Alone Under the Stars

[Octane]

All,

Last night, in Condobolin.

2-image vertical panorama. I took a 3rd image further up, but, the composition doesn't work.

Canon EOS-5D Mark III, Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
30s f/4.0 at 26.0mm iso3200

Slightly larger version available here (http://users.tpg.com.au/hqureshi2/auts.html).

Thanks for looking.

H

[Eric48]

Lovely composition - a little bit Turneresque too!

Eric

[frenchbluehour]

answers my question ... ;) .... beautiful H :)

[RobF]

Beautiful work Humayun

[matt34]

Great image Humayun. The composition is great, the colour/mood of the shot is spot on. What lighting up the foreground? It looks nice & even and just enough light. How have you found the 17-40 as a nightscape lens I have it but never thought to use it at night.

[Larryp]

Lovely shot, H :thumbsup:

[Octane]

Eric,

Many thanks, sir. Turner is my favourite artist. :)



Nic,

Thank you. :)



Rob,

Appreciate it. :)



Matt,

Thanks for the kind words!

The foreground is being lit by a 20-25% Moon hanging about 15 degrees in the sky in the west.

I would much rather the 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM, for its extra stop of light and the beautiful diffraction spikes it creates at sunrise/sunset. But, for now, the 17-40mm f/4L USM will suffice.

The 17-40mm is not a bad lens. It's been my landscape workhorse for about 5 years now. I love it to bits. But, the extra stop means a lot now. :)

I will be either purchasing the Canon 14mm f/2.8L II USM or the 16-35mm before I head to Iceland in February.



Laurie,

Thank you, matey. I hope you're feeling better. :)



Thanks, all.

H

[matt34]

I agree if I knew now what I did when I brought the 17-40 I would have saved for the extra stop of light. At the time I thought i'd beer go lower than f8 on landscape but that was before I discovered nightscapes.
Have you thought about the samyang 14mm f2.8 just recently brought one myself there are a few ppl on here using it and it's been great so far.

Mite have to take the 17-40 out with me one night to try it out as a night lens u got great results with it.

[lacad01]

Outstanding shot, great composition, a real beauty :thumbsup:

[ourkind]

Beautiful Shot H love the colours.

[Antu]

What a view ! :thumbsup: Very nice image indeed.

[pluto]

Nice shot H!! :D

+1 for the 16-35mm f2.8LII, my favourite lens. Make sure you get it before your northern lights trip next year :)

[leon]

Wow that is different, but very pleasing to the eye, lovely shot mate.

Leon

[Ross G]

Beautiful photo H.

Great composition and I love the monochrome "mood".

You are an excellent artist!

Ross.

[multiweb]

Framing perfection. Love the lines and colors. Super cool. :thumbsup:

[alan meehan]

Love the colours H ,what a lovely shot
AL

[Octane]

Matt,

I know quite a few people have been getting great results with the Samyang lens. Having said that, the processing software that I use (Canon's Digital Photo Professional) does not have/allow lens profiles for third party lenses. This, for me, is a deal breaker. I don't use any other software (apart from exporting the images as TIFFs to Photoshop when required) as I want to see on my computer screen exactly what I saw on my camera when I captured the image. No other software will do this other than the native software. I have invested many thousands of dollars on my equipment and I just can't bring myself to use software other than what gives /me/ the results I am after. I run my images (that I know I will print) through the DLO module in DPP and it does remarkable things to the image.

An example of DLO in action: http://users.tpg.com.au/hqureshi2/dlo.html

The next three lenses on my to-get list are: the 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM, 135mm f/2L USM and a dedicated 14mm f/2.8L II USM. I don't mind spending the money. :)



Adam,

Many thanks. :)



Carlos,

Thank you. It's a bit of a monochromatic scheme of earthy tones and it works. :)



Yuri,

Glad you like it. I love your work. :)



Hugh,

Cheers, mate.

Yep, I most definitely will. :)



Cheers, all.

H

[Octane]

Leon,

Many thanks. :)



Ross,

Those are some very kind words. My humble thanks. :)



Marc,

Glad you like it. :D



Alan,

Many, many thanks. :)



Thank you again, one and all. :)

H

[naskies]

Nice work, H! Love the almost daylight appearance in the foreground.

[Paul Haese]

H great composition but the colours don't look right to me. I have noticed this trend of late that the sky has green (almost vivid sputum) and appears pink/red. That is seen in quite a few photographers on here and it ought only appear when the aurora or ionised oxygen are present, not on images where there is no influence of this sort.

Your image presents with cyan clouds, pinky red sky and odd looking green on the trees, and weird looking red pink in the flowers. It does not look right to me and I am not going to say it looks good. No doubt this will ruffle some feathers but the sky is not red and the clouds are not cyan or blue. Just my opinion, take of it what you will. Sort of feel this way about oversaturation that you feel about HDR. ;)

[Regulus]

A nice photograph in all regards.
I must get back to Condo one day. Was born there but haven't been back since I was 6yrs old.

[gregbradley]

Nice work H.

Composition and framing is almost everything in these shots and you have done that really well.

That's the beauty of the DSLR. The freedom to setup quickly almost anywhere and make a beautiful compostion and go off to the next site within 30 minutes.

Greg.

[Octane]

Dave,

Cheers, mate. That was the low-hanging Moon working its magic. :)



Paul,

Curious that you're the only one who has issues with the colours? Are you viewing on a calibrated screen? Looks fine to me on both my MacBook Pro/30" cinema display as well as on my PC and iPhone/iPad.

There is general softness in the image as it was a compromise between noise reduction and rendering the image completely painterly. It is by no means perfect as I had to crank the exposure in post which exacerbated the noise. I need an f/2.8 lens.

The image was white balanced using the grey in the cloud (the Moon still looked white before it got too low when it turns cream). As such, I can't see the oddness that you are. Can anyone else pipe in if they're seeing the same thing as Paul?



Trevor,

Many thanks!

I will be heading out there again soon. The sky there is just so beautiful.



Greg,

Thanks! Yep, composition is everything!



Thanks, all.

H

[Paul Haese]

H I am using a calibrated monitor. Looks the same on three other monitor I have too.

[Camknox]

I'm seeing a slight tinge of pink/red to the sky closest the tree. The clouds appear as blue/green (I suppose cyan would be the colour) in the lower areas to the right.

While I agree with Paul in that it doesn't look "right", how something looks to one person or another should in no way stop someone from appreciating good quality photography. Perhaps the "artist/photographer" intended the scene to have an "other-wordly" appearance.

[ourkind]

Beautiful Humayun well done!