Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by icecold1980:
I dove into night sky photography not too long ago, and had the privilege to toy with a 5D MkII with a Tamron 10-24mm F3.5-4.5. Did you use any of the in-camera noise reduction for high ISO or long exposure? Perhaps the skies I dealt with were the limiting factor, but I mainly shot with ISO 3200, F3.5-4.0, 60". This exposure setting is a variation of Jim Richardson's of Nat'l Geographic, on his commentary on shooting the Milky Way. Shots came out fairly clear, and obviously better than my T1i, but still not as clear as I would've liked. With the Milky Way shots, I turned off all in-camera noise reduction, and shot a dark frame to subtract the noise in post process, then did minor curve adjustments in GIMP. Some noise reduction was applied in Digital Photo Professional prior to converting to 16-bit TIF. Excellent shot, and thanks in advance!! Night sky photography is very rewarding.

Apparently, I can't post my website on here, so please email me at depthofreal@gmail.com, and I'd like to discuss the details a little further.

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by Sunshine86:
Congrats on your first ribbon, amazing shot

Pin-Up Beauty
by BaldurT

Comment by BaldurT:
Thank you Alexkc!

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by BaldurT:
Thank you Tome,
This was shot at about 10 or 11 at night and I did not try a higher ISO than 2000. This was the first night of 4 on our backpacking trip and I was tried from our 9 mile (all uphill) hike, carrying a heavy pack (the price you pay for being a photographer), so I did not play with the settings to much. The next night it as cloudy and the following night, we got back to camp at about 10:30 in the evening from climbing a 13000'+ peak (Ritter Peak), so there was no photography that night. The last night did not happen, since one of our party came down with Pulmonary Edema and we had to get down to lower elevations ASAP.

Like you said; it's hard to make out the constellations with all those stars, but tail end of Scorpio is to the left in the shot.

PS. I went back to check, and this shot was taken at 8:19 pm. As a matter of fact the glow at visible behind the peak is the from the sunset.

Message edited by author 2011-09-07 20:11:42.

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by tome:
Congrats on your first ribbon! You had a perfect sky, I'm trying to recognize the constellations and with this many stars it's not easy :). If I'm not mistaken, this is taken very late at night :). I'm curious if you've tried a shorter exposure with higher ISO.

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by BaldurT:
Thank you all for the comments and votes. It feels great to have my first ribbon. This was a 30 second exposure. That is Thousand Island lake in the foreground.

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by wadeMD:
How long was this exposure?

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by grahamgator:
I would say you did very well for a first attempt. Congrats.

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by Tiny:
Congratulations,great shot and your first ribbon.

Milky Way Over Banner Peak
by BaldurT

Comment by stormlv:
Congrats on your photo!
I'm really jealous actually. I've been searching to get away from the light pollution for a LONG time, but couldn't ever manage to get a pic like this.