The Windmill

[Sam,anthaBriscoe]

Hi, what length exposure did you need to use to get that level of star detail and the milky way? Thanks.

[davidc]

That was a 30 second exposure at 6400iso and 18mm, almost certainly f/3.5.
Though I'd intended to come back and discuss this a few weeks ago I've been unavoidably busy.

The image is a composite - as I've mentioned in the past there are a huge number of composites entered into exhibitions and they all do extremely well, but to me they look blatantly fake, overly photoshopped and definitely not to my tastes! Still, I reasoned there must be a huge amount of skill involved so I opted to try and do it myself.

I had this shot planned for the 365 and even tried it once but the light pollution in London is so utterly chronic it's an absolute washout. I even bought a rather expensive streetlight filter but it still didn't match what I had in mind.

This is formed from two photos, the first being a "normal" long exposure of the Shirley Windmill (prior to the dog knocking my tripod!). The milky way was taken 9000ft up the side of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the best astronomy site in the world. I'd only had my camera a month or two back then so I was still very very new and though I like the results I could definitely do much better now, both in terms of kit and technique.

Sadly, to get stars like this in the UK you'd be pretty much limited to a remote valley or two in Scotland, our land is blighted with horrific light pollution. You can get some reasonable results from Wales and occasionally luck out with the South Downs in the depths of winter but otherwise the UK is going to struggle to see skies like that.

Sorry again for delaying the "reveal", I wanted to get people's opinions before I explained it was a composite - I wanted to know what people thought of it before knowing it was a composite to avoid any bias. So far I'm really happy to report it has almost universally gone down very well and has been submitted to a number of exhibitions, fingers crossed it picks up an acceptance or two!

[davidc]

As an aside, I have done presentations on beginners astrophotography (i.e. what you can achieve without a telescope, just SLRs and lenses) for the people here at work - I'm not an expert by any means but there are definitely some basic tips I can share if anyone is interested. e.g.

A photo of Venus transiting the Sun in 2012 taken using just a 550d, my 55-250 kit lens and a special homemade filter


Venus Transit 2012 by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

The aforementioned filter

Homemade Solar Filter by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

The original Milky Way shot I used for the composite

Milky Way (partial) from Mauna Kea, Hawaii by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

Startrails from the same spot I took the Milky way - this is a 10 second exposure and the faint brighter left side of the image is due to something called zodiacal light.

Star Trails from Mauna Kea, Hawaii by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

The Moon, again using the kit lens (though cropped too much if I'm being picky, and it's better when it's a crescent in my opinion)

Moon by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

And finally, jupiter - this is far from the best I've done but the only one I've uploaded. You can easily photograph all four of Jupiter's biggest moons.

Jupiter & Moons - 71/365 by cedarsphoto, on Flickr

Let me know if you have any questions

[Mike Farley]

This is formed from two photos, the first being a "normal" long exposure of the Shirley Windmill (prior to the dog knocking my tripod!). The milky way was taken 9000ft up the side of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the best astronomy site in the world. I'd only had my camera a month or two back then so I was still very very new and though I like the results I could definitely do much better now, both in terms of kit and technique.

Sadly, to get stars like this in the UK you'd be pretty much limited to a remote valley or two in Scotland, our land is blighted with horrific light pollution. You can get some reasonable results from Wales and occasionally luck out with the South Downs in the depths of winter but otherwise the UK is going to struggle to see skies like that.

I had always known that this was a composite since the exposures required for the windmill and sky would have been so different. What I had not thought about was the two shots being in such diverse locations. I guess that I do not look up often enough at the skies in this country.

Sorry again for delaying the "reveal", I wanted to get people's opinions before I explained it was a composite - I wanted to know what people thought of it before knowing it was a composite to avoid any bias. So far I'm really happy to report it has almost universally gone down very well and has been submitted to a number of exhibitions, fingers crossed it picks up an acceptance or two!

Good luck. Let us know how you get on. You certainly impressed Rosemary Wilman the other night.

[davidc]

I had always known that this was a composite since the exposures required for the windmill and sky would have been so different. What I had not thought about was the two shots being in such diverse locations. I guess that I do not look up often enough at the skies in this country.

It is technically possible to get a shot similar to this without compositing - in fact I didn't know the windmill was illuminated before I went (or was so close to housing, I thought it was in a field!) so I took plenty of light painting equipment. The intention was to expose for the sky then paint the underexposed windmill. When I got there and saw the scene it ruined that idea but I fell back onto the plan of doing a full on composite. I'm already scouting for locations more suitable for light painting!

[davidb]

I've never thought of 3-D. I've looked left, right, forward and behind but NEVER up. And I want to try it. I'll probably have to find somewhere where there's no (or little) light; possibly Addington Hills.

But what kind of exposure would I need? David C's picture of the moon is a good starting point. I note that the maximum zoom that David could get was 250mm and he got some good results. I have a 100-400mm zoom with a 1.4 x extender - a maximum of 560mm. I'm hoping that will give some excellent results. A tripod is almost certainly a must!.

Any comments would be appreciated.

[Mike Farley]

I've never thought of 3-D. I've looked left, right, forward and behind but NEVER up. And I want to try it. I'll probably have to find somewhere where there's no (or little) light; possibly Addington Hills.

But what kind of exposure would I need? David C's picture of the moon is a good starting point. I note that the maximum zoom that David could get was 250mm and he got some good results. I have a 100-400mm zoom with a 1.4 x extender - a maximum of 560mm. I'm hoping that will give some excellent results. A tripod is almost certainly a must!.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Well, you could try this technique.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=85&p=353&hilit=kingston#p353

Incidentally, I would expect that you would experience significant light pollution even somewhere "dark" at night such as Addington Hills. The photograph I posted in the referenced post above shows an orange glow coming from Dorchester some seven or eight miles away. Not visible to the naked eye, but still captured by the sensor during a long exposure.

The moon, being reflected sunlight is actually very bright. The generally accepted exposure is 1/250 @f/8, ISO 100, but it is something with which you can easily experiment. Anything much slower than 1/250 and you begin to experience subject movement! It does tend to race across the sky as the earth rotates.

A tripod is almost certainly a must!

The moon maybe not, but stars yes if you want light trails.

[davidb]

Thanks for all the advice. I suppose the only way forward is to try it and see. I would hope to have a more vertical looking camera to get around the Croydon light show but just to get some decent pictures would be plus.

[Mike Farley]

David

I thought that you might like to see this shot I took a few years ago during a partial eclipse of the moon. This was taken just as it was starting to come out of eclipse and is the complete frame as captured - no cropping. The camera was Canon APS-C with a 300 mm lens and 1.4 extender, an effective focal length of 672 mm equivalent on full frame. The moon, while big, is a long way away and is relatively small in the frame. Shutter speed was 1.3 secs and I suspect there is some subject movement. There certainly seems to be some in the surrounding stars or planets, not being an astronomer I am not sure which. The camera was on a tripod and I was having to adjust it every few shots as the moon was continually moving out of frame.

[Mike Farley]

Crop of the previous shot. A couple of short star trails are visible.

The "observatory" was my back garden.