^^^^Man, I love all the photos you put up. Really just a fan. Your shit kills.
Are most of your images stacked photos or are you just nailing your pics with one shot? I am going up to Mammoth Lakes tomorrow to try and shoot some stuff. My girl just got me a circular polarize for my Tamron 15-30 and a 10 stop ND filter. Hopefully i can finally get some water fall shots with no reflections and even some milky way stuff. I've never been able to get a good milky way shot where everything is generally exposed from foreground to background.
Any tips on getting something as simple as below where it doesn't look totally photoshopped. Just sit in one area and shoot all different exposures?
Thanks dude! Glad you enjoy them. I've never done stacking, but that's mainly out of laziness. I know a lot of people who do and get amazing images.
I recently got a 10 stop filter and been having a lot of fun with it, but I still just try to shoot waterfalls and landscapes during the best lighting. And for star photos, I don't have a ton of great Milky Way shots where the foreground is detailed and exposed correctly. That's mainly because most of my shots of the Milky Way have been at times when it's a new moon so the core will appear the most vibrant. The problem with that is mountains become silhouettes.
I've recently enjoyed trying to shoot when the moon is at 15-25%, so you get the landscapes lit up a bit and still a solid amount of stars. Even just a little moonlight can really help to brighten up the foreground. I've even shot at a full moon and was digging how it looked because you can still pick up a lot of stars. I feel like now I'm more aware of moonrise and setting times and the phases, which is easy to google and helps plan out the shots you want.
There's definitely people who find their compositions and shoot from dusk until dark, and blend several images. Usually those guys sell massive prints, so that detail is pretty crucial. I really don't have the patience for that or that level of discipline. I wish I did because their images are incredible. Check out
http://www.marcadamus.com/ and
http://leiferiksmith.org/. They both stack images, and their work is crazy. They also use a lot of that Orten effect, which gives it sort of a dreamy look. Marc is just on another level because he backpacks solo into remote regions for weeks at a time to get the perfect lighting he wants for one shot. Incredible stuff.
Night photography is still a huge learning curve for me, so hopefully some of that helps, but I'm no expert by any means. Everytime I shoot stars, it's always a reminder how tough it is to do.
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