The River Kent in Cumbria

[davew]

Another go at the challenge this time from the lower reaches of Cumbria. Here we have Grange over Sands from Arnside.

Nikon D750, Tamron 15 - 30mm f2.8, 15 mm @ 2.8, 25 seconds at ISO 1600  x 4 panels.

I way over exposed this one ! I had to dial back 1.5 stops in Lightroom before I even started ! My excuse is that I was using a shorter time just before it and forgot.

I rotated round the non parallax point and kept the camera and lens perfectly level to give a 50 / 50 split on the sky and river. I had a moan about the moon washing out the sky but it was pointed out to me that the foreground is just as important as the rest. So, if you have mud and clouds then flaunt them

Into Light room and drop the exposure. Get rid of the vignetting, keep the colour temperature at daylight, slight increase in contrast / clarity, lift the shadows a bit and make a panorama this time within Lightroom. Once done tweak the colours the tiniest bit and increase the contrast once more to make it look like the foreground is in focus and lift the trees and stars.

It was bitterly cold stood still by the river and I had to pull one of the tripod legs out of the water before it sank !

The moon was at around 70% but I had to go out while the going was good. 

One really good side effect of doing mosaics is that the noise doesn't show so much

Dave.

[clarkpm4242]

12 hours ago, davew said:

I had a moan about the moon washing out the sky but it was pointed out to me that the foreground is just as important as the rest. So, if you have mud and clouds then flaunt them

Bizarrely, I would have cropped the mud off this...means the focus shifts back to the widefield of the stars and their reflections.  You may also like to know that I have not won *any* competitions with my images that nearly always lack foreground interest!  Ho, hum... 

Lovely pic though!  Good effort, cheers Paul

[Ouroboros]

Great picture. I like the mud!   "Mud, mud, glorious mud!"   I loved your account of taking the picture too. Not enough people do that. There's more than one picture in this picture isn't there. For example zooming in one can put the horizon line at the lower  1/3rd point and hence see proportionally more sky.   I'm wondering why you had to take this photo in panels. You've got a very wide angle zoom lens there. Unless it's to enhance resolution of course, or maybe it helps remove the distortion seen in very wide angle photos.  Sorry if I'm displaying my ignorance of this sort of photography. 

[davew]

3 hours ago, clarkpm4242 said:

Bizarrely, I would have cropped the mud off this...means the focus shifts back to the widefield of the stars and their reflections.  You may also like to know that I have not won *any* competitions with my images that nearly always lack foreground interest!  Ho, hum... 

Lovely pic though!  Good effort, cheers Paul

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your thoughts. It's funny that I should have put this image up first. I have another one that would suit you much better and I was going to post it soon. I don't want to appear like I'm flooding this section

Putting stuff up that isn't liked is quite useful and helpful to many. I'm not being boastful and saying to follow me, I actually mean the opposite. There must be loads of people who look at this and now realise it's awful and not what they want to do at all. Others will detest the colours as they are so full bodied. Some may even breath a sigh of relief they don't do it and get straight back to their CCD like a real astronomer   ( Done it myself )

Re the competition - I'm doing the Challenge bit. I know these wouldn't win anything because there are better images of star fields posted already and there's another few months to go yet ! There are also better Starscape photographers than me posting.

It's good fun and the next new moon I'm probably trying out North Yorks if the clouds stay away.

Dave.

PS. I'll stick the other image up later and see what you think.

[davew]

3 hours ago, Ouroboros said:

Great picture. I like the mud!   "Mud, mud, glorious mud!"   I loved your account of taking the picture too. Not enough people do that. There's more than one picture in this picture isn't there. For example zooming in one can put the horizon line at the lower  1/3rd point and hence see proportionally more sky.   I'm wondering why you had to take this photo in panels. You've got a very wide angle zoom lens there. Unless it's to enhance resolution of course, or maybe it helps remove the distortion seen in very wide angle photos.  Sorry if I'm displaying my ignorance of this sort of photography. 

Mud .... You haven't seen my shoes and tripod legs have you ?

Re the mosaic. Yes I have a very wide lens but doing this increases the field even more. I have in fact cropped a bit off the left because there was a bit of a gap to the left of the big white cloud.

Next is the resolution gain so long as you don't pixel peep ! The coma affected stars get reduced somewhat, the hot pixels become smaller along with the noise so you can'see them / it. Distortion doesn't bother me at all as you don't generally see it.

Glad you like the " Story " that goes with it. It may help people to decide to do it or avoid it. Either way round is fine.

As I've said to Paul earlier. I'll be putting another shot up that puts the horizon below the thirds line.

Thanks,

Dave.

[Ouroboros]

Interesting!  With a wide angle lens you've got to put the horizon, if there is one, on the central  line haven't you otherwise it's always curved?  I have a fixed 8mm Samyang fisheye lens which is fun to use and can produce some very interesting wide angle shots. Great for sea scapes where the tide is receding and you get the sky reflected in the wet sand. 

[swag72]

I really like this - I like the balance in light between the foreground and sky..... I think that the mud looks 'sticky' and that the curve on the shoreline leads your eye up to the sky..... Yep, a classy one in my opinion ticking the boxes.... Well my boxes anyway LOL!

[clarkpm4242]

2 hours ago, davew said:

There are also better Starscape photographers than me posting.

I like put it as 'different'...

...hope to enter something on this subject.  Waiting for a bit less moon, and inspiration!

Cheers, Paul.

[davew]

1 hour ago, Ouroboros said:

Interesting!  With a wide angle lens you've got to put the horizon, if there is one, on the central  line haven't you otherwise it's always curved?  I have a fixed 8mm Samyang fisheye lens which is fun to use and can produce some very interesting wide angle shots. Great for sea scapes where the tide is receding and you get the sky reflected in the wet sand. 

I've seen some 16mm Nikon fisheye shots recently and that was quite wild when tilted up. The Tamron doesn't seem to show as much curvature but it's there eventually of course. I don't normally shoot horizons like this.

Dave.

Edit - Forgot to say that if you're doing a mosaic, you can bend the horizon almost any way you like. Microsoft ICE is very easy to manipulate.

[davew]

36 minutes ago, clarkpm4242 said:

I like put it as 'different'...

...hope to enter something on this subject.  Waiting for a bit less moon, and inspiration!

Cheers, Paul.

Different will do for me. Obviously a bit " Marmite " 

I have to admit that some will regard this as just an under exposed landscape photo

So long as it gets people out there trying stuff themselves I'd rate it as a success.

Dave.

[Ruud]

It's a beautiful image. A well composed and wonderful scene. The tones and colours are pleasantly balanced too. Very nice!

[davew]

58 minutes ago, swag72 said:

I really like this - I like the balance in light between the foreground and sky..... I think that the mud looks 'sticky' and that the curve on the shoreline leads your eye up to the sky..... Yep, a classy one in my opinion ticking the boxes.... Well my boxes anyway LOL!

Cheers Sara,

I have to admit I did dither a bit about posting this. It's not so much an astrophoto but more like a location shot at night.

I too like the curve but I may have over done the mud

The moon destroyed most of the stars anyway !

Dave.

[davew]

12 minutes ago, Ruud said:

It's a beautiful image. A well composed and wonderful scene. The tones and colours are pleasantly balanced too. Very nice!

Thanks Ruud, greatly appreciated.

Dave.