Celestial Cannon

Title

Celestial Cannon

Artist

Mike Berenson

Medium

Photograph

Description

For years, I've enjoyed finding landscape features that really compliment the night sky. And when I first saw Turret Arch, I knew it had some unique potential. A little research and some scouting told me it wasn't just a good idea, it was a great place to take workshop students too!

So with the Milky Way lined up behind Turret Arch (and a class there with me), I opened up for this long-exposure of the scene. Then I applied some light painting for students from the right side - all while my camera continued shooting. The exposure time was long enough to see some good star trails and good smooth image quality but short enough to show the Milky Way over the Turret.

This image was captured at Turret Arch in Arches National Park, Utah.

How I Got The Shot
In shooting this long-exposure, I felt like I had a little luck on my side. I usually pay more attention to the details but in this case, I was really paying more attention to my students and to light painting for their 30 second exposures. In this case, I was aiming for a 30 minute exposure on this image, but stopped it at 23 minutes - simply because it was good timing for a break in the training.

In terms of exposure settings, I could have lowered the ISO more but I found that ISO 800 gave me a good over-exposed image. In post-processing, I was able to bring back the signal with a curves adjustment - bringing out the colors I was hoping for. Beyond that, I brought out some of the textures with the Tonal Contrast filter in Nik's Color Efex Pro. And then since I didn't use any in-camera noise reduction, I used Photoshop's "Dust & Scratches" noise reduction to clean up most of my hot pixels.

Photo Gear
• Camera Body - Nikon D800 Digital SLR Camera
• Camera Lens - Bower 14mm f/2.8 Ultra Wide-Angle Lens with Focus Confirm Chip for Nikon
• Tripod Head - Acratech GV2 Ball Head / Gimbal Head with Lever Clamp & Acratech Large Leveling Base
• Tripod Legs - FEISOL Elite CT-3472 Rapid Tripod Legs
• Remote Trigger - Vello Shutterboss Version II Timer Remote Switch for Nikon with 10-Pin Connection

Exposure Settings - Single Exposure Image
• ISO:800
• Aperture: f/2.8
• Shutter Speed: 1396 seconds

Uploaded

January 28th, 2015

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