Milky Way at Sand Beach
I was on a night sky workshop in Bar Harbor Maine.. Taken at Sand Beach in Bar Harbor
I was on a night sky workshop in Bar Harbor Maine.. Taken at Sand Beach in Bar Harbor
Read less
Read less
Jun, 2016Views
242
Likes
Awards
Action Award
Zenith Award
Creative Winter Award
Curator's Selection
Legendary Award
Member Selection Award
Absolute Masterpiece
Top Choice
Outstanding Creativity
Superb Composition
Peer Award
Magnificent Capture
All Star
Top Ranks
Top 10 rank
Top 20 rankTop 20 rank week 1
Top 20 rank
Top 30 rank
Categories
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Discover more photos See all
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken at Acadia National Park in Bar Harbor, Maine. This is a two-picture panoramic. I had signed up for a Night Sky photography workshop with a well known photographer by the name of Mike TaylorTime
This was taken about 11:00 at night during the new moon phase so as not to have any light pollution.Lighting
I had taken my Genaray 250 Bi-LED light panel with battery pack. I set it up behind me about 100ft to my right, put on the diffuser, dimmed it low so when the 25sec shutter was open it would pull the detail and color out of the rocks and trees. You can see my legs and tripod in the lower left side of the picture.Equipment
I used a Canon 6D, 16-35mm f/2.8 lens, off camera trigger (forgot my intervalometer), Manfrotto Tripod, and home made lens heater to avoid dew on the lens, and a Genaray 250 Bi-LED light panel with battery.Inspiration
I was always interested in photographing the Milky Way and had gone with my Meetup group to York Beach, Maine to photograph the Milky Way and Nubble Lighthouse. I was using my Canon 7D and a Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 lens at the time... I didn't have a lot of instruction at the time and had only asked about what camera settings to use, but forget to ask the more pertinent information such as focusing, so most of my pictures were blurry, out of focus, set on auto focus, so most of the pictures were done with a little light pollution so my lens can focus on something. Then when I downloaded the images onto the computer the processing did not come out to well. I had used Youtube and some instructional videos on how to bring out the Milky Way in the images but they were really not coming out like I wanted, so I gave up on night skies. After about a year one of the people I went to Maine with had mentioned a photographer he took a workshop with for night skies and astrophotography. I had since added a few pieces of equipment to my arsenal, the Canon 6D and the Canon 16-35mm wide angle lens. I went to Mike Taylor's photography website and was in awe of his photographs. They were so surreal, something I wanted in my photographs. I was having personal problems at the timed I needed to get away to think about my future, so I saved up my money and signed up for a June workshop in Acadia National Park, three nights and four days of photographs and intense post process learning, and I was forever changed.Editing
The post processing consists of Lightroom and Photoshop. After importing them into Lightroom I set the lens profile in Lens Correction, and in Basic panel I brought up the highlights and brought down the whites then bring it into Photoshop to do the finer details.. in no particular order I used a high pass layer for sharpness, darkened some bright areas, brightened the wave up, used an orton effect for the galactic core, and odds and ends of the transform tool to straighten out the lens distortion.In my camera bag
I am a Canon guy through and through since I was younger so I have mostly Canon everything unless otherwise noted. I have a Canon 6D and a 7D, 70-200mm with 1.4x and 2.0x extenders, 18-135mm, 50mm, 18-55 kit, 70-300 kit, Rokinon 24mm f/1.4, Sigma 18-250 macrons various lensbaby lenses, two 580EX II flashes all carried in a Think Tank Pro Airport Accelerator backpack.Feedback
Photography is a hobby for me right now but I plan on making it a business in the future because I love it. It is a passion for me. I also do sports photography for our local school kids lacrosse league, but astrophotography is my favorite past time. If I didn't find Mike Taylor and his patience to help us I would have long given up. Mike took the time with each of us, in the field and in the classroom, and helped us understand why these settings worked and to experiment with a different variety of techniques on our own and see what we come up with. My advice? Don't give up... because you may miss out.
