Astrophotog in the backcountry

hola!

this past fall I took a back country hiking trip and brought my camera with me. this was the first time i had the chance to give astro a try since i lucked out with a clear sky night.

any tips to make these types of images better? I have seen many astro shots where the landscape is fully lit but i had a real hard time getting any exposure on the mountains.

shot with the 18-55 2.8-4 wide open
ISO 3200
25 sec

thanks.

I think many of the shots you see with natural light on the foreground are blended exposures. So you do the shot as you did and then one at 10 mins or whatever it takes, usually with a lower ISO and then blend them. If it was really dark, so even that wouldn't bring out any detail, then you are out of luck unless.......

I don't do much astro but, when I was in Death Valley at the Racetrack, I set up a hot a blue hour, took that for the foreground and then waited a couple of hours and took another shot with stars. Obviously if you can do a lot of prep and get the milky way in or something like this, then that would be optimal. You perhaps if you are camping you could leave the camera set up overnight and take a shot pre-dawn for the foreground?

Anyway, my blue-hour/star shot didn't look unnatural (I can say it was a great shot, but that's another matter).

The lens focal length is limiting the field of view, but the exposure you have is good. Looks stable, and most importantly, looks in focus which are usually the big issues when beginning. You are getting star trails, which indicates your exposure time is a bit too long. Here is an article from Petapixel that has a guide for lens length and how long to expose for. Your lens, according to the article should only expose for 17 seconds. https://galleries.aaro​npriestphoto.com …/NPF-Rule-for-Sharp-Stars

As for foreground exposure, (unfortunately) it looks like you had no light pollution to expose the landscape. I used my cell phone flashlight to slowly paint the ground in this shot, and others use people with lights, headlights from their cars, or other light sources planted in the foreground to help expose it.

The lack color separation makes it hard to see the scar feature. I find that using dehaze is a good tool when trying to get the scar to pop out from the background. You also may try using a different color temperature to make the magenta less overpowering, unless that is the color you prefer.

thanks for the tips guys.

there was 0 light pollution in that spot. it was pretty awesome. the scar was not super strong that night. it was much better the previous night but we were at a different camp spot which didnt give much room to shoot.