Enee Point

[mjs1973]

Does this work at all? This is my second attempt to get some star trails at this location. The exposure for the sky is about 80 minutes. The ground is only about 1 minute, painted with a large spotlight. If it's clear again tonight, I may go back and try again, or find a new location.

Here is a link to my first attempt at a shot like this.

A long time coming

[rylan]

great work mike i really like this! great job

[gahspidy]

Very good, Mike. Am I to understand correctly when you say the ground was exposed for about a minute that this is two exposures merged?
I like the result. I think though that I like your first attempt you have linked to even more because of the fg offering more.
This version is rather moody which is good, but for my taste in this I feel there might be a bit too much light on the immediate ground area diminishing the mysterious quality it might have otherwise achieved. Still in yet very nice, but I am going with your first attempt as the more successful one for me.
Good stuff, Mike.

[mjs1973]

Thanks for looking and commenting Rylan and Gary.

Gary, I like the first attempt better too. Yes this is a merged photo. It's actually 5 separate exposures. I used four 20 minute exposures to get the star trails, and a single exposure of about 1 minute to get the FG. I used a 2 million candle power spotlight to paint in the FG. I would have liked to have stayed here and played a little longer, but I fell asleep while waiting for the long exposures. I took a couple of quickies to get the FG and headed home.

After I posted this, I went back and played with it a bit more. I adjusted the WB and brought out more of the FG. Here is my final version (for now).

[gahspidy]

I like this last version alot more. Love the golden color and detail in the fg trees.I like this even better than the first attempt of the last post.
Good work, Mike.

[mjs1973]

Thanks Gary. I tripple processed my RAW file for the FG and blended them together to get more detail. I was hoping to go back on Saturday but it clouded up. If it's nice this weekend, I may give it another try.

[jkriminger]

Beautiful. I also like the golden treatment. Nice work.

[mjs1973]

Thanks Rod.

Gary, Thanks for the sticky and the featured photo!

[Len J]

I really like that last one. I never would have "Seen" that as a possibility.

very creative ....thanks for the inspiration

Len

[mjs1973]

Thanks for looking Len. These types of images are a lot of fun to play way.

[mjs1973]

There is a new moon this weekend so it would be the perfect time for some long star trails! If the sky is clear in your area, get out there and give it a shot!

[open_shutters]

Thanks for the information mike! I would definitely love to explore out side and see it for myself!

[PhotoTrucker_37]

I have to agree about the last attempt. I like the golden glow the best but the color variations in the forground in the snow on both sides are distracting. Try working out the color to bring back the white in the snow with your cloning tool.

Regards, Erik Barnes

[kemekal_d300]

i like them both, they both have qualities that pull them in different ways achieving different moods. They're both beautiful pictures. I've yet to try merging, but this is good inspiration. great pictures mjs

[mjs1973]

Thanks very much for the feedback Eric and Kemekal.

[GB1]

Mike - I think you had a successful outing. Both color variants are nice in their own way. I kind of gravitate towards the brown one, even though I know this isn't natural.

It's good that you illuminated the foreground with your headlights, but I feel that the foreground subject matter could be better - what about a church with a steeple? Or some strangely designed building? The difficulty with subjects like this is finding them far enough away from city lights so that there's no light contamination. Congrats on the sticky btw.

-GB

[mjs1973]

Thanks for the advice and feedback GB. You may be surprised at just how natural the brownish/orange sky is. The blue sky in the original was a result of me messing with the color balance to try to get the FG to look right. In the 2nd version, I adjusted the WB in camera RAW for the FG and masked it into the sky. In my original images for the sky they are brownish/orange. I also added a stop of exposure to all the sky photos as well and that makes the color come out a bit more. I'm guessing it is a result of light pollution off in the distance.

I went back to this place again this past weekend, but I wasn't happy with my results. The sky looks great, but my FG images didn't turn out very good at all. I even set up a tent and illuminated it from the inside, but I couldn't piece them together the way I was hoping. Back to the drawing board.

I know what you mean about a different subject. I do know where there are some old churches, barns and an old school house out in the country that I could try this with.

[Kajuah]

I'd love to know how you blend and merged the exposures, I think that is extremely cool ! Both images are great, and I do prefer the color in the 2nd image I like the parts that are lit up in the 1st image (the 2nd, i think it's too lit up in the foreground).

[mjs1973]

Thanks Kajuah,

The blending of the exposures is pretty simple in theory, but it can take some time and practice to get it to look natural. I start with a single image that I'm going to use as my starting point for the star trails. This will be the first image in the series. Then I open the 2nd image, grab the layer in the layers pallet, hold the shift key and drag it onto my first image. Then change the blend mode to lighten. Repeat this for the rest of your star photos.

For the foreground, I post processed the same image 3 times to bring out more detail in certain areas. Again, I drug all three of these images onto my base image will the star trails. Then I added a layer mask to my foreground images and simply "painted" (on the mask, not the image) with a soft edged brush the areas that I wanted to hide or reveal using white or black.