Red at Night

[rogerg]

Hmm, tricky deciding on the levels/brightness for this and a bunch of others. Looks nice but is not quite giving the feel I'm after yet.

http://astrophotography.com.au/red-at-night/

This is a 4 frame panno, cropped down a bit (probably only ends up being 3 in reality).

Canon 6D @ 6400ISO
Canon 17-40 F/4 @ 17 f/14

Relatively little editing really, just the stitch and deciding on levels.

Regards,
Roger.

[iceman]

Lovely image Roger.

I'm finding a lot of your images from the 7D quite red, I feel there could be a bit more blue, but maybe that's just me.

[multiweb]

Ah!... that's a cool framing. Looks like a geyser coming out of a giant frog mouth. :)

[gregbradley]

Sensational image Roger. Great location and composition. I'm with Mike here though. The sky here is a bit too red/brown. In CCD work the sky is always a dark grey colour. I find white balance temperature is critical to the overall look of DSLR images. Try ISO4350 and see what that looks like. I find it perfect for my Fuji and Nikon cameras but its been a while since I used my Canon.

One difference with DSLRs is they pick up air glow and there seems to be a subtle amount in this image but not much as sky glow is usually green and sometimes a bit magenta.

Also the night sky colour can be controlled with an S curve plus a duplicate layer set to soft light in Photoshop to increase contrast.

Added to this is WA may have more red dust in the sky than where I normally image - that's something you would know. I have gotten red/brown skies when imaging after bushfires. But that's usually the bottom 1/3rd of sky.

Greg.

[rogerg]

Thanks mike :) All images in the last few months are 6D not 7D, so can't blame the camera any more ;)

I think there is an element of personal preference involved - The landscape is all red/yellows, the light pollution in the air is yellow ... I'm not sure it should be much more blue without being a false colour?

I'll play some more :)



:) You wait until you see my "Volcanic Milky Way" shot coming up :)



Hmm, but with CCD work one would typically balance the image so the background is intentionally quite neutral would they not? as opposed to matching a different environmental condition?



Yeap, there's a little green airglow in some of my shots from these nights but not much at all, not compared to my shots out in the wheatbelt a couple of months ago.



yeap.



Possibly.

My images have traditionally had a more yellow/red hue and I've put it down to wheatbelt dust. Here I'm not in the wheatbelt but arguably just as red-yellow a environment. However Colin Legg doesn't come up with the same colours as I do, so you could argue I am wrong.

Something I'm keen to do is represent it slightly biased more towards how it actually appears than how we might want it to look. I've never seen psychedelic green air glow or dark blue night sky [edit: never say never. I certainly see less red and more blue night sky's]. They might exist, but normally I see neutral or yellow-red wash over the sky from light pollution and dust :shrug:

I'll play some more and see what variants people like :)

[dutch2]

Love the shot, I'm with you about the colours.
I like it as is.:)

[rogerg]

Thanks, glad you like it, likely depends on your screen how red it looks :) Be interested to see what you think of variants I post when I have a chance to play with it.

[colinmlegg]

I see a lot of yellow and brown too Roger. Shooting with a bit of moon helps to neutralize it, and going with a lower colour temperature, low 4000s, helps. There's also a fair bit of colour variation throughout the night. The most common variation I see is yellow/red in the evening and green after midnight. Red seems to be more common further north in the Pilbara and Kimberly.

Yeah, Kalbari is awfully light polluted now. Better to go further up to Shark Bay for really dark skies.

[rogerg]

I hadn't connected the dots to realise that, but now you mention it I'm sure I have witnessed that myself. My shots with less red and more green from Kokerbin a couple of months ago were all post-midnight.

Typically I'm more of a "early nighter" astrophotographer, in that rarely these days photograph past midnight. I take the easy option of doing some astrophotography then having a normal sleep to be able to do things in the days not sleep deprived. I get the impression many of you are more all-nighter type's :)



It's a shame and not something I expected, having last been there 10 odd years ago.

[rogerg]

less red. :shrug: It's OK, but probably not the right balance. Think I'll move on with other shots applying the advice here as I go.

[gregbradley]

That's really nice Roger. One of your best.

The flash was a good idea. Was this a separate flash unit or in camera or on another camera?

Greg.

[rogerg]

Thanks Greg. I am not so overwhelmingly happy with my recent shots in general but it's a nice image none the less.

I have ended up with a raft of images from Kalbarri which are "nice" but I was having troubles with the compositions at the time, and it shows by the lack of a "wow" winner. I found working in the gorges required a different way of thinking to what I was used to in a standard country location.

Flash was off-camera, multiple locations. I've used the technique quite a bit, works well for illuminating nearby objects. You need to get the power correct in-situ though, I have found relying on increasing/decreasing the brightness in post-production just doesn't cut it.

[Camknox]

This is a really cool shot. Where did you manage to find a dark enough sky in Perth for this?

[rogerg]

Thanks Cameron.

It's taken at Kalbarri, not near Perth :)

[CapturingTheNight]

Gorgeous image Roger :thumbsup: There is some thing about the feel in this that just makes me want to pack up my gear and head to the desert. Got to love that red colour.

[rogerg]

Great to hear it invoked such a feeling, thanks Greg.

[Ross G]

Beautiful composition Roger.


Ross.