
I find it impossible to move around with so little light, I need the aid from a lantern, and that ruins my night vision.
With the naked eye I couldn't see any detail on the ground.
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At the army we used dim red lights for not ruining night vision.
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Nice shot. WB setting ?
The WB was set manually "by feel". Some lowish Kelvin setting.
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Armando - that last shot is great !!!!
I know this wasnt the intention but have you thought of doing some light painting on the foreground?
the sample below is clearly not sufficiently painted (only a dab on the tree) - we were just playing around and when there are 2 people with different ideas - you dont get too far...
and do you notice the milky way is flipped on our side :)
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Elsa,
Looks great to me. The "not sufficient" light painting adds mystery.
Dave
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I agree with Dave.
Elsa,
Looks great to me. The "not sufficient" light painting adds mystery.
Dave
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Thanks guys - but I think there could be a lot of improvement. It is a challenge finding a place where there isnt light polution
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Armando and Elsa, I envy you!
Here in Tokyo, any attempt for this kind would end with the sky totally washed out, and the resulted images look as if they were shot in an overcast day.
The only way to capture the starry sky is to use the light composite mode which is now standard feature of Olympus cameras (live composite in the Olympus term).
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I read an article this week stating that there is no more non-poluted spot in continental France.
It is likely to be similar in a large chunk of Europe unfortunately.
We now have to creatively incorporate light polution in our pictures, or travel far away (or very high).
What I see in this thread makes me jealous!
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Same here (I guess we read the same article). Last striking starry night I experienced was in May 1983, in a military camp in Western France, far away from any significant city. No moonshine, just stars, including the Milky Way in full bloom, and... thousands of toads "singing" aloud, which is much more noisy than cicadas.
By that time, I had no camera, just a rifle.
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You could still shoot...
I think the article was in "le Monde", can't find it now...
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You could still shoot...
I think the article was in "le Monde", can't find it now...
The rifle efficiency range would not exceed 800m, missing a few lightyears...
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I was on fieldwork in Western Australia in August, in the Hamersley Ranges. As long as you camp away from the few small towns (Tom Price, Paraburdoo, Newman) the night sky is very dark and the cool winter air is clear and still. Knowing the moon would set early the first few nights I took a tripod and star tracking mount, and enjoyed photographing the Milky Way. For this thread, here's a photo of Joffre Gorge in Karajini National Park illuminated by a nearly-full moon. It's a composite of one stationary frame (60 sec) and one in which I tracked the stars. Hardly necessary for the 16 mm view, especially when downsized for posting. The stars do trail noticeably on the stationary shot when viewed full-size, however, so worth the extra effort. The Milky Way reaches the horizon at the left-hand edge of the photo.
(16 mm f/3.5; 60 sec, f/5.6, ISO 1600, frame showing the gorge pushed about a stop in processing).
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beautiful moonlit landscape
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Thanks Armando, it was nice to see the orange-red of the rock, deep blue sky, white eucalypt tree trunks and pale green of the spinifex grass, which make sunlit photos of this area so distinctive, appear in this photo under moonlight. Except for the deep blue of the sky, the colours were not really visible to my eyes under moonlight illumination while taking it. Moonlight was bright enough to easily follow a path to the edge of the gorge, find a nice flat rock, and set up camera and tripod. No need for a flashlight.
Cheers, John
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I read an article this week stating that there is no more non-poluted spot in continental France.
It is likely to be similar in a large chunk of Europe unfortunately.
We now have to creatively incorporate light polution in our pictures, or travel far away (or very high).
What I see in this thread makes me jealous!
I have seen some spectacular time-lapse nightscapes at Vimeo that were taken in the Canary Islands. That sounds like a reasonable place to travel to from western Europe. Alternately, perhaps the northern tip of Norway or Scotland?