First Attempt at Astrophotography! Critique me :P

[Sigurthr]

A REAL camera is something I've always wanted. I've only had crappy point and shoot cameras or cell phone cameras. I'm a good photographer I've been told, but I've never had a chance with real tools. I've yet to have a camera with manual focus on it, and not having that is one thing that frustrates me the most. I saved up for a 35?mm film camera when I was a teen only to have the only developing place in town shut down before I saved enough money.

Speaking of filters, I've always wanted to do IR and UV photography. Some of the notch pass and bandpass filters aren't that expensive. You used to use special film for them but now with digital I'm not sure how it works. I guess you need to know the response curve and range of your sensor.

 

[ChaosLord]

Very nice pics! I just got back from vacation at Patoka lake in Indiana, and it was the first time I was able to see the milky way. First time seeing satellites with the naked eye as well.

Your pics make me miss it. Nicely done.

 

[IsaacT]

Thanks man! I am looking at buying a nice 10-20mm Ultra Wide Angle lens. When I do I should be able to get pictures that encompass most of the visible milky way instead of just a portion.

I think now that my most recent laser build is done most of my future hobby funds will go into my photography hobby. Anybody wanna buy a lightsaber?

 

[IsaacT]

I got Lightroom and have been messing around with it after watching a bunch of youtube explanations of it. Here are some results. I think some of them may have been slightly heavy handed but I am really just trying to have fun and get better at using the software. i love how the last one turned out. I think getting that 10-20mm lens will help me get more sky in my picture which should in turn give me more highs and lows which will help me when I go into post so I have something to work with.

 

[busman2]

Did you darken the background?

 

[IsaacT]

Yeah I darkened the darks, brightened the brights, ran noise reduction a little bit, lowered the white balance to about 4K kelvin, added a touch of magenta tint to the white balance, and then tweaked the hues/saturations/luminescence of the color blue and purple to bring out the milky way and make the stars less bright. The ones in thale background I mean.

 

[KapHn8d]

Congrats on a great first outing!

There are light pollution filters available for AP, but the selection has a lot to do with what you are imaging through... had you gone with the Canon EOS body, Astonomik makes a CLS clip-in filter that goes inbetween the body and the standard camera lens that is pretty nifty. I don't know if there is an equivalent for your body, but you can Google it up.

Keep posting your images! I enjoy them for sure...

cheers,
Clayton

 

[starlight]

Nice photography. I browsed through the darkfinder site thinking I could find a dark spot close to home....only to learn I need to drive about 3hrs to find it. I'll be on the lookout for lightsabers in the FS section

 

[busman2]

Well done with the Lightroom Isaac. Makes a big difference! Just on a side note i do see a lot of 589nm in the signatures these days. Just Sayin!

 

[IsaacT]

Went out and shot some moon pictures a couple nights ago! It amazes me how much detail is able to be resolved even with just a simple 50 dollar telephoto lens. One interesting thing about moon photography is that it is a very fast thing. I get 50 shots in 5 minutes and then I have to ask myself why I drove an hour and 30 minutes. So I took some car taillight trails while I was out there to make it more worth the drive. That said the additional detail from cutting out light pollution helped a lot.

 

[xirrious]

An absolute beautiful start to. New hobby and a very good job Isaac! Can't rep you yet but I will

 

[KapHn8d]

Great moon pics too! Good job, bro.

/c