Was a tough decision for the title, also thought of going for Astronomy Domine and Interstellar Overdrive, but decided they were too obvious and Poles Apart accentuates the mystique and sense of loneliness of this image - also suggestive of the Pole Star.
I wasn't sure if i should crop to remove the junk at the bottom of the frame (see below), decided to in the end as it also enhances the sense of isolation of the boat - and it could conceivably be on water this way :)
This was around 20 minutes exposure. Was going to go for a longer exposure but was worried about my battery holding out, as the temperature was just above freezing, and if it died midway i'd lose the entire exposure. Surprisingly few hot pixels considering the time, but the temperature probably had something to do with that. Shot on Holy Island at midnight.
Editing: crop, contrast and brightness enhancement, increased saturation for greens, cyans and blues to bring out the star colours better, resize, sharpen.
Uncropped original: Alternative shot: Another star shot from the same shoot:
Statistics
Place: 23 out of 151 Avg (all users): 6.2715 Avg (commenters): 7.5000 Avg (participants): 6.0185 Avg (non-participants): 6.3533 Views since voting: 2909 Views during voting: 358 Votes: 221 Comments: 14 Favorites: 1 (view)
Can't wait to hear your PP on this one - lots of noise removal?
No actually, just a few hot pixels to clone out of the print - it was so cold that the sensor generated hardly any noise.
Originally posted by saiphfire:
The problem with such long exposures, of course, is the ambient light. I would have liked to see you boost the contrast to make the sky a little darker, even if it meant losing definition on the boat. I'm also a little confused why the trails are different colors - are they not stars?
I tried boosting the contrast but the boat just looked tacky - and since this is basic, i couldn't manipulate the contrast selectively. The stars were actually those colours - maybe they're not stars, but they were up in the sky, whatever they were :)
Without sounding like a boffin the difference in colours from stars comes from the light which they emit due to the heat that they are burning at and as different temps means different colours of the spectrum they show as different colours so there now you know!!
[quote=shamer] Can't wait to hear your PP on this one - lots of noise removal?
No actually, just a few hot pixels to clone out of the print - it was so cold that the sensor generated hardly any noise.
Ahhhh - my knowledge belied. I knew sensor heat was part of the noise equation but never considered ambient temps being a contributing/inhibiting factor - very cool to know!
Can't wait to hear your PP on this one - lots of noise removal?
No actually, just a few hot pixels to clone out of the print - it was so cold that the sensor generated hardly any noise.
Originally posted by saiphfire:
The problem with such long exposures, of course, is the ambient light. I would have liked to see you boost the contrast to make the sky a little darker, even if it meant losing definition on the boat. I'm also a little confused why the trails are different colors - are they not stars?
I tried boosting the contrast but the boat just looked tacky - and since this is basic, i couldn't manipulate the contrast selectively. The stars were actually those colours - maybe they're not stars, but they were up in the sky, whatever they were :)
While I have nothing against stratrails, I actually dig them normally, they kindof don´t work for me for this particular photo as they compositionally draw my eye away from the boat and up to the right corner of the photo, I think I would have preferred it if you somehow would have had only still stars in this one but otherwise unaltered. Still above average in the challenge so I voted a 6.
The problem with such long exposures, of course, is the ambient light. I would have liked to see you boost the contrast to make the sky a little darker, even if it meant losing definition on the boat. I'm also a little confused why the trails are different colors - are they not stars?
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