Images from the beach

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Each year Philip Island hosts their Annual Whale Festival. It's a good excuse to get out of the house for a weekend of cetacean-based learning, fresh air and the opportunity to get some astro images.

Some of the Festival's lectures are very interesting - this year it was a pair of lectures on whale evolution and one on the (sadly now extinct) Giant Killer Sperm Whales. If you can get along to it, I recommend it.

I was lucky this year - the night was clear with only a gentle breeze. It was pretty cold, though, and I didn't stay out too late.

Image data:
* ISO: Either 1600 or 3200, depending on the subject
* Temperature: Cold
* Exposure: 20, 25 or 30 seconds depending on the subject

Equipment:
* Samyang 14mm f2.8 (stopped down to f3.5), Nikon D7100

The Samyang has some interesting distortion effects in the corners. This is inherent to all wide-angle lenses, and whilst it can be reduced with clever image processing (thankfully built into Affinity Photo) it's still there if you go pixel-peeping.

Aside from the star trails, these are all single images processed with Affinity Photo. The star trails are made from 50 frames, each of 30 seconds.

Comments, constructive criticism and feedback are welcome; as always.

Cheers,
V.

Edit: Replace images with ones without all the EXIF data.

[Leo.G (Leo)]

Lovely images Steve!
I would think it's too windy at Philip Island to take photos?
I've only been there 3 times, 85, 89 and 90. First two Moto GP's (89&90) and the 85 trip was a 100th anniversary of motorcycling in Australia rally. All 3 times the place was cold, wet and extremely windy. Though I did take a camera for race day but don't remember travelling beyond the camp site, the bike was bogged to the axles, I wasn't going anywhere.

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Thanks Leo!

It certainly can be cold and windy down there, for sure. There are sheltered places you can go and be away from the wind - you just have to know where they are.

I wasn't interested in bikes when the first GPs were down there, but I was there for most of the World Supers (and a couple of MotoGP races) between about '95 and '05.

[astronobob (Bob)]

Nice bunch of images Steve, bit of everything including the Classic star-Trails which do appear cleaner because of the stacking, <-- hint

Yeah the 14mm is crazy wide hey, and be even wider and more distortion on a full frame chip..
I do see a bit of Green Yellow tinge in your single exposures which could be due to White-Balance setting,, might be worth experimenting with, maybe try (White Fluorescent) 4,000K <-- Kelvin should produces a more light blue tinge which may seem more natural..
Actually I just checked out (Affinity Photo) and it appears you have a White balance option in there,, could be worth experimenting with this too,,,

Nice show

[Leo.G (Leo)]

I run the same lens on my Nikon D810 full frame and haven't noticed distortion to any major degree. Being half blind probably helps me enjoy my images more. Though if I'm using it it's usually the Milky Way and I'm stacking and stitching groups so maybe distortion on edges are overwritten with more central frames of the same area. I have no way of confirming this, see comment about half blind (not blind as such just lousy eyesight).

[AstroViking (Steve)]

Thanks Bob.

Yeah, I did see bit of yellow/green in there but ignored it as I was trying to get the yellow/orange colours in the core.

I can't recall what the White Balance was set to - most likely is was on 'Daylight' mode as I've been told that gives the best results. I will try to remember setting it to 4000K when I'm out there again.

Cheers,
V.