Beach Milky Way

Alpha_Plus

It has been a long time since I spent some time on DGrin. But I thought I'd come back and see how the community is going. Facebook sharing just isn't the greatest place for a photographer looking for critique.

Here is one of my recent shots from a couple of weeks ago... I'm open for critique - just trying out the milky way astrophotography recently and still learning. What do you think?

Nikon D600 - 30 sec @ f/3.5 and ISO 3200 (28mm)

LarryD

Looks great, I know that it's hard to find someplace without light pollution for these shots..

To my eye there is a bluish cast overall but it is not objectionable..

LightMagic

Wonderful! What time was this taken? I like the way you got the exposure of the foreground and the sky to be uniform. In most of the milky way shots I have seen the foreground is either a silhouette or a bit underexposed.

kdog

Good to see you back, Karl. Great composition. I'll third the emotion that one doesn't often see such a bright starry sky and yet have so much light on the ground as well. Very striking.

Alpha_Plus

LightMagic wrote: »

Wonderful! What time was this taken? I like the way you got the exposure of the foreground and the sky to be uniform. In most of the milky way shots I have seen the foreground is either a silhouette or a bit underexposed.

kdog wrote: »

Good to see you back, Karl. Great composition. I'll third the emotion that one doesn't often see such a bright starry sky and yet have so much light on the ground as well. Very striking.

Thanks kdog and LightMagic! I shot this shot at 10:08 PM. The moon wasn't out either. The surf-lifesaving club house had some exterior lights on shining down to the beach which provided a good amount of light. In fact, I was struggling to get an angle where my camera and tripod didn't cast a shadow into the frame..

LarryD wrote: »

Looks great, I know that it's hard to find someplace without light pollution for these shots..

To my eye there is a bluish cast overall but it is not objectionable..

Thanks Larry. I'll have to work on keeping the blue subdued a little more. As a colourblind photographer, it can be tricky when it comes to colour balance and saturation... And yes, it can be hard to find some clear skies. But that said, I got the shot below in my front yard in suburbia. No sky replacement - just multiple curves adjustments — we've got some good skies here in Australia!