Castle Dome, Mount Shasta and Star Circles

[Kyle Jones]

I grew up in northern California but had a lot of family in Oregon. Pretty much every year we'd make the family drive up highway 5 and I always loved Mount Shasta and thought the rocks of Castle Crags were really cool. Once I started shooting landscapes I made a point to visit those areas. I visualized this shot one Autumn, hoping to center some star circles over the crest of Castle Dome with Shasta looming in the background. I backpacked to the top of the hill and set up camp. I then set up my camera in twilight and left it shooting 3 minute exposures while I slept. A crescent moon was kind enough to light the landscape.

Any thoughts are welcome.

 

[AlanLichty]

Wow - careful planning and it worked. It worked quite well I might add - I like this view.

The needles on the trees in the foreground look like you pushed them pretty hard in trying to bring them out of the shadows.

I keep trying to plot out neat and interesting shots and most of them end up being on the spot comps instead.

 

[Kyle Jones]

The needles on the trees in the foreground look like you pushed them pretty hard in trying to bring them out of the shadows.

I did do some gentle light painting for the foreground on one of the frames to blend in with the rest. I definitely struggled with noise assembling this whole thing, including a complete reedit at one point.

 

[Mike Mancil]

Wow, a spectacular image. An excellent excuse for a night under the stars.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Kyle,

What a cool shot, I like it! Star circles don't always work well, and most times I think they feel forced into an image. But with this composition, it looks awesome! I also love visualizing and planning images, for me it adds to the fun when I can capture something for real that had just been an idea in my head.

Excellent work here. At least on my monitor I can't see any noise or pushing. One thought, and I have done this when I have shot star circles. It's not noticed when shooting pin point stars, but when shooting star circles the WA distortion can come into play with the circle created by the stars. So I will usually go back and use the warp or stretch tool to stretch the image to get the star circles to be a true circle. In your shot here, the oblong circle isn't real obvious, but it's there I guess if one looks for it. So if it was mine, I would correct for that just a bit.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Hey Kyle,

What a cool shot, I like it! Star circles don't always work well, and most times I think they feel forced into an image. But with this composition, it looks awesome! I also love visualizing and planning images, for me it adds to the fun when I can capture something for real that had just been an idea in my head.

Excellent work here. At least on my monitor I can't see any noise or pushing. One thought, and I have done this when I have shot star circles. It's not noticed when shooting pin point stars, but when shooting star circles the WA distortion can come into play with the circle created by the stars. So I will usually go back and use the warp or stretch tool to stretch the image to get the star circles to be a true circle. In your shot here, the oblong circle isn't real obvious, but it's there I guess if one looks for it. So if it was mine, I would correct for that just a bit.

Thanks Jim - star circles never end up quite circular. So far I've never gone down the path of fixing that. I'll give it a shot sometime when I feel like practicing something new.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

I'd crop out the bottom third, then click out all the stars in the top circle. Just make it completely open. Then, warm up the mountain face just a bit. It might also need less magenta to get the feel. I'd show this one as a tribute to that little tree on the left.
That little tree is my favorite part of the pic. Think it makes it poetic.

 

[Bart Carrig]

It's a beautiful image. Very well done.

Bart