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Author Topic: Joshua Tree at Night  (Read 2210 times)

MichaelAlanBielat

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Joshua Tree at Night
« on: April 16, 2009, 02:08:02 pm »

Hello all,
I just wanted to thank you for your creative input in advance! This is my first image that I am putting up for critique here so be gentile

 

I shot this maybe three weeks ago at Joshua Tree National Park. It was my first time there and I definitely got a crash course of the park! I made our way through a good chunk of it within a few short hours.

I parked over where there was some real nice foreground and decided to give star trails a go. Never did them before so it was a first for me. Always wanted to do them but never got around to it. I painted the trees with a flashlight to get their exposures up. I think I just did two passes up and down each tree about 2 minutes before the exposure ended.



This image was shot with my Nikon D700 and Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 on my Bogen/Manfrotto Tripod and Head.
ISO: 800
Shutter Speed: 16.5 minutes
Aperture: f/11

I would love to hear your thoughts! Thanks in advance.
« Last Edit: April 16, 2009, 02:09:13 pm by MichaelAlanBielat »
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button

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Joshua Tree at Night
« Reply #1 on: April 16, 2009, 02:18:51 pm »

I like it.  It has a "black hole" kind of feel, as if the trees are being sucked into an interstellar vortex.  As far as the tree exposure goes, I'm thinking that the trees are a bit bright, with the appearance reminicent of palms trees lit up at night from upward pointing spot lights.  Try turning down just their luminosity, but leave the saturation.  Actually, in B/W, they work as is.  Overall, a really nice shot.

John
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MichaelAlanBielat

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Joshua Tree at Night
« Reply #2 on: April 16, 2009, 02:39:47 pm »

Quote from: button
I like it.  It has a "black hole" kind of feel, as if the trees are being sucked into an interstellar vortex.  As far as the tree exposure goes, I'm thinking that the trees are a bit bright, with the appearance reminicent of palms trees lit up at night from upward pointing spot lights.  Try turning down just their luminosity, but leave the saturation.  Actually, in B/W, they work as is.  Overall, a really nice shot.

John

Thanks for the kind words. I believe this shot was just a white balance fix and web-resize now that I see where the URL of the image is. Let me go ahead and check out if my current version of this pic that has some tweaks to it and I will post it.


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jasonrandolph

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Joshua Tree at Night
« Reply #3 on: April 16, 2009, 05:28:07 pm »

I think this one is absolutely outstanding!  I like the composition.  Also, I think you needed to "paint" in the trees, lest they get lost in the image to the star trails.  This is quite stunning.  Nice work!

Out of curiosity, how did the D700 hold up as far as noise goes?  I shoot with a D300 now, but I've been contemplating the D700 for quite some time.  Thanks for sharing your work!

John R

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Joshua Tree at Night
« Reply #4 on: April 16, 2009, 09:19:37 pm »

It's a great image. What are those white spots on the lower right-bottom rocks? Stray light from the flashlight?

JMR
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MichaelAlanBielat

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Joshua Tree at Night
« Reply #5 on: April 16, 2009, 10:35:40 pm »

Quote from: jasonrandolph
I think this one is absolutely outstanding!  I like the composition.  Also, I think you needed to "paint" in the trees, lest they get lost in the image to the star trails.  This is quite stunning.  Nice work!

Out of curiosity, how did the D700 hold up as far as noise goes?  I shoot with a D300 now, but I've been contemplating the D700 for quite some time.  Thanks for sharing your work!

The D700 handles noise just as well as the D3 IMO. I was only at ISO 800 but the long 16 minute exposure did make it look more noisier than if I was shooting at a faster shutter speed. I had the long exposure noise reduction turned off in camera so I could handle it myself in post.


Quote from: John R
It's a great image. What are those white spots on the lower right-bottom rocks? Stray light from the flashlight?

JMR

I never noticed that really until you pointed it out. They are lighter pieces of another joshua tree that you are seeing. Looks a lot less noticeable at full rez. Let me darken the trees a pinch and I will fix that as well and I will post the results when I get to it.

UPDATE:
Did some tweaks as per comments:
Old:


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« Last Edit: April 16, 2009, 11:19:44 pm by MichaelAlanBielat »
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