Utah Astrophotography
The Cosmos
I've long wanted to delve into the realm of "pseudo-surreal" astrophotography, one of the techniques I thought was cool was using a longer focal length lens to do long exposure stacking, then swapping the lens for a wide angle lens to take a foreground exposure, then merging the two shots.
So on the last morning I was too exhausted to hike back up the swell for more imaging, instead I decided I'd try this, I setup my camera and a 50mm lens and took roughly 1 hour worth of 3 minute exposures aimed at the Milky Way core. Then after that I took the 50mm lens off and put the 24mm lens on and took a foreground shot. It was a little cool (~40 degrees) and I still had a bunch of firewood left so I got a fire going while the camera was imaging the core and I was sitting around doing nothing, so that became my foreground. I thought it was kind of a nice context that I was reading Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" over the weekend and during this morning shot.
All shots taken with my Nikon D600 and Nikon 50mm f1.8 or Rokinon 24mm f1.4 lens on my iOptron Skytracker mount. The sky shot is a stack of 17 exposures, each 3 minutes, ISO 800, f4, 50mm (Skytracker on). Foreground shot is a single exposure @24mm, 1 minute, ISO 400, f4 (Skytracker off). All stacking, editing, merging, and final edits done in Photoshop/Lightroom.
The Cosmos
I've long wanted to delve into the realm of "pseudo-surreal" astrophotography, one of the techniques I thought was cool was using a longer focal length lens to do long exposure stacking, then swapping the lens for a wide angle lens to take a foreground exposure, then merging the two shots.
So on the last morning I was too exhausted to hike back up the swell for more imaging, instead I decided I'd try this, I setup my camera and a 50mm lens and took roughly 1 hour worth of 3 minute exposures aimed at the Milky Way core. Then after that I took the 50mm lens off and put the 24mm lens on and took a foreground shot. It was a little cool (~40 degrees) and I still had a bunch of firewood left so I got a fire going while the camera was imaging the core and I was sitting around doing nothing, so that became my foreground. I thought it was kind of a nice context that I was reading Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" over the weekend and during this morning shot.
All shots taken with my Nikon D600 and Nikon 50mm f1.8 or Rokinon 24mm f1.4 lens on my iOptron Skytracker mount. The sky shot is a stack of 17 exposures, each 3 minutes, ISO 800, f4, 50mm (Skytracker on). Foreground shot is a single exposure @24mm, 1 minute, ISO 400, f4 (Skytracker off). All stacking, editing, merging, and final edits done in Photoshop/Lightroom.