Silo and the Dipper

[ADavis85]

Rob and I went wander around town today and found this old farm house, and the barn etc. As we were leaving we took some long exposures of this silo. I moved to the side a bit to get the big dipper in the background, turned out kinda nice, I think.


Silo and the Dipper by ACDavis85, on Flickr

Comments welcomed, as always. Thanks for looking.

 

[mishele]

That is a silo and a dipper.

 

[ADavis85]

Thanks...?

 

[Robchaos]

indeed. there is also some grass to the left and what appears to be some asphalt.

 

[LaFoto]

To my mind, the photo would benefit from the immediate foreground being cropped. Just silo and dipper - light on the silo plus the stars in the sky look good to me, the asphalt and grass looks distracting, though. Did you light the silo with the headlights of your car?

 

[tibrunner]

May I inquire as to what the setting were?

ISO/shutter/aperture and any post processing?

 

[ADavis85]

To my mind, the photo would benefit from the immediate foreground being cropped. Just silo and dipper - light on the silo plus the stars in the sky look good to me, the asphalt and grass looks distracting, though. Did you light the silo with the headlights of your car?

Thanks for your comments! I'm not sure that I agree with the foreground, but to each there own I suppose. Also, the silo and the foreground were briefly lit with an LED flashlight, as driving here would have almost definitely gotten us a ticket and/or chased by an angry farmer! lol But hey, to get the interesting shots, you take a little risk I suppose.

May I inquire as to what the setting were?

ISO/shutter/aperture and any post processing?

Indeed you may, they are as follows (sorry, I usually post EXIF with the pictures):
30 Sec
f/3.5 (a little wider than I'd normally shoot this, but it produced the best results with the sky/stars)
18mm
ISO 400

 

[leighthal]

Contrary to LaFoto I like the foreground. Minus the one bright weed.

 

[ADavis85]

Contrary to LaFoto I like the foreground. Minus the one bright weed.

Thanks for the comment. I looked at without the background, and I guess for me...I just didn't like it without either. But weirdly, I didn't actually notice that one piece of grass sticking up there lol. I'm sure Photoshop can get rid of that...once I fix my Windows machine that is *smh.

 

[ADavis85]

I also just realized I didn't address the question about Post Processing someone posed earlier, sorry about that.

As for what I did...nothing really crazy, just simple level adjustments;
Exposure up a bit, so that I could add some contrast. Whites up a bit, shadows up a bit (to get some more of the detail in the grass etc), blacks a little darker (mainly for the upper portion of the sky, and the silhouetted trees in the midground. Bumped up Clarity a bit (as Gavin Hoey would say, "I love a bit of Clarity), vibrance a BIT just to make those purples/oranges sing a bit, and Saturation a tiny tiny bit. The foreground wasn't how I wanted it, it was a bit to warm in the White Balance, so I used a graduated filter to bring the temp down just a smidge (that's the technical term, I believe...smidge). I also bumped the Sharpening slider a tiny bit, and bumped the Luminance slider from 0 to ~40 to smooth up some of the long exposure noise.

That's about it...I'm fairly certain I covered everything. Please feel free to ask any other questions! And again, thanks for looking!