Arch Squared

JimFox

JimFox

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This was from a few nights ago as I ran out to Joshua Tree to shoot the Milky Way. The moon was setting about 2:30 so that gave me until 4:30 to get some nice moon shots. I ended up spending a majority of that time helping someone else out, so I couldn't focus too much on shooting the Milky Way, but it was nice to be able to get the Arch within an Arch (Milky Way Arch). But with my Nikon D850 and Sigma 14mm f1.8 setup, it doesn't require a lot of thinking anyway thankfully. :rolleyes:

This is a 3 shot pano where I used 3 horizontal shots. Photoshop doesn't always stitch MW pano's together all that well, but this was one case where the stitching was seamless and painless. As normal, no stacking of multiple images, just the 3 photos to create the pano.

All comments are welcome,

Jim

DSC_2922_Pano_dw.jpg
 
lionking

lionking

Well-Known Member
Love this Jim!
Great complimentary to MW, i assure this is the right way to say it, cause MW was there first :)
I would be tempted to make better temperature separation though.

Cheers.
 
Bob

Bob

Well-Known Member
Jim,
Really like this shot. Approximately what time in the morning did you shoot this? Love your processing to many overly process the milky way this is spot on.
Bob
 
Jim Dockery

Jim Dockery

Well-Known Member
The MW master strikes again! Gorgeous. I'm with Andre though on playing with the temp. of the sky more to blue, even if it isn't the true color it jives with my brain better and will help the arch stand out even more.
 
Ben Egbert

Ben Egbert

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Great shot Jim, this is why I don't d MW, too many fantastic images I could never hope to match.
 
JimFox

JimFox

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lionking said:
Love this Jim!
Great complimentary to MW, i assure this is the right way to say it, cause MW was there first :)
I would be tempted to make better temperature separation though.

Cheers.
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Thanks Andrey, I am glad you liked this.

That’s a good thought, the ground does feel a little too yellow, maybe I will add some red to the ground.
 
JimFox

JimFox

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Staff member
Jim Dockery said:
The MW master strikes again! Gorgeous. I'm with Andre though on playing with the temp. of the sky more to blue, even if it isn't the true color it jives with my brain better and will help the arch stand out even more.
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Thanks for the compliment Jim.

I tried really hard to make the sky blue. I have found sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. If as I cool down the sky the MW itself turns blue then I won’t do it, and that’s what happened when I tried it here. Initially the sky was greener which kept the MW it’s true colors, so I went with that. At the end I did cool down the sky to add some blue to it, and I tried to walk a fine line to stop the cooling before the MW itself got blue.

Sometimes I can mask out the the MW and stars and just change the WB of the background sky, but often that can feel fake. I will probably go back and give that a try since I do think the ground layer needs just a tab but more red to it now that I see it here.
 
Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
Jim,

That is simply one of my favorite MW shots I have ever seen! The way the arch mimics the MW is fabulous. I would love to hear more details on how you exposed this, as far as camera and lens settings, if you care to share. What a great result!

ML
 
Brandon Moore

Brandon Moore

Well-Known Member
Love this one Jim. When I was out in Death Valley a few weeks ago I attempted my first MW pano. When I stitched it together in Lightroom some strange things happen to the area of the photo where the ground meets the mountains. I realize it's probably tough to say - but any thoughts on what might be causing this?
IMG_9553.jpg
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Brandon Moore said:
Love this one Jim. When I was out in Death Valley a few weeks ago I attempted my first MW pano. When I stitched it together in Lightroom some strange things happen to the area of the photo where the ground meets the mountains. I realize it's probably tough to say - but any thoughts on what might be causing this?View attachment 17725
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It looks like bad stitching Brandon. Each of those jumps is where the photo didn’t line up right. The software chose the tops of the mountains and the Milky Way as points of reference so as you rotated for each shot the geometry of the land masses changed also.

Sometimes after creating the pano in Photoshop, you go into warp mode and warp the edges and lines back to being straight.

I shot both a 3 shot horizontal pano and a 5 shot vertical pano. I tried stitching the horizontal one first because it’s the simplest to stitch since it only has 2 edges that overlap. Later in the Milky Way season that won’t be possible as the Milky Way will be higher in the sky and vertical panos will be the only option realistically.
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Mike Lewis said:
Jim,

That is simply one of my favorite MW shots I have ever seen! The way the arch mimics the MW is fabulous. I would love to hear more details on how you exposed this, as far as camera and lens settings, if you care to share. What a great result!

ML
Click to expand...
Of course Mike, there are no secrets here or any special sauce to keep to ourselves. :)

The 3 shots were at ISO 2000, f1.8 and at 25 secs. That’s it. The moon was still providing some residual light to the arch and that was enough.

I processed the Raw almost as straight out of the camera, only adjusting the Clarity by 30 and the Vibrance by 30. There was no increase of the exposure or highlight or shadow adjustments. The auto WB in the camera had it at 4900k.

While in Photoshop after it was stitched I used a sharp edged layer mask to separate the sky from the arch and ground.

To the sky I very slightly cooled it down, and added contrast to darken the background sky a bit more.

To the Arch and ground I simply warmed it up slightly.

That was pretty much it, a really simple and easy exposure.
 
Mike Lewis

Mike Lewis

Staff Member
JimFox said:
Of course Mike, there are no secrets here or any special sauce to keep to ourselves. :)

The 3 shots were at ISO 2000, f1.8 and at 25 secs. That’s it. The moon was still providing some residual light to the arch and that was enough.

I processed the Raw almost as straight out of the camera, only adjusting the Clarity by 30 and the Vibrance by 30. There was no increase of the exposure or highlight or shadow adjustments. The auto WB in the camera had it at 4900k.

While in Photoshop after it was stitched I used a sharp edged layer mask to separate the sky from the arch and ground.

To the sky I very slightly cooled it down, and added contrast to darken the background sky a bit more.

To the Arch and ground I simply warmed it up slightly.

That was pretty much it, a really simple and easy exposure.
Click to expand...

Excellent Jim, thanks for the technical details. I am not sure my 5DSr is as clean as I would like up at ISO 2000, but sometimes it is worth a try to see what one can get. Milky Way and night shooting are a great example of when pixel peeping is really counterproductive, but it remains a nasty vice I struggle to leave behind just the same :)

ML
 
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