A few pics from Bestbrook

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

G'day

Been on holidays recently and was able to get a few nice pictures, here are some of the ones that worked out alright.

Camera was a Panasonic GX1 with a 20mm lens at f1.7, on a new tripod that I recently got for my 16th birthday.


The first four were 20 sec exposures at iso 1600, I processed the cattle yard shot a bit differently and I'm not sure which one looks best, what do you reckon?

The shot down at the creek with the reflections was a 15 sec exposure.

The Milky Way pano was made from two rows of 9 shots, I’m really happy with it just not sure which processing is best.

Any comments or tips appreciated.

Thanks for looking

Jo

[rogerg (Roger)]

nice collection of shots, looks like you had fun trying all sots of shots

Windmill, cattle yard and river reflections are my favourites. I prefer the more yellow of the cattle yard and panoramic.

Not sure I have much to offer in the way of tips, technically they look fine to me.

[adavis (Andrew)]

If I read that correctly and you are only 16, then you have done even better than you think.

There are some great shots there, with excellent locations and a good eye for framing.

keep it up!

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Nice shots Jo!

I like the second cattle ramp and the creek shot is very nice, well done

[gregbradley]

Some very nice shots there. I like the one with the tree, the creek and cattle station with the blacker sky. The creek shot even though no night sky is a very appealling photo.

Some of them have a magenta cast. Make sure you shoot in RAW and the white balance is a critical adjustment. I find on my Nikon and Fuji cameras setting the white balance to the temperature of 4350 Kelvin looks perfect. It may be slightly different with a different model of camera but its likely to be similar. Setting the white balance correctly is the next most important setting after aperture and exposure lengths.

In your processing software that came with the camera there may be colour defringing as there is a little bit of blue/purple star fringing from the lens. There are no stars that are magenta in colour. So that is something to keep in mind. F1.7 is probably great during the day for background blur but for stars it tends to show false colour around stars. You may need to try stopping down to F2.8 or simply correct in processing as above.

Greg.

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Originally Posted by rogerg

nice collection of shots, looks like you had fun trying all sots of shots

Windmill, cattle yard and river reflections are my favourites. I prefer the more yellow of the cattle yard and panoramic.

Not sure I have much to offer in the way of tips, technically they look fine to me.

Thanks Roger.

Originally Posted by adavis

If I read that correctly and you are only 16, then you have done even better than you think.

There are some great shots there, with excellent locations and a good eye for framing.

keep it up!

Thanks, yeah I'm 16.

Originally Posted by Rod771

Nice shots Jo!

I like the second cattle ramp and the creek shot is very nice, well done

Glad you liked em.

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Some very nice shots there. I like the one with the tree, the creek and cattle station with the blacker sky. The creek shot even though no night sky is a very appealling photo.

Some of them have a magenta cast. Make sure you shoot in RAW and the white balance is a critical adjustment. I find on my Nikon and Fuji cameras setting the white balance to the temperature of 4350 Kelvin looks perfect. It may be slightly different with a different model of camera but its likely to be similar. Setting the white balance correctly is the next most important setting after aperture and exposure lengths.

In your processing software that came with the camera there may be colour defringing as there is a little bit of blue/purple star fringing from the lens. There are no stars that are magenta in colour. So that is something to keep in mind. F1.7 is probably great during the day for background blur but for stars it tends to show false colour around stars. You may need to try stopping down to F2.8 or simply correct in processing as above.

Greg.

Thanks Greg, I took the photos in RAW with the white balance on day light, I have tried setting the colour temperature before but could never get it right, I'll try 4350 Kelvin and see how it goes.

The photos were processed in Aperture (I got a Mac) and I'll have a fiddle and see if I can fix the stars up.

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Congratulations Jo! Your photos look great and such a beautiful location!

The panorama is my favourite, perhaps the cooler version. But it's just a personal preferance

Now its just a matter of finding more interesting locations and playing around with the settings as Greg has mentioned. The great thing is that as you get better at editing your photos you can always go back and re-edit old ones and most times improve on your original results.

My tip: Don't delete any old photos, if you start running out of HD space just buy another one

[nebulosity. (Jo)]

Originally Posted by ourkind

Congratulations Jo! Your photos look great and such a beautiful location!

The panorama is my favourite, perhaps the cooler version. But it's just a personal preferance

Now its just a matter of finding more interesting locations and playing around with the settings as Greg has mentioned. The great thing is that as you get better at editing your photos you can always go back and re-edit old ones and most times improve on your original results.

My tip: Don't delete any old photos, if you start running out of HD space just buy another one

Thanks Carlos, I think my pictures are getting a bit better, viewing other people awesome images and getting great advice on your own is the way to improve I reckon, and you get both of that on ISS.

Cheers
Jo