Antares Region First Go

[luigi]

Hi,

After a horrible start I'm reading more and re-trying.
Please give me all the feedback you can about this Antares-Region photo.
Is the noise ok? What about the color? Is it over or under processed? What would you change?



5DII, piggybacking
100mm F2.8 lens at F5.6
ISO1600
5x5' exposures

Stacked with DSS, Processed with PS.

[rcheshire (Rowland)]

Luis. I'm envious of those stars - nicely pointed - those dust trails and the bluish tones are a delight to the eye. It's a spectacular piece of sky. It's a very nice shot indeed. I'll let the experts give advice, I could do with some myself.

Cheers

Rowland.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Its a very nice shot Luis. I'd focus ( which is pretty good by the way) on the the framing of your shot. Rotating the camera and placing Antares more to the left and lower (in your existing shot left and up if rotating) would help with the compositional balance.

A simple rule to remember with astro imaging, the wider your aperture (faster f ratio) the more stars you will capture, but if going wide open watch for aberrations in the corner.

Frankly I think you have the colour balance pretty good. It does look like it could us a bit of contrast adjustment using some curves possibly.

There are a number of ways to adjust your colour balance. To start with try adjusting the saturation in hue and saturation. While not the most effective method, its still the easiest.

It looks pretty smooth for noise but hard to tell at that reduction size. maybe post a crop of the full size image and include sections of bright and faint nebula and sky background. As for changing, possibly a bit more work with curves, particularly using micro-contrast adjustments.

While there will may be some disagreement with this approach but I'm a big believer in if you are just starting out learn how to use Levels and Curves as layers along with a bit of Unsharp Masking filters and the Edit>fade option. (acts like a layer opacity option but when using image adjustments from the main menus)

Good luck and a great start.

[luigi]

Originally Posted by rcheshire

Luis. I'm envious of those stars - nicely pointed - those dust trails and the bluish tones are a delight to the eye. It's a spectacular piece of sky. It's a very nice shot indeed. I'll let the experts give advice, I could do with some myself.

Cheers

Rowland.

Thank you Rowland!

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Its a very nice shot Luis. I'd focus ( which is pretty good by the way) on the the framing of your shot. Rotating the camera and placing Antares more to the left and lower (in your existing shot left and up if rotating) would help with the compositional balance.

A simple rule to remember with astro imaging, the wider your aperture (faster f ratio) the more stars you will capture, but if going wide open watch for aberrations in the corner.

Frankly I think you have the colour balance pretty good. It does look like it could us a bit of contrast adjustment using some curves possibly.

There are a number of ways to adjust your colour balance. To start with try adjusting the saturation in hue and saturation. While not the most effective method, its still the easiest.

It looks pretty smooth for noise but hard to tell at that reduction size. maybe post a crop of the full size image and include sections of bright and faint nebula and sky background. As for changing, possibly a bit more work with curves, particularly using micro-contrast adjustments.

While there will may be some disagreement with this approach but I'm a big believer in if you are just starting out learn how to use Levels and Curves as layers along with a bit of Unsharp Masking filters and the Edit>fade option. (acts like a layer opacity option but when using image adjustments from the main menus)

Good luck and a great start.

Thank you for the detailed feedback!
I totally agree about the composition, the telescope was centered on Antares and I couldn't move the camera. I will see if I can do it better next time!
I will try to add a little contrast I was trying to be careful about not clipping the blacks to avoid losing information, I know how badly I can overprocess a shot so I need help to know when to stop.
Thank you again, Much appreciated!