Road to the Galaxy
Ross Island Antarctica, just outside of McMurdo Station on the road heading to Scott Base. This is a focus stacked panorama. Two pans from the same spot one rig...
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Ross Island Antarctica, just outside of McMurdo Station on the road heading to Scott Base. This is a focus stacked panorama. Two pans from the same spot one right after the other. First pan focus point on a star second pan focus point on the hill. Original file as cropped here is 160mp which really help clean up the noise from the high iso. Hope you enjoy the image.
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Apr, 2017Views
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J-swanson
June 03, 2017
Thank you for taking the time to comment, great to hear you enjoy the image.
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
Ross Island Antarctica, home of US operated McMurdo Station and New Zealand's Scott Base. This is a main road connecting the two research stations and to the ice shelf transition.Time
This is a focus stacked panoramic, taken at 1am April 7th 2017. I use a free program Stellarium that one can put there gps coordinates into and it gives a sky view for time and date etc, very handy to know when the galactic core may align for an image.Lighting
Lighting on the hill comes from McMurdo stations lighting, Scott Base lighting can be spotted in the distance Gallactic core meeting landscape. Some light Aurora Australis going on as well. No added lighting by myself, just using what was there and avoiding some of what was there.Equipment
As this is a focus stacked panoramic I used a tripod with a ball head and no parallax bracket to avoid alignment issues. Camera was a Nikon D810, remote shutter and 35mm Sigma F1.4 lens. I believe I was using a remote battery for the camera as well, the Antarctic cold shortens battery life and in camera battery doesn't always make it with the long exposures for the landscape pans.Inspiration
I am pretty fascinated by astro-landscapes and this was taken at a time I had progressed to planning out a shoot for composure. I set out to do a focus stacked landscape, thought the leading lines of the utility stanchion and road toward galactic core would be cool, also did a few framed selfie shots. I wasn't sure if a person would work in final but turned out to be my favorite when completed.Editing
Yes as this is a focus stacked panoramic there is a good bit of post processing. I shot panned exposures of the sky manual focus point on a star, short exposures 8 seconds to avoid star trails , F1.4 ISO3200. Then not moving tripod location did a pan of the landscape focus point hillside, forget setting but closed aperture to roughly f5.6 and longer exposure time may have lowered ISO as well to clean up noise. Lightroom and Photoshop used to put it all together. I used LR as the pan photo merging and some editing. Then off to PS to align pans and mask to keep in focus portions.In my camera bag
For a shoot like this, tripod, ball head with no parallax bracket, camera, fast lens, remote shutter and a headlamp or flashlight to see pan degree markings to pan one exposure to the next with 1/3 frame over lap. I keep a list of pan degrees for focal length using. This I used a 35mm I have since changed to using a 50mm F1.4 for large astro-landscapes and a longer focal length for tighter field of view work. I now print images in large format and find the extra pixel count aids in cleaning up noise and making a good looking large print.Feedback
Get out and try. I started out amazed just capturing out of focus milky way cores and been hooked improving ever since.Dark skies is a must for astro-landscapes as light pollution will bleed out sky color. Some helpful starting points for sharp stars is 35mm exposures no longer than 8 seconds, 50mm I go longer than 6 seconds. That is to avoid star trailing I recommend playing with exposure time and finding what works for you, many rule of thumbs out there. I am still learning a ton in photography and is why I love it, never ending always challenging. Easy to get overwhelmed looking at it all, I know I felt and still feel overwhelmed in areas, baby steps is how I roll. I learn a single process, apply it then learn what I want improved and what process may improve what I am looking for. I am still learning and applying, is what keeps my interest in photography. I am not a pro but consider myself a very involved hobbyist. Thanks for looking at my work, any questions feel free to reach out and will do my best to answer/assist. Enjoy life and make the day, cheers.
