Woolshed Milky Way & Emu

[Phoenix (Steve)]

Hi Folks

On a trip to the Flinders Ranges in October last year, I snuck away one eveneing and set up my camera in front of the Oraparinna woolshed. Using a small LED lantern to illuminate the woolshed, I grabbed a series of 30 sec exposures with the canon 40D and 14mm lens. Wasn't my intention to make a panoramic but managed to stitch a few of the photo's together having found them on my camera a few days ago - my first go at this (as you can tell by the obvious stitching of the woolshed) and not sure of my processing.

Note our camping site on the far right in the Milky Way pano shot.

Thanks to Greg Gibbs, Mike Salway and Phil Hart for the excellent information on their web pages.

Cheers
Steve

[CapturingTheNight (Greg)]

Very nice shots Steve Looks like a great location. I hope I can make it over that way one day soon. As you said there are a few obvious stitching errors therebut otherwise processing looks pretty good to me. Perhaps a tad too blue, but as you are probably aware I do like to do my images with a slightly bluer WB than most. I'm glad you found some useful information on my site. Keep up the great work.

[gregbradley]

Great composition and framing. A bit too blue though. The sky is more a neutral grey/green. Sometimes its a bit greenish with airglow. But otherwise a neutral grey and Milky Way core is yellowish as you show.

Having said that I love Greg's bluish effect he gets in his MW shots. Its part of his style and appeal and perhaps part of the characteristics of the Cannon 5D2.

Greg.

[Phoenix (Steve)]

Originally Posted by CapturingTheNight

Very nice shots Steve Looks like a great location. I hope I can make it over that way one day soon. As you said there are a few obvious stitching errors therebut otherwise processing looks pretty good to me. Perhaps a tad too blue, but as you are probably aware I do like to do my images with a slightly bluer WB than most. I'm glad you found some useful information on my site. Keep up the great work.

Thanks Greg. Yep, stiching is obvious because i only used 4 photos in landscape rather than say 10 in portrait. I was in the flinders for work so i wasn't thinking beyond taking some shots to test out my newly acquired lens. My canon 40d is modded so I am still learning how to balance the colours and backing the red off in photoshop just kept turning it green - not that i touched the saturation but perhaps i should have reduced this. Thanks again for your comments.

[Phoenix (Steve)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

Great composition and framing. A bit too blue though. The sky is more a neutral grey/green. Sometimes its a bit greenish with airglow. But otherwise a neutral grey and Milky Way core is yellowish as you show.

Having said that I love Greg's bluish effect he gets in his MW shots. Its part of his style and appeal and perhaps part of the characteristics of the Cannon 5D2.

Greg.

Thanks Greg for your comments. Yes I think I pushed the processing a bit far. I actually found it difficult to get a more natural colour look with the modded camera. Hopefully it will come a little easier with practice. Cheers Steve

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Thanks Greg for your comments. Yes I think I pushed the processing a bit far. I actually found it difficult to get a more natural colour look with the modded camera. Hopefully it will come a little easier with practice. Cheers Steve

You may need to shoot a custom white balance for your camera with an 18% photographic grey card at midday on a sunny day. Set the image as a custom white balance and now a lot of the red bias is gone.

I have modified a Sony Nex 6 so I will find out myself how this goes.
Usually its a severe red bias.

Greg.

[Phoenix (Steve)]

Originally Posted by gregbradley

You may need to shoot a custom white balance for your camera with an 18% photographic grey card at midday on a sunny day. Set the image as a custom white balance and now a lot of the red bias is gone.

I have modified a Sony Nex 6 so I will find out myself how this goes.
Usually its a severe red bias.

Greg.

Thanks Greg for advice. I assume this wouldn't effect the modded camera's sensitivity to the Ha. Just shifting and compressing the colour display levels rather than using an Original White Balance (OWB) filter - which i have but didn't want to use in order to capture more Ha wavelengths.

Cheers
Steve

[dutch2 (Ingrid)]

Lovely set of images. Great job, well done.

[gregbradley]

Originally Posted by Phoenix

Thanks Greg for advice. I assume this wouldn't effect the modded camera's sensitivity to the Ha. Just shifting and compressing the colour display levels rather than using an Original White Balance (OWB) filter - which i have but didn't want to use in order to capture more Ha wavelengths.

Cheers
Steve

I am not familiar with an OWB filter. I am familiar with a Xnite CC1 filter which is commonly used to restore "regular" colour.

Does it affect Ha sensitivity? Not a custom white balance - no, that's a firmware adjustment not a hardware adjustment. But a filter that might. The camera UV/IR block filters are pretty harsh because mods often replace them with a Baader or Astrodon UV/IR block filter.

I have a modded Nex 6 I have to get to first light soon. I should do that. Your image is inspiring me to get off my butt and finish that project.

Greg.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

Gee they are nice photos...

Col....

[Phoenix (Steve)]

Thanks again Greg for the info - much appreciated.

Thanks Col and Ingrid.

Cheers
Steve