A weekend of good pics

[rogerg]

Last weekend I had a great time out at an old favorite spot getting lots of nice wide fields. Hiked to the top of the hill with my gear to get one of the shots and enjoy having the Milky Way going horizon to horizon. Was a great relaxing trip.

Here's some pics from the trip:

http://www.rogergroom.com/items/kokerbin_rock_astrophotography_Augu st2010

Enjoy :)

[strongmanmike]

Sounds like it was a great adventure Roger, nice shots too :thumbsup:

Mike

[TheAstroGuy]

Rog,

All beautiful shots i like all of them, lovely depth and the Crux shot is wonderful.
I am super jealous i couldn't make it out Kokerbin with you guys and the gig was so not worth giving up a trip out there in the end. I am looking forward to catching up next time, especially doing some visuals with daves' 15 OB.

Kind Regards


Shane

[luigi]

Really fantastic shots Roger, I specially like the colors on your photos, I think the colors are very real and at the same time very artistic. In other words they are really nice to the eyes without becoming strange.
The silhouettes are a great foreground element to frame the beautiful milky way.
Hard to say which one I like the most, Crux is fantastic but all the MW shots together win!

[rogerg]

Thanks Luigi, much appreciated. I'm really happy to read your comments as I spent most of last week tweaking processing to try and make the wide field images have the feel of what it was like there. For the milky way shots I ended up toning them down a bit, and optimising them for how I felt they should look rather than bringing out the most celestial detail.



Hey Shane... it is a shame you couldn't come, it was a great trip. I really enjoyed camping there again. I'm going to see if I can fit in a trip in September but it's tricky, probably will have to skip it :( I'll keep you informed.



Thanks Mike :)

[Paul Haese]

I like the second exposure the most out of all of them. Lovely work.

[jase]

Wow, this is lovely work Roger. The foreground objects really set the scene. Would like to see a little more saturation, but that's a personal taste. More please! Well done.

[leon]

Very very nice images Roger I really love the wide field stuff, the foreground really sets then off

Leon

[midnight]

Roger,

I love the wide field stuff. My fav is the second one.

How do you find your F1.4 50mm lense? I've had mine for about 6mths and I love it - esp for the quality at its price. I find stopping down to F4.0 to be magic but even F2.8 will tame it fairly well. Great lense for constellation photography.

Well done.

Darrin...

[rogerg]

Thanks :) I enjoy hearing which is people's favorite, thanks :)



Thanks Jase, much appreciated :) I was toying with the saturation for some time. I won't rule out tweaking them some more and adding more :) I was really struggling with getting that sense of realism rather than "you beaut big bold colourful astro pic", so have been a bit softer on things like saturation I think.



Thanks Leon :)



I really like the 50mm, but don't find much use for it to be honest. Value for money it's a nice to use lens. I'd love to use it for more portrait stuff but haven't built up the guts to take photo's of many people yet. At fast focal ratios it requires such precise focus that can be a challenge sometimes for me too. I don't wear glasses but sometimes with lenses like this one I think maybe I should. I'm surprised how little I've used it for astro shots so far, this trip really was only the second or so night I think I've tried it. It's high on my list for next time, like you suggest for constellations. The F/1.4 made it such a joy to focus and frame the FOV's with, it was great to use. Just then have to stop it down a bit for the actual pics :)

Thanks for your reply and good to hear your favorite.

[bartman]

Love the pics Roger.....
and guess what .... I can get the full size pics on these!
Tried the Kings park ones again but nutink again....
Bartman

[SkyViking]

Beautiful images Roger, very nice compositions. The silhouettes really make them stand out! The one with the Magellanic Clouds is awesome. Thanks for sharing.

[rogerg]

:lol:

great that you can see this one ... who knows what's going on with the others :)



Thanks :) again, good to hear people's favorites :)

[marco]

They all are very inspirational shots Roger, I really enjoy all of them!!

Clear Skies
Marco