Humbled

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Sriharsha Ganjam
Humbled
I realized something very simple that magical night on Chembra. All I had to do was look up and I was immediately dwarfed by the grandeur that is this universe. I also wanted to include an element which portrayed the relative insignificance yet the beauty of life on this grand stage. Lucky for me I had this lonely tree which fit the bill perfectly. So I framed it along with the Milky way in the backdrop and the Chembra Peak itself, behind which the stars were setting.
The process of getting the actual picture was a little tricky though as I had to experiment with different exposure settings as I wanted to capture the full glory and beauty of the Milky Way, but that required a long shutter speed and that was resulting in the stars trailing off, producing streaks. (I wanted the stars as points). So after a lot of trial and error I finally managed to get it right. But it meant I use a ISO of 1600 for a 1 minute long exposure at f3.5, which explains for the noise. And the wind wasn't making my effort any easier! Any tips on doing PP to improve on this pic would be much appreciated.
Sun Oct 19, 2008 12:19 am
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Sriharsha Ganjam  Joined CNP On 23 Jun 2008    Total Image posts 125    -   Total Image Comments 839    -   Image Post to Comment Ratio 1:7    -   Image Comment Density 50     -     Total Forum Posts 42

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Commentby Ganesh H Shankar on Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:46 am

It is all about exploring and perfecting Sriharsha. I think trying out what we are comfortable with will only fetch routine images! Night photography is a challenge due to several technical limitations. It is very difficult to overcome some of them. I think you did a very good job here. Didn't neatimage help reduce the noise ? I would not have hesitated to push to 3200iso and/or used a 50mm f1.2/1.4/1.8 lens to get as much light as possible. I think 1 min is a very long exposure which I guess resulted in stars being rendered a bit more bigger in size. I think next generation digitial bodies with best noise performance even at 6400iso will enable some of these images further. Thanks for sharing..

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Ganesh H. Shankar
Wishing you best light,

Image
Fine Art Nature Photography



» Last edited by Ganesh H Shankar on Sun Oct 19, 2008 6:56 am; edited 2 times in total

Commentby Sriharsha Ganjam on Sun Oct 19, 2008 9:55 am

Thanks Ganesh, you are right a min long exposure is still too long but any exposure less than a minute long was not capturing the subtle brown shade of the milkyway, and the fastest lens I had was a f2.8 but of 90mm which was giving a narrower field of view. So I guess I had all the straws drawn. :) I applied 30% of neat image noise reduction as it was taking away the texture of the milky way if I over did the neat image. As they say sometimes the best things are kept just for the eye to see and enjoy.

Commentby Kaushik Balakumar on Sun Oct 19, 2008 10:53 pm

This is beautiful image Sriharsha.
One min - i'm afraid is long enough to begin to show star trails. Perhaps f1.4 or f1.8 lenses as Ganesh suggested is best solution IMHO to allow maximum light come in (so as to reduce the exposure time).
This must have been a wonderful experience to you.
:)

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Regards,
Kaushik
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Commentby Pramod Viswanath on Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:24 am

Beautiful image and an awesome attempt there Harsha. Astronomy has always fascinated me since my childhood and this is a great attempt!

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Pramod Viswanath
Frames from wild | My Blog
Our only limitation is imagination !

Commentby nirlep on Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:26 pm

Hi Sriharsha
It's an amazing juxtaposition of cosmos with earthly elements. Inclusion of tree is very intimate and the nebulous shape of milky way nicely captured.
Bigger size of stars could be due to focussing error as well.
Overall a beautiful picture.

Commentby alwans on Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:08 pm

Beautiful compo Sriharsha. Loved the curves in the mountain and their placement in the frame.

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With best regards
http://www.digitalfrescos.com

Commentby sanjeev on Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:12 pm

lovely image Sriharsha and I like your concept behind the image too. Some stars seem to be more blue and some more white/warm. The colour of milky way looks almost like the ones that come out of astronomical telescopes. I wonder if there is too much blue in the picture. With a picture like this I can start making new constellations.