[Toroweap]

Tango

This Image was a Disappointment IMO

I have no fear in sharing less than perfect images...
(maybe someone will learn from it...)

story of my life; (hard lesson learned while out in the field, sound familiar?)
This was a new technique for me, and I really really wanted to try it... but as usual I found out my mistakes upon download and review.......

First expo was shortly after twilight had started, second expo during sweetest color on the horizon, and third expo was 1 hour afterward for the stars. All masked together obviously using the first expo for FG, second for horizion, last for sky & stars...the disappointment came due to the LCD. When looking at the star expo on the LCD I thought it was great so I didnt think to try other ISO's other than 3200. The stars looked tight and clear!
but I later learned I should have used f2.8....(wished I had borrowed Dannys 24-70 f2.8... but I used a f3.5 instead) Using f2.8 could have kept the stars tight with a shorter expo to avoid noise.

oh well.... I have a handful of shots from an awesome trip with such wonderful and great people.
I will never forget this adventure...!

Toro:

dlplumer

Well if you would have just blended those shots with Photomattix, maybe you would have gotten a better result

I'm kidding people.

Not sure what to say about the shot. I would think with some levels adjustment you could make it pop more, and reduce the noise with noise ninja (or whatever you use). I like the composition and the concept you were going for.

Way to post something less than spectacular for all of us to learn by. Your a good man.

Danny

PS: I know you are holding the great ones close to your vest waiting to spring them on us at just the right time.

coscorrosa

And here I am thinking the shot is pretty damn good...

The concept is wonderful, even if in your opinion the execution fell short. A little more detail and light in the immediate foreground, a little less noise in the stars and you'd have a fantastic shot. I really like the composition.

It's amazing how smooth those rocks are at the top. Geology is crazy.

CWSkopec

Aaron, it looks AWESOME!!! to me!!

I do see the noise in the sky you are talking about, but the only idea I can come up with is to run the stars exposure through noise ninja the mask it in. I would imagine they have a free trial available like most plug-ins, but look into it, it

Well, one other thought... I remember a while back when I got my first P&S, I was complaining about the amount of noise in a shot I really liked and my dad mentioned that if you look at the individual channels in photoshop, you'd likely find one that has the majority of the noise. From there it might be easy to clone out on just that channel. I'm not sure what sort of method a plug-in like Noise Ninja uses, but taking a look at the channels may lead to some improvement. (I must confess, I didn't try it at the time and it only just now popped back into my head)

After downloading my images and looking through them, I've decided that the quality of the company on the trip FAR exceeded the quality of the images I returned home with, and I'm really quite happy with that! I'll get some posted next week with plenty of questions on how to make them better next time around!!

anwmn1

There is some noise in the sky like you and everyone is aware of but you are selling yourself a bit short my friend. Like Dan and Ron mentioned I think you can still play with this a little bit- get some more light in the foreground and make some adjustments in the sky.

This is still pretty sweet as is though.

dseidman

I'm really liking the feel of this shot. Great idea getting the stars in there. At this size it's kind of difficult to see what you are complaining about. Are there short star trails or are you getting lots of noise in the sky? I'm just kind of curious.

As far as the composition goes, I'd prefer if you hadn't included that foreground plant. I probably would have cut it off at those rocks or perhaps gone for the typical Toroweap composition. This is still a great looking image though.

pathfinder

Aaron. I think you did a great job. I wish I had gone down there that evening with you now.

Try running your blue channel ( unless there is significant noise in the red or green channel also, but I doubt it ) of the sky through NoiseWare set to landscape. I bet your noise issue gets much, much better.

Don't give up yet.

thapamd

I think the shot looks great, Aaron! Yes, a little noisy, but not objectionable, IMO.

Tango

I will take everyone advice to heart. I just gotta keep telling myself "all in time"

so thank you guys!

Tango

dseidman wrote:

I'm really liking the feel of this shot. Great idea getting the stars in there. At this size it's kind of difficult to see what you are complaining about. Are there short star trails or are you getting lots of noise in the sky? I'm just kind of curious.

As far as the composition goes, I'd prefer if you hadn't included that foreground plant. I probably would have cut it off at those rocks or perhaps gone for the typical Toroweap composition. This is still a great looking image though.

ya the noise is a huge problem. (I will look into what can be done for that.)
The stars are slightly started as a trail, I was orientated toward the SW and apparently these are the fast movers so I really need to have a 20 seconds expo, not 30 seconds.... so forsure when I try this again I will use a f2.8 lens.

Tango

pathfinder wrote:

Aaron. I think you did a great job. I wish I had gone down there that evening with you now.

Try running your blue channel ( unless there is significant noise in the red or green channel also, but I doubt it ) of the sky through NoiseWare set to landscape. I bet your noise issue gets much, much better.

Don't give up yet.

I wont give up.... I just figured that it was more likely for me to re-shoot correctly rather than learn how to fix it.... sometimes I feel so overwelmed with the post processes that can be done, and when i add that to my already insane day...well you get the idea..:twitch

Nikolai

AaronNelson wrote:

ya the noise is a huge problem. (I will look into what can be done for that.)
The stars are slightly started as a trail, I was orientated toward the SW and apparently these are the fast movers so I really need to have a 20 seconds expo, not 30 seconds.... so forsure when I try this again I will use a f2.8 lens.

I've read somewhere that it must be 15 sec or less to completely avoid the trails...
For some reason I thought you *were* going for the trails though, glad to see I was wrong...
Interesting technique (if only a bit time consuming;-)!

Tango

ya, I was going to do the trails too...
Would'a likely looked great, except the clouds were rolling through so I scraped the idea.

15 sec? but then I need the ISO back up to 3200 ~ 6400 again right?

this is a battle I intend on winning over of myself! thanks for the tips everyone!!

Nikolai

AaronNelson wrote:

ya, I was going to do the trails too...
Would'a likely looked great, except the clouds were rolling through so I scraped the idea.

15 sec? but then I need the ISO back up to 3200 ~ 6400 again right?

this is a battle I intend on winning over of myself! thanks for the tips everyone!!

Next time I'll show you a little PS trick to get the absolutely noise-free stars

Tango

Nikolai wrote:

Next time I'll show you a little PS trick to get the absolutely noise-free stars

Im all ears.

after thinking on this... Im sure I will try everything suggested and/or what you can add.

Its no problem for me to start back at scratch with Raw files...

Nikolai

AaronNelson wrote:

Im all ears.

after thinking on this... Im sure I will try everything suggested and/or what you can add.

Its no problem for me to start back at scratch with Raw files...

Uhm, it's not *just* PS, it involves multiple frames - you got those?

Tango

Nikolai wrote:

Uhm, it's not *just* PS, it involves multiple frames - you got those?

I have multiple frames of the stars but they are 30sec expos shot a few minutes apart. (I simply used the star expo that looked best....)

sgonen

Reshoot?
Aaron, this image looks great to me - but if you are really not happy with it then the only thing to do is to have another trip back there - this weekend?

Tango

sgonen wrote:

Aaron, this image looks great to me - but if you are really not happy with it then the only thing to do is to have another trip back there - this weekend?

I think some cool air will help in the clarity of the stars. so plan on this Fall... you game?

CWSkopec

Aaron,
I think I may try this technique this weekend in Sequoia if I can find an appropriate location (and if the lady has the patience to wait for the stars to show ). I wonder if using the nifty fifty and opening it up all the way to 1.8 would help. You'd have to get farther back (if possible) for a similar comp, but it might be worth it to get those starts stopped dead in their tracks...


Another thought just hit me... if you have any exposures that we short enough to stop the star and don't have much noise in them but the stars were too dim, AND have an "Extended" version of Photoshop, you may be able to amplify the brightness using the built in scripts. Under File, near the bottom there's an option for "Scripts" then pick "Statistics" from that fly out menu. There's an option menu in the dialog box that pops up that let's you pick the method the script uses to combine, play around (some of them do so crazy things), but I imagine "Maximum" would be the way to go.

You'll need mulitple versions of the image, so just copy a bunch to your desktop (all the same frame, just copies of it, like Img_0999, Img_0999(1), Img_0999(2), etc.)

Stacking them with the maximum option should amplify the light of the stars without upping the noise and since it's all the same frame stacked, there wouldn't be any trails or motion in them. My "Energy Drink" was 7 or 8 frames all stacked together with this option pretty seemlessly. This photo was also assembled using one of the Statistics options (though I don't remember which).

Of course, that's all just a theory and requires that you have the Extended version of PS, sadly the regular versions don't feature the Statistics scripts.

Nikolai

AaronNelson wrote:

I have multiple frames of the stars but they are 30sec expos shot a few minutes apart. (I simply used the star expo that looked best....)

Well in that case... :-)
It's along the lines what Chris said... You may need Extended version of PS CS4, I'm not sure if "stacking" comes with CS3 (pretty much sure it doesn't) or non-Extended ones.
Anyway...

1. Load multiple frames as a stack
2. Crop out the landscape features if you have them: you need the sky content only since you gonna blend it anyway
3. Using Autoalign or Free transform, align the frames in a way that all the stars match perfectly (they have no way to go unless you accidentally tripped a zoom or TS-feature).
4. Use one of the stacking modes (like median, or average) to leave the stars and kill the random noise.
5. Use the flattened version as a layer (or the whole thing as an object if you're very advanced and have very fast computer) in your composite.

It sounds complicated, but it's not...

Note: if you do it right, it may even help you to "shorten" the trails ;-)

NoteII: you will lose the edge of the frame, but not a whole lot...
HTH

pathfinder

I have shots of Orion's belt I shot with a 10D at ISO 100, f4, 30 secs at 28mm on an APS based sensor. (The exif data is no longer available via Smugmug, so I looked at my original jpg for the exposure data - it is accurate ) I can see obvious star movement in large versions of the image.

In Breugel's article he suggests 15 seconds at f2.8 ISO 3200, and I can now understand why. For large prints, a short focal length and brief shutter speed are definitely in order.

However, this image of Double Arch was shot at 24mm on a full frame camera at ISO 1600, 56 seconds, f7.1 and do not exhibit as much apparent movement to my eye. Maybe the earth moves more slowly out there in the desert at Arches...

So you takes your money and makes your choice, Aaron!

Tango

pathfinder wrote:

However, this image of Double Arch was shot at 24mm on a full frame camera at ISO 1600, 56 seconds, f7.1 and do not exhibit as much apparent movement to my eye.

is that shot orientated north? maybe thats why ...less travel distances involved...

Nikolai

AaronNelson wrote:

is that shot orientated north? maybe thats why ...less travel distances involved...

kdog

A++ for taking on such a creative and technical challenge, Aaron! Shot looks really good. I hope you'll try Pathfinder's blue channel noise reduction idea. Regardless, you've laid the foundation for next time when you'll get it perfect. Good job, my man. thumb

-joel