Church of the Good Shepherd

[AstroJason (Jason)]

In April I was lucky enough to go on a 10 day trip to New Zealand's south island. We had fantastic weather during the trip and this was one photo I was hoping to be able to get during our two night stay at Lake Tekapo.

This is a 6 shot, vertical panorama. Probably my favourite shot of our entire trip.

The Milky Way rising over the Church of the Good Shepherd in Lake Tekapo, New Zealand.

You may also notice in the image that I was fortunate enough to capture the close conjunction between Mars, Saturn and Antares.

Higher res image can be seen here on my Flickr page.

[FlashDrive (Poppy)]

I like it ...

[gregbradley]

Very nice Jason.

Greg.

[AstroJason (Jason)]

Cheers guys, glad you like it

[Edison]

Very nice! Congrats Jason.
Regards,
Edison

[alan meehan (Alan)]

A very heavenly shot Jason well done

Alan

[RB (Andrew)]

Beautiful location, lovely composition.
Well done Jason.

I love that lens, a great performer.

RB

[Camelopardalis (Dunk)]

Just beautiful Jason, well done

[AstroJason (Jason)]

Cheers guys, wish I got more time there to also do a bit of time lapse work.

The place is constantly busy with tourists which is a shame but you can see why. Because of that I decided to head down to get this shot at 3am... BUT there were still approx 30 people buzzing around the church even at that time. So it was still a challenge to get a 30 second exposure of it with no one flashing lights on the church or walking through the frame.

Yeah Andrew, the lens is a great one for astro work, it performs best when stopped down though. But I find it difficult to bring myself to not grab as much light in as little time as possible so I generally shoot at f/2.8 with it anyway.

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by AstroJason

Yeah Andrew, the lens is a great one for astro work, it performs best when stopped down though. But I find it difficult to bring myself to not grab as much light in as little time as possible so I generally shoot at f/2.8 with it anyway.

I know exactly what you mean, I had to force myself, last week, to use it at f/4 for my Emu shot.

[AstroJason (Jason)]

haha it is a tough to stop down but well done for having the self control to do it

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by AstroJason

haha it is a tough to stop down but well done for having the self control to do it

Yeah, its like - "I've tried stopping it down once, that's enough, I mean, isn't f/2.8 the reason I bought this lens ?.... "

[AstroJason (Jason)]

That is the exact same argument I have in my mind every single time I use that lens! haha

[multiweb (Marc)]

Very cool comp. Looks like a chimney fire.

[AstroJason (Jason)]

That's an interesting thought on the shot, didn't think of it like that. Cheers Marc