Big Sky, Montana

davidryan

A gorgeous place to visit. Last year me and a horde of my friends traveled to Big Sky for Thanksgiving. I proposed to my wife there. This year, we went back. But this time, a married man : I love the night sky, the stars and all the cool things and scenes you can get if you work the light right. This one is about 45 minute-long exposure. The light in the lower left is the near-by town. I had to adjust the white/black to make the photo actually look like a night sky. What I really should have done was take a bunch of short exposures and stack. Has anyone else ever done stacking? I never have-- but willing to listen to advice. I should mention that I woke up and started the exposure around 0200-- on average the darkest time at night. It was also 10 degrees and I watched frost creep up my tripod and onto my camera. I stopped the exposure when the frost got near the lens! Hope you enjoy my little pic of Polaris.




Ryan:smooch

Eric&Susan

Great pic


Star trails are something I've always wanted to try just haven't got around to it yet.

Eric

davidryan

I wish I could say it was a pleasure taking this photo-- however it was very cold-- and it was very dark-- and there are a lot of big things that walk in the night in Montana. Made me feel like our early brethren-- getting freaked out by the night wilst hiding in a tree.

rahmonster

Very nice

davidryan

Thanks for taking a look.

problemchild

"What I really should have done was take a bunch of short exposures and stack. Has anyone else ever done stacking? I never have-- but willing to listen to advice."

..........................................

I can help with stacking. I use an intervalometer
made by canon (TC80N3 Timer Remote Controller).

I set it to 99 shots 1 second apart and 1 minute long. I focus to infinity and turn off focus. I shoot in manual and set all controls to manual incl. w.b.. I shoot in raw and usually use f4/iso 4-500, 17mm.

Its easy to fix one frame if somthing goes wrong. Its easy to stack and the noise is very low (I use image stacker with "brightest pixel" setting). In raw you can adjust color balance as well. Also its nice to have some ground point in the pic. Sky shots just dont work that well.

Heres 2 samples.