Shooting the Stars With Little Noise Pollution

Last Thursday I stayed up way past my bedtime to photograph the stars over Lake Freeman. They were out in force, and it was a beautiful sight to look at. I grabbed my camera very quickly along with my tripod. I set up to make this picture, and I was very happy with how the first iteration looked. I decided to change the white balance in the camera to what I thought that it should be. The photo then looked much better. I usually just fix it in Lightroom as it is easy to tweak there. For some reason I decided to do it on site just to see what it would look like. That was a good thing because I did not have my CF card in the camera so all I was recording on was my SD card which shoots in large jpeg. That makes editing hard, and takes away some of the power of Lightroom. I was basically left with what I captured on the scene. I made some photos of the Milky Way that night with the expectation of bringing out more detail in Lightroom. Shooting a jpeg made sure that I could not really do what I wanted to do here. The moral of the story is to always check your camera before shooting. I was in a hurry, and I did not. It cost me a couple of pictures this time. This photo of the moon setting though was luckily saved. It is also shows you how good the 5D Mark III is that a jpeg file can be used from it.

Editing the Night Sky in Lightroom 5

Since this was a jpeg I really did not want to push it too far. I adjusted the highlights and vibrance slightly. I also brightened up the exposure a bit. That was really all that I felt comfortable doing to this photo. I really think that I was pretty close on the scene so I did not have to worry to much about post. This is one more reason to get it right in the camera. Sometimes when I make a photo I know that there is something that I will fix in post. Here I knew that I could get it there on the scene. A few extra minutes there helped me later on.

Macro Workshop

Today while at Camera Outfitters I saw that they are having a Macro Workshop on July 26th. They are having it at Bennett’s Greenhouse which should be a great spot for a workshop. I have something going on that day otherwise I would love to attend. A representative from Tamron will be there with some demo macro lenses that I would love to try out. You know how I like to try out new equipment. If you want to go you can jump on their Facebook page here or call them to reserve a spot at 765-449-4494.