Milkyway at Joshua Tree

[Ryan10]

Appreciate the invite to the community. Look forward to building online and perhaps in-person relationships with some of you.

This is a shot I took in May of this year. It was my 2nd attempt at shooting the Milkyway. My 10 year old daughter was out there helping me at 1AM too, so a little extra sentiment for me.

I Used my Rokinon 14mm F/2.8 and Canon 6D. 8 images manually stacked in Photoshop for noise reduction and detail enhancement. The 8 images were ISO 12,800 @ 10 seconds each. I then used one shot at ISO 400 of the light painted rocks to composite on top of the 8 image stack. All 9 images were same exact composition on the tripod.


Milky Way Rising on Memorial Day by Ryan Luna, on Flickr

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ryan,

Its great to have you here! I have admired your photographic eye and it will be awesome having you contribute here.

Joshua Tree is a favorite place of mine, one I spent a lot of my teen years out roaming and exploring in. I don't get out there as much even though its so close since I seem to be spending more time in Colorado and New Mexico. So it's great to see this. You captured the Milky Way really nicely here. For the ground layer, when I light paint, I have been trying to shine the light off to the left side more to help create more shadows and create the illusion of directional light. Sometimes it works...

Jim

 

[Ryan10]

Thanks Jim. In this image, you're right, I just used headlamp and pointed straight at rocks, but in the last few months, I have learned a lot about low level lighting from Royce Bair and Wayne Pinkston. I am definitely going to be using that technique a lot more.

 

[Travis Rhoads]

The sky portion is great, really nicely done. I might warm up the foreground a little. I wanted to start light painting more, but want to use gels to warm the light more than the blue tint most headlights and torches have now.

 

[JimFox]

The sky portion is great, really nicely done. I might warm up the foreground a little. I wanted to start light painting more, but want to use gels to warm the light more than the blue tint most headlights and torches have now.

Hey Travis, I had the same thought about 2 years ago and picked up some warm color gels. The issue I found was it turned the foreground too warm, especially later in the night when the WB tends to lean towards being warmer anyway. What I have settled for is a more neutral white color, actually most often just using the display off of my iPhone to softly light up the scene, and then when I process it, I just warm it up to taste at that point. If you find a colored gel that works well for you, I would be glad to hear about it too. But I just wanted to share that I had already unsuccessfully gone down that road.

Jim

 

[Travis Rhoads]

Hey Travis, I had the same thought about 2 years ago and picked up some warm color gels. The issue I found was it turned the foreground too warm, especially later in the night when the WB tends to lean towards being warmer anyway. What I have settled for is a more neutral white color, actually most often just using the display off of my iPhone to softly light up the scene, and then when I process it, I just warm it up to taste at that point. If you find a colored gel that works well for you, I would be glad to hear about it too. But I just wanted to share that I had already unsuccessfully gone down that road.

Jim

Good to know...I have not looked into any gels yet...I typically have not needed to light paint...

On point...for JTNP...how late in the year can the MW still be seen...I am considering a trip out there this year...but September is so full...was wondering if I could push into October's New Moon...

 

[Ryan10]

According to PhotoPils, the Galactic core will be visible from 7:31PM until 9:15PM on October 18th. The MW will begin visibility a little past vertical. I also used Stellarium to simulate, and the above info is dead accurate. That doesn't mean you can't shoot past 9:15PM of course, it just means you won't have much of the core visible.

 

[Ryan10]

Oh...one other awesome thing to note. The ISS will be passing directly in front of the MW core at 9:14PM and 40 seconds on October 18th.

 

[Travis Rhoads]

According to PhotoPils, the Galactic core will be visible from 7:31PM until 9:15PM on October 18th. The MW will begin visibility a little past vertical. I also used Stellarium to simulate, and the above info is dead accurate. That doesn't mean you can't shoot past 9:15PM of course, it just means you won't have much of the core visible.

That was what I was afraid of...I don't have Stellarium on my laptop...so couldn't check...I have always thought that September was as late as you could go and still catch the core. Thanks!

 

[JimFox]

Good to know...I have not looked into any gels yet...I typically have not needed to light paint...

On point...for JTNP...how late in the year can the MW still be seen...I am considering a trip out there this year...but September is so full...was wondering if I could push into October's New Moon...

Yeah, I prefer not to light paint. If at all possible, I time my trips so that I can use a very small setting moon to light up the ground for me. But sometimes that just isn't possible, so I do light paint on occasion, and the iPhone display works wonderfully since its brightness can be adusted by the display brightness, and it's a very soft light. I haven't tried it but I am betting you could use a plain warm colored photo as your background on the iPhone, and then it would put out a warm light instead of a white light?

Jim

 

[Tex Schneider]

Ryan - Very nice MW image! I appreciate you sharing the back story on this image.