Last autumn, I spent a great deal of time trying to take a good, bright photo of the Milky Way, of the kind you can see here. My efforts produced some pictures that were at best “meh.” Try as I might, I just couldn’t get the sort of brightness and clarity that I was seeing in other photographers work. *Especially* annoying was the failure to come anywhere near something like this.
A few days back I visited Logan, and wandered through the art festival held in the park. There were a number of photographers there, including several who did night-shots such as those… one who had a *lot* of really quite remarkable Milky Way shots. I pestered him about how he did it… while his answers were understandably a little lean on the specifics, the general thrust was that, apart from a motorized sky-tracking mount, he wasn’t doing much of anything that I wasn’t. Apparently it was all in the post-processing.
So, what the hell. I pulled up one of my best, from last August:
Yeah, it’s nice, I suppose, but really pretty faint. So… a smidgeon of fade correction:
Holy crap.
And here, another approach adjusting hue saturation and lightness:
I think I’m on to something here. While there’s a ways to go yet before I can claim to have a really good Milky Way shot (not least of the way being I need to get the hell away from ATK and their light pollution), I think I’m on the right track.
3 Responses to “Galaxy Quest”
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Wgat programs are you using for post? I’m always surprised at what I can save from my older digital pics, often taken in hangars or museums
Heya, Scott!
Great pix, but I have to ask… which one is closest to what the human eye actually sees? I’m thinking that it is a case of less having better equipment to photograph what it there versus better means to tweak the image to what we want to see.
Just my 2 cents worth.
> Wgat programs are you using for post
The latest version of Paint Shop Pro, sort of the poor-man’s Photoshop.
> which one is closest to what the human eye actually sees?
That’s kinda subjective. If you’re dark-adapted and actually looking for the Milky Way, the processed images aren’t *too* much of an excaggeration. But when it comes to “art,” what matters is “what looks good” not “what’s most accurate.” I’ve had one of the originals printed off large-size, and it’s just not something you’d want to hang on a wall.