dleach730

Pemaquid Lighthouse Night

Sep, 2019

Views

292

Likes

+23

Awards

Top Shot Award 21

Winner in night landscape Photo Challenge

Peer Award

Absolute Masterpiece

Magnificent Capture

Top Choice

Superb Composition

All Star

Emotions

Impressed

Top Ranks

Top 10 rank

Top 10 rank week 1

Behind The Lens

Location

I do photography as a hobby and especially like landscapes. This photo of the Milky Way was taken at Pemaquid Point Lighthouse in Bristol, Maine, USA during a trip.

Time

I like visiting lighthouses and was hoping to get a shot with the Milky Way but the weather didn't cooperate until the very last night. This was taken at 10:00 p.m. on August 25, 2019.

Lighting

To get the Milky Way, I needed the longest exposure I could do without getting any star trails so using the 500 rule I came up with 28 seconds. Unfortunately the lighthouse was brightly lit so I had to let some of the highlights blow out.

Equipment

I shot this photo with a Canon 6D II and Canon 17-40mm f/4L lens at 17mm on a tripod. My exposure settings were: 1) shutter speed of 28 secs, 2) f/4.0, and ISO 6400.

Inspiration

I have always been interested in astronomy, photography and lighthouses so this was an opportunity to combine them all.

Editing

There were a couple of edits I made to the original, raw photo. First, I had to correct the white balance and tone down the blown-out highlights as much as possible. Second, I found out after looking at the photo in Lightroom that there was a flare from the rotating light atop the lighthouse so I used the healing brush to remove it.

In my camera bag

Normally I use a Tamron 24-70mm f/2.8 as my "go to" lens but decided to try the wider Canon 17-40mm f/4L for this shot. The Tamron would have helped capture the stars better but the wider Canon let me get more of the Milky Way in the shot.

Feedback

The best advice I can offer is to scope out a location in the daytime. I use PhotoPills on my Android phone to estimate where and when I need to be to get the Milky Way aligned in the shot with the lighthouse. PhotoPills has a great Augmented Reality (AR) feature to help picture the shot and will also calculate the maximum shutter speed to avoid star trails, factoring in your camera and other settings.

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dleach730

dleach730

Pemaquid Lighthouse Night

Behind The Lens

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