my first try at shooting the star

vermenton

sunday over the Angeles NF

Andyman

I love pictures of the stars! I can see Orion.

I think it could use a little more contrast though. Also, you have some funky noise going on. It looks simliar to a problem someone had awhile ago they posted about, but I can't remember what was said about it. Maybe someone else remembers?

ChrisJ

I really like the rising (?) sun peaking through. Cool effect, I saw something similar when I was in Bryce Canyon last April, but never got a good shot of it.

It looks like some sort of banding over the long exposure time. If your camera has a noise reduction feature, you may want to try that.

You may want to try setting a black point in the upper right corner, that might bring out some contrast.

Cool shot, definitely!

vermenton

ChrisJ wrote:

I really like the rising (?) sun peaking through. Cool effect, I saw something similar when I was in Bryce Canyon last April, but never got a good shot of it.

It looks like some sort of banding over the long exposure time. If your camera has a noise reduction feature, you may want to try that.

You may want to try setting a black point in the upper right corner, that might bring out some contrast.

Cool shot, definitely!

which one is Orion? thank you for your coments. I guess the bending is the lens I was shooting at 11 ( tamron 11-18) . I will try again this weekend

vermenton

vermenton wrote:

which one is Orion? thank you for your coments. I guess the bending is the lens I was shooting at 11 ( tamron 11-18) . I will try again this weekend[/quotemy

My canon 10D does not have noise reduction function, do any one have a solution to this problem? let me know thank you

Forehead

Orion the Hunter is just above center. Here's another shot to help you recognize it better (the laser's pointing right at the belt he's wearing):

vermenton

Forehead wrote:

Orion the Hunter is just above center. Here's another shot to help you recognize it better (the laser's pointing right at the belt he's wearing):

thank you

SloYerRoll

Forehead wrote:

Orion the Hunter is just above center. Here's another shot to help you recognize it better (the laser's pointing right at the belt he's wearing):

Be Careful w/ that laser Steve-O. THe FAA might come looking for you!

Forehead

I try to be sure that no high-flying aircraft are around, and hope that any UFOs don't lodge any complaints either! :uhoh

SloYerRoll wrote:

Be Careful w/ that laser Steve-O. THe FAA might come looking for you!

mmroden

I like that shot; I tried to do similar things recently, and it just didn't work so well.

I also recommend the denoising everyone else has recommended. A poor-mans way to do that is to:
0) shoot in raw. jpg compression could really wang this.
1) take your exposure. If it's a bulb exposure, make sure to time it properly.
2) take a blank exposure right afterwards. Yes, you burn a frame, but space is cheap these days.
3) read them into photoshop, but not adjusted by camera raw. Instead, just set everything to default settings. you can modify everything after doing this trick. Keep it as 16 bit.
4) copy the entire 'star' frame (taken in step 1) onto the blank frame (taken in step 2). This should be another layer on top of one another.
5) change the channel blending to 'difference'.
6) Noise should disappear (I might have the layers backwards in step 4; you may want to swap them).
7) merge visible layers, and then mess with colors and so forth.

Hope that works for you; I only guess, I haven't tried it myself.

vermenton

mmroden wrote:

I like that shot; I tried to do similar things recently, and it just didn't work so well.

I also recommend the denoising everyone else has recommended. A poor-mans way to do that is to:
0) shoot in raw. jpg compression could really wang this.
1) take your exposure. If it's a bulb exposure, make sure to time it properly.
2) take a blank exposure right afterwards. Yes, you burn a frame, but space is cheap these days.
3) read them into photoshop, but not adjusted by camera raw. Instead, just set everything to default settings. you can modify everything after doing this trick. Keep it as 16 bit.
4) copy the entire 'star' frame (taken in step 1) onto the blank frame (taken in step 2). This should be another layer on top of one another.
5) change the channel blending to 'difference'.
6) Noise should disappear (I might have the layers backwards in step 4; you may want to swap them).
7) merge visible layers, and then mess with colors and so forth.

Hope that works for you; I only guess, I haven't tried it myself.

thank you for the recomdation. I'm going to shoot at night again this weekend over the Angeles crest nf

mmroden

np. I forgot to mention, the two frames need to be the exact same length of time.

Noise comes from many things in CCD's, not least is temperature. The longer the exposure time, the more noise can be generated (as you see in your image). So, the blank frame (with a lens cap on or something similar) should be the same amount of time, to let the same amount of noise build up, and right afterwards, so that the camera is roughly at the same temperature as when you shot the first frame.

Also, be wary of running out of battery life. I think the d70 can take 30 minutes of continuous exposure before it dies; it may be more than that. it does sometimes hurt to try a 25 minute shot, only to have the camera die on minute 21 or something.