Astrophotography at Pemaquid Lighthouse
Gary Detonnancourt
I've done plenty of night photography but this was my first real attempt at astrophotography and it was a whole lot of fun. I mentioned in a previous post that I purchased the Rokinon 24 mm f/1.4 specifically for astrophotography, but as it turns out it's a pretty great lens for landscapes too.
I shot these images while testing the lens for it's night time capabilities. The first image is a composite of two exposures. One exposure to correctly expose the sky and one to correctly expose the lighthouse, then the two images were blended together in Photoshop.
Pemaquid Lighthouse, Maine
As I was following the Milky Way, it led me to photograph this stand of pine trees. The Lighthouse actually did the light painting on the trees during my 20-second exposure. This image is actually a panorama of sorts. When I made my first exposureI had just the tree tops and more sky, on the second exposure I lowered the camera to include more of the trees. Later, when post processing I got the idea to put the two images together in Lightroom, which created this taller version. I like it taller because it shows more of the Milky way and trees. I wish I would have thought of while I was shooting the images because I could have made an image that went from the ground to the top of the Milky Way.
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