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davidcochlin
September 14, 2018
It seems like a magical rainbow and it just draws me in.....thank you, I really like this picture
Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
The photo was taken in the fields near the village of Lesichovo, Bulgaria.Time
Doing Milky way panoramas is all about weather and conditions. On 12th of June all lined up perfectly. I remember calling a friend of mine who I hadn't seen for some time and throwing him the offer some 1-2 hours before the scheduled departure time. He was very responsive as usual and agreed to come with me on this trip. We took off at 10pm and reached our destination 1.5 hours later. The first image of this panorama was taken at midnight and the last was taken 35 minutes later.Lighting
The lightning was done with a Godox flashlight with the kit diffuser on top of it. I went extra lazy and made him manually trigger the flash rather than sync it :)Equipment
The photo was taken with a Nikon D750 and a Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art lens with a manual Benro panoramic system. The sturdiness was provided by the MeFOTO Globetrotter Carbon tripod.Inspiration
As mentioned above conditions were unclear pretty much until the last possible minute. This location is one of my favorite as I love big lonely trees. In addition this place holds a special place in my mind as it is one of the first places where I shot the Milky Way couple of years ago. Unfortunately when I arrived I found one of the three big branches of the old tree broken (perhaps by a storm). At first I was a bit disappointed but after a while I remembered that the imperfections are those that made us unique.Editing
Night photography always requires a lot of post processing in order to bring the best out of your raw files. What I usually do is process the files first through ACR, export in .tiff, stitch in PTGui, export as .tiff again for final touches in Photoshop. I do mostly color corrections, local adjustments to Milky way in order to enhance details. Preserving the color of the night sky (stars, nebulosity, etc.) is one of my main goals but shooting in high ISO makes that task challenging.In my camera bag
I don't have that much of equipment, so for the time being I don't make complex switch between gear when I get ready for shooting. I have my trusty Nikon D750. The Tamron 15-30mm f/2.8, Samyang 24mm f/1.4 and Sigma 50mm f/1.4 give me all the tools I need for a good astro shot. I recently bought the Skywatcher Star Adventurer and it has quickly become a must have in my line up of photography equipment. If I have to pick only one of the above lenses it will surely be the Sigma. I simply adore it, though it takes more time and effort.Feedback
Just go out and try it guys. There are shooting techniques for both people with entry level gear and for the ones with the big sensors. There are tons of free video tutorials about post processing night photography images on the web. Just find a dark spot on the map, go there and become one with the nature around you under one of the most spectacular sights this world gets to see for free - the starry night.