Night with a dutchman

Gallery: LandscapePosted November 2, 2011412 views9 comments

This was a shot I had been thinking of for a while to capture and made the trip up to the area early this year to hopefully get my shot. These are the superstition mountains, at least a small portion of them. This is the promenant view most people see when hiking up close to the mountain. I wanted to get on location before sunset and get set up. After watching an incredible sunset, I waited for the sun to disappear and the stars to come out. My main goal was to light paint this entire mountain. Yes, you read that right, ENTIRE mountain. The light painting might have worked out well if I had planned this shot about a week and a half earlier. A very bright moon began to rise directly behind the mountain and as it got darker the mountain seemed to become brighter. Believe it or not, this is all natural light (beside the distant light pollution of phoenix). When I took a look at the LCD screen I almost couldn't believe my eyes. The colors were extraordinary and the landscape was perfect for these conditions. This is one of many three minute exposures I took with hopes of blending multiple frames to achieve longer star trails. However frequent cloud cover made blending all the frames a nightmare so I settled on a few with interesting colors and cloud cover. I'd appreciate any feedback on this as I would love to get better at these types of shots. I find the night sky so fascinating especially when viewed above a historic landscape.

Canon 7d
Canon 17-40mm @17mm
f/4
ISO 100
180 sec exposure
wireless remote
tripod mounted

Comments

9 comments

Comment posted by Aaron Feinberg on November 2, 2011 at 8:51 PM

Pretty cool effect. Wonder if the light is from PHX or maybe just moonlight being reflected down. Either way you could drastically cool the wb for a much diff (and real) effect I think. Very martian as is :)

aF

Registered on October 26, 2009, 399 Posts, 2789 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on November 2, 2011 at 9:01 PM

Thanks! It's more of a mixture of the city lights, moon, and last of the twilight. I should have mentioned this was about an hour after the sun was below the horizon and the moon rise actually took place at sunset. I do have some frames where I did cool down the wb, but the tones were quite warm to begin with and using a cooler wb actually made it appear slightly unnatural being that the mountain is naturally a bronze color. From where I was there is a perfect view of the entire city and as wild as this place feels the frequent burst of new developments adds even more light pollution and less of a feel of getting away from the busy city life. I'll see if I can get a shot with a cooler wb to show the difference.

Registered on October 31, 2011, 170 Posts, 1240 Comments

Comment posted by Vincent Grafhorst on November 3, 2011 at 12:17 AM

This is a very cool otherworldly image you created Peter! The color may not be 'realistic', but I like it. I would reduce the (sharpening) halo around the mountain's edge.

Registered on February 24, 2006, 504 Posts, 7203 Comments

Comment posted by Aaron Feinberg on November 3, 2011 at 2:46 PM

Being that close would definitely have an effect especially over the long exposure. It's amazing how much light the cameras can capture. Good vision and stick with it :)

Registered on October 26, 2009, 399 Posts, 2789 Comments

Comment posted by Wick Smith on November 3, 2011 at 3:14 PM

Peter,
This is a great shot. I agree with the need to cool it down a bit, but that's a matter of taste. If you get this opportunity again, try taking another series of photos at 17mm, F4, about 20-25 seconds exposure, and ISO 1250, 1600, & 2000. This potentially would give you a much cleaner looking sky with no star movement. You could blend that with one taken with the settings you used in this shot for all but the sky for another look. Or perhaps those settings could render one image with all working for you. It does bring quite a bit of noise into the equation, so that requires good software to combat it, but there are several solutions out there that can take care of it. Just another approach...

Registered on June 12, 2009, 91 Posts, 379 Comments

Comment posted by Tonia Graves on November 3, 2011 at 4:23 PM

Peter, I like this close-up view that you captured of this part of the superstitions. The white balance was already mentioned, so I go any further there. Other than that, nice comp and stars!

Registered on October 29, 2011, 92 Posts, 1035 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on November 3, 2011 at 9:30 PM

@Wick, thanks! I did do a few exposures at high ISO speeds to freeze the stars but was unhappy with the way the clouds looked as well as the noise. I do however plan on getting some shots using higher ISO speeds and get more dynamic and "wide" compositions. Here is a repost to show off a cooler wb particularly in the sky. I tried to keep the reds in the mountain itself and played with the levels in the sky to remove most of the orange. Hopefully got that sharpening halo fixed as well. Let me know what you think.

Registered on October 31, 2011, 170 Posts, 1240 Comments

Comment posted by Tony Kuyper on November 4, 2011 at 8:40 PM

I like both images. Sounds like you got lucky with the light. Light paint and ENTIRE mountain

The warmer version has a very sci-fi look to it, which I like.

Registered on November 1, 2003, 364 Posts, 22328 Comments

Comment posted by Peter Coskun on November 4, 2011 at 9:00 PM

@Tony...Thank you. Yeah the idea is quite insane at first thought, but this mountain would be a pretty good candidate to try it since it's easily accessible. I'm planning on waiting for there to be no moon and try to light it up with some stars above but much further back to have a nice foreground. I just have to figure out the lighting situation. The first version is definitely like something out of a sci-fi movie, but that's pretty normal with the red rocks of the southwest.

Registered on October 31, 2011, 170 Posts, 1240 Comments