What a stunning night! I just got home from one E.P.I.C. photographic outing with my mate Mark from Perth. We first met up to shoot the sunset at Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse in Augusta and got some sweet-as silky smooth water shots, then we took a little break for a few hours (watched the A-Team movie - oh yeah!) and then headed back out in the middle of the night to capture the amazing southern night sky in it's full glory!
Found this little guy while scouting locations for last nights shoot.
The Augusta Jetty and Boat Ramp - long exposure thanks to my 10-stop ND filter.
First look at the sunset that evening... Unfortunately the weather gods didn't bless us with any fluffy clouds (but we could see the a glorious display of orange/pink sunset clouds behind the dunes to our right - great, for whomever was shooting over there loll!)
Thanks to my ND filter I was able to add some drama to the scene in front of us.
All these shots had no excessive photoshop work done to them... simply a few tweaks to saturation, contrast and a little bit of dodge'n'burn - that's all
Leeuwin Lighthouse
Last capture after the sun had gone, and we finally got a few little clouds in the sky... :)
"Aurora Smudgealis"
Turns out I had quite a bit of muck on the front of my lens and as I tried to clean it up the first time, I just smeared the stuff across the whole front element. I actually kinda liked the effect that created and took a few shots with the smudge on my lens. It's an artificial Aurora if you want to look at is that way :)
Back at the scene in the middle of the night. Now we were actually really happy about the lack of clouds, as there was nothing obstructing the view on the galaxy.
Turns out I had quite a bit of muck on the front of my lens and as I tried to clean it up the first time, I just smeared the stuff across the whole front element. I actually kinda liked the effect that created and took a few shots with the smudge on my lens. It's an artificial Aurora if you want to look at is that way :)
Back at the scene in the middle of the night. Now we were actually really happy about the lack of clouds, as there was nothing obstructing the view on the galaxy.
The above image is a two-row panorama, consisting of 17 images I shot with the following settings:
ISO 3200, 17mm, f/4, 30sec
I then stitched the images in Photoshop Elements and quickly touched it up in Lightroom to boost contrast, saturation and clarity.
ISO 3200, 17mm, f/4, 30sec
I then stitched the images in Photoshop Elements and quickly touched it up in Lightroom to boost contrast, saturation and clarity.
Below you can see a before/after comparison:
On the left the raw file SOOC(straight out of camera) and on the right the final - edited - image
On the left the raw file SOOC(straight out of camera) and on the right the final - edited - image
Please leave a comment below if you'd like to see more before/after images in the future or of any of the other shots:)
The water wheel near the Lighthouse served as final destination last nights star shooting session.
The last image for the night.... by the time I took this shot it was already almost 5am.
A very productive, fun and successful night I would say!
Feel free to leave a comment below or share this article with your friends!
Thanks for your time!
Hannes
No comments:
Post a Comment