Moon Lit Meadow

bgarland

Nothing very strong in this shot to draw you in. I was just trying to learn how to shoot in the moon light. This was a mountain meadow across from our campsite. Now I need to go find a strong scene to try this again.

OnlyElise

That's amazing! I've never seen a photograph that mixes a bright "dark" area with a night sky before. Do you mind if I ask how you did it?

Also, my favorite part is the shooting star you managed to catch down near the treeline.

bgarland

OnlyElise wrote: »

That's amazing! I've never seen a photograph that mixes a bright "dark" area with a night sky before. Do you mind if I ask how you did it?

Also, my favorite part is the shooting star you managed to catch down near the treeline.

Thanks. Just going by memory it was shot with 10-22 lens at F4 and ISO 1600 for 30sec. Any longer exposure would start showing the star movement. Then a little PP in Lightroom to adjust the exposure a tad and clean up some high ISO noise.

The streak in this one is actually a airplane I think.

Here's the same meadow shot at ISO 100 for just short of 5mins. You can see the star trails in this one.

Awais Yaqub

Movement of stars in 2nd shot looks awesome while there is so quiet on land.

bgarland

Awais Yaqub wrote: »

Movement of stars in 2nd shot looks awesome while there is so quiet on land.

Thanks. That night it was dead calm with no breeze at all so the meadow and trees were nice and still.

vintagemxr

That first image is very nice and looks like it would make a good stock shot for an album cover, advertisement, or whatever.

Doug

bgarland

vintagemxr wrote: »

That first image is very nice and looks like it would make a good stock shot for an album cover, advertisement, or whatever.

Doug

Wow, thanks for that.

I didn't think the Meadow had enough in it to pull you into the photo. I was just trying to get the moon light with stars exposure correct. The more I look at it though the more relaxing and pleasing it seems to be to me.

CWSkopec

Very nice scene, Brad.

I think you're right, the first doesn't have quite enough to pull the view in (would be a nice background for an ad though as the ad copy could fill the space) but the second would have been awesome with a complete set of star trails. Since the subject would be the star trails themselves, you wouldn't want an overly strong foreground to pull attention away from them and the bright, sunlit look of the meadow would look positively surreal with a sky full of star trails!

bgarland

CWSkopec wrote: »

Very nice scene, Brad.

I think you're right, the first doesn't have quite enough to pull the view in (would be a nice background for an ad though as the ad copy could fill the space) but the second would have been awesome with a complete set of star trails. Since the subject would be the star trails themselves, you wouldn't want an overly strong foreground to pull attention away from them and the bright, sunlit look of the meadow would look positively surreal with a sky full of star trails!

Thanks for the input and suggestion for full star trails. I thought about that but then got lazy and went back to the fire instead of staying out there and taking the time to fire off all required shots to truly build full star trails. Now I regret not taking the time.

Although sipping Bourbon by the fire under the stars wasn't too bad either.

CWSkopec

bgarland wrote: »

Although sipping Bourbon by the fire under the stars wasn't too bad either.

That is a tough call to resist!

If you are in a remote enough area (not a lot of other people around) you can just leave your camera out on the tripod while you go back to the fire. Since trails can take hours to do right, I've done this on several occasions. Just take a couple minutes to extra secure your tripod and then let it be. I normally just hang a weight off the center column (camera bag) but you could always run some parachute cord off it and stake it down like a tent!

dlplumer

I have been practicing the same stuff Brad, but have yet to find a foreground to go with the sky. I am also anxious to get out of our light pollution so I can shoot some real stars.

Cools practice shots

bgarland

dlplumer wrote: »

I have been practicing the same stuff Brad, but have yet to find a foreground to go with the sky. I am also anxious to get out of our light pollution so I can shoot some real stars.

Cools practice shots

Thanks Dan, Yep, the rocky coastline night shots are what got me interested. I'm sure there are some good canyon land or Monument Valley landscapes that would look great in this light too. Now I just have to go find them.

bgarland

CWSkopec wrote: »

That is a tough call to resist!

If you are in a remote enough area (not a lot of other people around) you can just leave your camera out on the tripod while you go back to the fire. Since trails can take hours to do right, I've done this on several occasions. Just take a couple minutes to extra secure your tripod and then let it be. I normally just hang a weight off the center column (camera bag) but you could always run some parachute cord off it and stake it down like a tent!

Thanks Chris. I was under the impression that to get good full star trails you would want to take many 5-6 minute shots and then stack them together to get the image. If you just leave the shutter open for an hour wouldn't you overheat the sensor and get a pretty noisy image?

CWSkopec

bgarland wrote: »

Thanks Chris. I was under the impression that to get good full star trails you would want to take many 5-6 minute shots and then stack them together to get the image. If you just leave the shutter open for an hour wouldn't you overheat the sensor and get a pretty noisy image?

Very true, but there are devices that can help. Canon's intervalometer lets you set it the camera to take a series of 5-6 minute photos automagically and I'm sure Nikon has an equivilent product if you need it. Also (since I'm broke this is my method!) you can use your remote switch, which maxes out at 30 seconds. The trails aren't as clean with 30 seconds, but like you I like to wander back to the campfire and forget about it for a few hours.

Here's my best attempt to date. It was shot as a large set of 30 second images and assembled from there. The trees are lit by my own campfire as I was literally about 5 feet from the camera & tripod, I wanted to enjoy the fire (and the rum) without getting up every 5 minutes to end/start exposures.

Unfortunately, there is a little bit of visible "jitter" in the trails due to so many 30sec exposures with minimal movement in each, the intervalometer is on my wish list!

(I should also note that the focal length was 19mm as that's the widest I have. Your final product may vary with the 10mm)

starcluster

well done
keep it up

bgarland

CWSkopec wrote: »

Very true, but there are devices that can help. Canon's intervalometer lets you set it the camera to take a series of 5-6 minute photos automagically and I'm sure Nikon has an equivilent product if you need it. Also (since I'm broke this is my method!) you can use your remote switch, which maxes out at 30 seconds. The trails aren't as clean with 30 seconds, but like you I like to wander back to the campfire and forget about it for a few hours.

Here's my best attempt to date. It was shot as a large set of 30 second images and assembled from there. The trees are lit by my own campfire as I was literally about 5 feet from the camera & tripod, I wanted to enjoy the fire (and the rum) without getting up every 5 minutes to end/start exposures.

Unfortunately, there is a little bit of visible "jitter" in the trails due to so many 30sec exposures with minimal movement in each, the intervalometer is on my wish list!

(I should also note that the focal length was 19mm as that's the widest I have. Your final product may vary with the 10mm)

Very cool, I'll have to save my pennies up. Thanks

Roaddog 52

Both images are nice, I think I like the first one better just because it seems to have a calmer mood. I have been shooting a lot of moonlight this past summer and full moonlight at night is an interesting and some times magical light source. The intervalometer is also on my list of got to have.

Phil

bgarland

Roaddog 52 wrote: »

Both images are nice, I think I like the first one better just because it seems to have a calmer mood. I have been shooting a lot of moonlight this past summer and full moonlight at night is an interesting and some times magical light source. The intervalometer is also on my list of got to have.

Phil

Thanks for the comments. I'm looking forward to more moon light shooting opportunities. Fun stuff.