Morecambe Bay

[davew]

Last night was the first forecast of clear skies for ages. Went to Morecambe Bay to take a few shots but it's a shame the Moon was almost 70%. 

Nikon D750, Tamron 15 - 30 mm f2.8 lens, all at 15 mm, 6x 20 seconds f2.8 ISO 800 and 3x 20 seconds f4.0. ISO 1600.

It may look odd that I've mixed the exposures but they were going to be only 6 subs to put into Sequator. I tried f 4.0 straight after and as they looked the same I threw them into the stack too.

Into lightroom and just a few tweaks to the exposure and a small amount to the vignetting. Then onto Sequator to stack the images together with a sky mask and also a reflection mask. I also tried HDR for the first time.

Back into lightroom and a desperate attempt at flattening the vignetting out that almost worked ! Tweak the exposure, raise the clarity and dim down the lights of Morecambe and Heysham along with the cloud reflections above them.

Gradient wise this proved to be one of the most difficult images to get right that I've done. The moon was just out of shot on the right so I've had to leave some brightness there.

Dave.

Note - I don't suggest anyone go onto the sands at night. When I walked away I was stood in a very large puddle of otherwise dry looking sand. So, not a good idea then !!

[Fay]

Nice smooth image Dave. looks a nice place to go for a skyscape.

 

Fay

[davew]

Thanks Fay,

It's wall to wall sky and little else ! The sands are a bit tricky after dark though.

Sequator is a neat little prog. It separates the sky from the land. The land is a straight stack and the sky is a star stack. Then the magic happens and they are joined up  Things get very smooth and you can stretch further.

One thing I noticed this time was that the water reflections, even though I masked them along with the sky, came out a bit odd. 

Dave.