Where A Civilization Once Thrived... By Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This Is The Anasazi Or Ancient Puebloan

Hi Can you just prepare tutorial about how to edit milkyway? Also if possible can you share the camera and EXIF? All your milky way photos are amazing. Thanks in advance.

Hi, and thanks for looking at my page. I have already made a “blog” describing how I process the Milky Way and you can find it on my web site here;

http://lightcrafter.smugmug.com/About-Nightscapes

Just scroll down until you see “About Processing” and you are there!

Hope this helps,

Wayne

Table Top Hoodoos by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Well that's what I call them for lack of a better term. These are in the Bisti Badlands, and are mini hoodoos, only about 2-3 feet, or 65-100 cm high. There is at least one area with numerous small table top hoodoos. Here you can see more of them receding into the background. I'm always afraid I'll stumble in the dark and knock a top off. lol Fortunately that has not happened! The area was the floor of a vast inland sea millions of years ago, and many layers of sediment were formed, eventually compacted into sandstone, some layers harder and some layers softer. The unusual shape is caused by greater erosion of the softer lower layer, and slower erosion of the harder upper layer. Shooting in this direction the sky is wonderfully dark with minimal light pollution. More to the W &NW there is more light pollution. Shot at 14 mm, f 2.8, 30 sec., ISO 6400. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family out there. Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Hoodoos and Bones by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Oh, if the land could only speak, what a tale it could tell... For tours to this area contact Kialo Winters at Navajo Tours USA. Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Questions and Answers

Star Trails

People have asked me a number of questions about equipment, issues, and technique in Nightscape or Landscape Astrophotography. Since many of these questions are recurring, I am going to post the questions and answers here. I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability!

Q: Why don’t I see star trails in your 30 second exposure? Did you use a tracking device? I get star trails with my 24 mm lens at 30 seconds. 

A: There is no tracking device. If I was using a 24 mm lens or so, I would get star trails at 30 sec., but this was done with a 15 mm fisheye lens (I have corrected for distortion), and the wide Field of View makes the star trails so small that they are not visible unless you mag it up a lot. There is a simple guideline to avoid overly large star trails. Divide 500 by the focal length of the lens. So a 24 mm lens would be 500/24 = 20.8 seconds. You want to keep your exposures for a 24 mm lens under 20 sec, and for a 15 mm lens under 33 seconds. Most people call this the “Rule of 500″. If you are going to blow up the photo really large, then you could use 400 instead of 500.

Questions and Answers:

How to stitch photos together for panoramas

Question: Incredible work man! How did you stitch the 14mm shots so seamlessly?! The distortion on my Rokinon 14 makes stitching a huge issue in post.

Answer: Use a lot of overlap when taking the photos! I open the images in either Lightroom or Adobe RAW and use the lens correction function to undistort then as much as possible. If there is not a lens profile for your lens then do it manually and do it exactly the same for each photo. Also, there is less distortions if the camera lens is more horizontal. I get it as horizontal as I can and still get all the sky comfortably in the photo. I use a really wide angle lens. This means there may be a lot of "extra" foreground at the bottom, and I just crop it off. Hope this helps. Cheers, Wayne

Totem Pole Panorama by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Panorama of the Totem Pole in Monument Valley, Utah. 11 images, 24 mm vertically, f 2.8, 15 sec., ISO 12,800. Thanks for all the kind support over the last year, it is much appreciated! A big thank you to the wonderful Flickr family!

Great Barrier Island, NZ by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Website, Instagram, Facebook Beach Panorama on The Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. 14-24 mm lens, 15 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec., ISO 12,800, 14 vertical images. ________________________________________________ The 2 brighter dots beneath the middle Milky Way arch (one brighter than the other) are the Greater and Lesser Magellanic Clouds. They are dwarf galaxies that orbit the Milky Way Galaxy. We do not see them from the Northern Hemisphere so I’m pretty excited to capture them. 😀

In the Valley of Dreams by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: Valley of Dreams landscape at night, New Mexico Badlands, New Mexico, USA. This is a single exposure. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! . Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog

Joshua Tree and Milky Way Panorama by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This is a panorama of Joshua Tree National Park at Night, in an attempt to capture to feel of the park at night. This is a panorama of combined vertical images, taken with a Canon 1Dx camera, and a Nikon 14-24 mm lens at 14 mm, f 2.8, 20 sec. exposures and ISO 6400. there are 2 small lights hidden among the rocks and a larger light approx. 40 - 50 meters to my right. There a a considerable amount of light pollution around Joshua Tree. This creates aa background ambient light so the park does not seem "pitch black", and actually helps to light the foreground somewhat. This ambient light is a very "flat" light however, and does not create a very pleasing look. The added lights create shadows and create some depth to the photo. Thanks for looking. All comments are appreciated. Hope you enjoy! 

Stillness Reigns Over The Alabama Hills by Wayne Pinkston Via Flickr: This was taken in the Alabama Hills in eastern California, near Mt Whitney. For those who have not been there, it is a wonderful place for night photography, or any landscape photography for that matter. There are numerous large rock collections separated by largely flat ground, making it easy to get around. This panorama was made from multiple vertical images shot at 14 mm, f/2.8, 20 sec., and ISO 10,000. Processed in Lightroom and Photoshop. My daughter served as my photo assistant this summer, and that is her standing on the rock.A big thank you to Eric Gail (www.flickr.com/photos/dot21studios/) for finding this spot. Thanks for taking the time to look. Hope you enjoy! Big thanks to the wonderful Flickr family for all the support and encouragement! Please join me at: Website Facebook Instagram Blog