Big Dipper over Rattlesnake Ridge

OK, back at the ranch, about 10:00 pm or so, this time looking (um) North - or, more accurately North by Northwest.

The exposure was about 5 minutes and the lighting was mostly the waxing gibbous moon from last Wednesday. Some of the highlights were done with a large flashlight.

Critique and Comments welcome.

Rad

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I'm new to this forum, so if I violate protocol let me know.

I like the pic in theory. Even with the startrails, the stars that make up Ursa Major are more prominent, so the constellation is clearly visible among other stars.

It appears to be a little slanted, but that's always hard to tell. There is no clear horizon here, so just judging by that rail fence. On the other hand, I do an awful lot of shooting like this and I know how hard it is to straighten a camera when you can't see your hand in front of your face.

Can't quite tell if it's slightly out of focus, if you had a little tripod movement or if it was breeze movement. But considering the length of the exposure, pretty good. Did you sharpen it already? If not, it may help.

As opposed to using the moon as primary and flashlight as fill, have you considered a mega-light as opposed to a flashlight (which I assumed you meant literally - as in small) for light painting?

I use a 2,000,000 and a 5,000,000 candlepower handheld floods. Consider the advantages:

- shorter exposures which will allow for less tripod or subject movement

- using your own light you have more control over where the light is painted which affords more creativity. I.e., highlighting certain objects to draw the viewers attention, creating your own lead-in lines by painting them progressively from foreground to background, etc.

- using the moon for light means you can't move the light source. Using your own flood means you can. For example, you can set the self-timer them move camera right or left. This increases creativity by allowing you to use and control shadows, create more depth, etc.

- also, using a flood helps you to compose better (straight horizons) plus you can shine it on a specific spot to adjust your focus.

One thing I have found about the floods - the light seems to be very warm which is nice if that's something you desire.

Hope that helps, and as a (forum) newb, hope I didn't offend. If so, I didn't mean to.

I like it.
Iv done similar pictures using car headlights for fill with film.

Could use a little sharpening I think.

I like it but it looks a bit too bright overall in color managed Firefox3. Firefox 3 "Enable Color Management" Trick

It probably would look OK in IE or FF2, though.