Question about Milky Way shots

[iluvphotography]

Just curious.. does anyone know why in most of milky way photos, there is someone in foreground holding a flashlight in to the sky? I understand about having a foreground to give depth and make it more interesting but why a person with flashlight?? There are so many of the same set up.
Also, are they two exposures? one for the person with flashligh and one for the milky way?

 

[MOREGONE]

I actually can't say I know what you are talking about. Can you share an example?

Just thinking about what you described it seems people my be figuratively shedding light on the darkness \ mystery of the night \ space

 

[KmH]

In most Milky Way photos?

I don't remember ever seeing someone pointing a flashlight at the sky in the 1000's of Milky Way photos I have looked at over the years.

 

[CAP]

Never tried this with the sky it self. But have done long exposures, The one i last did was 20 minutes long. It was set in bulb mode on my 1DX and 14mm Lens and a off camera shutter control for time. I did point my flash light at a beach and use a 1,000,000 candle watt flash light to illuminate the surrounding rocks, sand and tree's going over and over them again and again with the light . The end result i had the my star trails and my land objects in perfect color and great exposure from doing it.

But yes it sort of like a Multiple exposure, Just done the long way you could say.

I will try to dig up a copy and post it.

 

[pgriz]

Just curious.. does anyone know why in most of milky way photos, there is someone in foreground holding a flashlight in to the sky? I understand about having a foreground to give depth and make it more interesting but why a person with flashlight?? There are so many of the same set up.
Also, are they two exposures? one for the person with flashligh and one for the milky way?

So let's see what the latest crop of Milky Way shots show.

Majeed with http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/361535-me-tree.html, yup, he's lighting the way...
Jsecordphoto with http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/361662-lonesome-lake-milky-way-panorama.html; nope. no flashlight.
Jsecordphoto with http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...-stars-new-camera-set-up-milky-way-shot.html; also nope, no flashlight.
Rick50 with http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/general-gallery/361689-milky-way.html; no flashlight.
Aphoto with http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/359938-milky-way-dressed-blue.html; also no flashlight, but an interesting take with blue tint.

There are some more as well, but Majeed's the only one with any kind of light. So I'm curious why you thought that "in most of milky way photos, there is someone in foreground holding a flashlight to the sky?". In Majeed's case, it was two exposures, as he explained in the post. Other... not.

It's not a bad idea to create a link between the sky above, and the the foreground (be it a person or some other object). Whether it falls into "cliché" territory depends on how well (or poorly) the two are joined in an apparently "natural" way.

 

[jsecordphoto]

Like this? Obviously not a milky way shot but in the winter months when the MW isn't visible you gotta get creative....

I've seen my fair share of shots like these, but have seen countless other MW photos with no people at all in the photo. It's just something to do...why worry about what other people are doing?

 

[TCampbell]

Most of the images I see of the Milky Way don't have a person in them... but often the foreground object will have some light-painting (i.e. the photographer may have used a flashlight to illuminate the foreground object to help it stand out and prevent it from just being lost in the darkness.).

 

[iluvphotography]

In some of the Milky Way shots that I have seen had the flash light.. But it's OK if it's just for creative reasons.. I thought there was some technical reason behind it
Thanks for all the replies..

 

[robbins.photo]

Ok, well I have a milky way photo but that isn't actually a flashlight that's being held up to the sky there... lol

 

[ruifo]

Like these:




Steep Hill Cove Milky Way_ by stacksjay79, on Flickr




Looking for stars.. by Claudio Pia, on Flickr



Lighting up the stars by Michael Ver Sprill, on Flickr

 

[iluvphotography]

Yes.. exactly like those

 

[Dikkie]

Nebula by Dirk Desmet, on Flickr

First attempt for the Milky Way.
Iso 1600; EV+3.
10mm on nikon d7000 crop camera (so 15mm normally)
f4, shutter 20 secs

Around 30 km from Brussels

To answer your question.
It's difficult to say that photo's with a nice foreground are made once or double exposures...
In my case, I did a lot of tweaking .. one raw, exported 2 times with other colours or contrasts to a .jpg, and layered them up in Gimp and then I masked the bad parts out of it, adding contrast and tuned levels where necessary.
It's not a good photo, but my first time I shot the milky way this night.
Will hopefully do better in future.
I couldn't get a good foreground AND milky way lit correctly in just one shot. That's already for sure.

 

[Dikkie]

Right here my bike in front:


Night Cycling by Dirk Desmet, on Flickr

It contains 2 jpg's exported from the raw file: one for the sky, one for the foreground.
Blended together by layers and masks.