Natural LIght in the outdoors

Al D said:

Greg7579 said:

Al D said:

Greg7579 said:

I admit I was suspicious of it but its a great image nonetheless. I would need to see the raw or a higher res version. Those stars above with the clouds below and the light rays streaking through the clouds like twilight post-storm and on top of that the bright vibrant meteorite. That seems completely impossible to me and even my GFX 100 doesn't have that kind of DR. But I don't know. I'm looking at a thumbnail. It looks like a lot of blending of skies from other images to me. But I could be wrong.

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Perhaps you can ask him. You can view a slightly higher res version of it in his gallery: Gallery — Prasenjeet Yadav.

As you can read in the article, he was doing a time lapse, long exposures. He had multiple images he could work with to render this image.

Also, you might be underestimating what your own camera can do... ;-)

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I know what my camera can and can't do. That is not about the camera. That is about extensive post processing and there is no doubt that the image is photographic - graphic art and was a blend and combination of several images and most likely blending in some skies from a library of completely different images. Nothing wrong with that.

I don't do it, but I do a lot of focus bracketing and stacking in Helicon Focus and often use 150 images or more for that....

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You mentioned your camera. I had a look at your photos on Flickr and you obviously know what your camera can do, fantastic photos. My comment was more related to my own experience with nightime photos and how I'm just amazed at what I can do with my own raw files, just directly without even stacking or blending, only masking, dodging and burning, old tricks. I can just imagine wihat a medium format like your GFX can do.

As for the meteor photo, hard to say, there's no exif info or anything else to inform about how it was processed. As you speculate, we might be looking at a complete sky replacement in the upper part of the image.

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You are absolutely right. These modern sensors are amazing and there is a lot of DR for post. That is why we shoot raw. We don't really need HDR blending anymore (sometimes yes).

Al D said:

Greg7579 said:

R Liewenberger said:

Greg7579 said:

That is truly a fantastic once-in-a-lifetime shot if it is a clean one shot snap.

I like photographic art and don't care if an image becomes graphic art through the combination and blending of several images or cloning things in with PS while adding fake skies, stars or backgrounds. I have no problem with switching or enhancing colors in PS.

I don't think that happened here and didn't dig into the background of the shot. The only thing I will say is that when you view or grab these other-worldly amazing shots on the internet and there is no explanation of the details of the shot, it is often likely that the shots has been manipulated, altered, combined and had objects, light and skies cloned in.... It is getting easy to do and there is nothing wrong with it.

But I can tell you that personally as a landscape Medium Format guy I won't replace a sky. It is so easy to do but I just won't do it.

I don't mind when others do.

Again, I have no ideas what happened on this beautifully amazing shot.

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Greg, from reading that German language article, I don't think the Indian photographer, Prasenjeet Yadav, manipulated his great shot (which, btw, he took while sleeping!)

A translation of that article (by the best translator, DeepL):

"Green meteor

Photographer takes sensational picture - while sleeping

Nature photographer Prasenjeet Yadav succeeded in taking the picture of a lifetime while he slept: He photographed an emerald-green meteor as it passed over the hilltops of the Western Ghats.

Actually, Prasenjeet Yadav wanted to document the advancing urbanization in the Western Ghats with his pictures. He set up his camera above the southern Indian town of Mettupalayam, set it up for a time-lapse shot that lasted several hours, and slowly dozed off.

Yadav didn't realize what a sensational image was among his hundreds of long exposures until he sifted through the photos the next afternoon. Several astronomers confirmed to the photographer the rarity value of his shot: Yadav had indeed taken a green meteor in his sleep.

Why does the meteor glow green at all?

The color is determined by the chemical elements that make up the burning rock. Iron, for example, produces a yellowish light. If the fireball has a high calcium content, it glows more violet. Green glow, as in this case, was most likely caused by a high concentration of nickel or magnesium." https://www.geo.de/natur/naturwunde...otograf-macht-sensationelles-bild-waehrend-er

Liewenberger

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I admit I was suspicious of it but its a great image nonetheless. I would need to see the raw or a higher res version. Those stars above with the clouds below and the light rays streaking through the clouds like twilight post-storm and on top of that the bright vibrant meteorite. That seems completely impossible to me and even my GFX 100 doesn't have that kind of DR. But I don't know. I'm looking at a thumbnail. It looks like a lot of blending of skies from other images to me. But I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

Perhaps you can ask him. You can view a slightly higher res version of it in his gallery: Gallery — Prasenjeet Yadav.

As you can read in the article, he was doing a time lapse, long exposures. He had multiple images he could work with to render this image.

Also, you might be underestimating what your own camera can do... ;-)

Click to expand...

Thanks for looking up his gallery, AI D!

No idea why, but my Firefox doesn't want to go there.

Via a google picture search I found another good link to this 'WIRED' article, with a bigger version of Prasenjeet's picture:

https://www.wired.com/2017/01/bright-green-meteor-lights-mountains-india/

A right-click into that picture, 'Open in new tab', shows an even bigger, expandable version, but in an unknown to me 'webp' file format, which I can't save as jpg to my computer.

Here is a direct link to that bigger, expandable webp-file:

https://media.wired.com/photos/5926...er/w_2560,c_limit/Green_Meteor_Prasenjeet.jpg

Also interesting from that 'WIRED' article: On Oct. 9th, 2015, Prasenjeet used a Nikon D 600 and took a lot of 15 seconds shots, with 10 seconds in between.

From that article:

"Yadav won a National Geographic Young Explorers grant to document "sky islands," the isolated mountain peaks that rise above the clouds along a 400-mile swath of the Western Ghats. He wanted a nighttime shot of Mettupalayam to show the area's urbanization. In the wee hours of October 9, 2015, Yadav drove into the mountains, set up his Nikon D600, and programmed it to take 15 second exposures every 10 seconds until 4:30 am. Then he made camp and dozed until dawn.

The next day, he reviewed the thousand or so images on his camera and spotted a brilliant flash of emerald light. At first he thought it was a fluke, but several astronomers confirmed that it was a meteor. It's a perfect shot. “I was there, and that’s what photography is all about—being there in the right place at the right time,” Yadav says. That, and a bit of luck."

No idea why Greg has his problems with this shot! I can't see anything wrong, faked or blended here! I can't imagine a scientist like this molecular biologist would risk ruining his reputation by delivering some fake photos!

Liewenberger

R Liewenberger said:

Al D said:

Greg7579 said:

I admit I was suspicious of it but its a great image nonetheless. I would need to see the raw or a higher res version. Those stars above with the clouds below and the light rays streaking through the clouds like twilight post-storm and on top of that the bright vibrant meteorite. That seems completely impossible to me and even my GFX 100 doesn't have that kind of DR. But I don't know. I'm looking at a thumbnail. It looks like a lot of blending of skies from other images to me. But I could be wrong.

Click to expand...

Perhaps you can ask him. You can view a slightly higher res version of it in his gallery: Gallery — Prasenjeet Yadav.

As you can read in the article, he was doing a time lapse, long exposures. He had multiple images he could work with to render this image.

Also, you might be underestimating what your own camera can do... ;-)

Click to expand...

Thanks for looking up his gallery, AI D!

No idea why, but my Firefox doesn't want to go there.

Click to expand...

No problem viewing the gallery even with my Android tablet. Probably something to do with pop-up window blocking or javascript permissions.

R Liewenberger said:

Via a google picture search I found another good link to this 'WIRED' article, with a bigger version of Prasenjeet's picture:

https://www.wired.com/2017/01/bright-green-meteor-lights-mountains-india/

Click to expand...

Excellent, thanks.

R Liewenberger said:

A right-click into that picture, 'Open in new tab', shows an even bigger, expandable version, but in an unknown to me 'webp' file format, which I can't save as jpg to my computer.

Here is a direct link to that bigger, expandable webp-file:

https://media.wired.com/photos/5926...er/w_2560,c_limit/Green_Meteor_Prasenjeet.jpg

Also interesting from that 'WIRED' article: On Oct. 9th, 2015, Prasenjeet used a Nikon D 600 and took a lot of 15 seconds shots, with 10 seconds in between.

From that article:

"Yadav won a National Geographic Young Explorers grant to document "sky islands," the isolated mountain peaks that rise above the clouds along a 400-mile swath of the Western Ghats. He wanted a nighttime shot of Mettupalayam to show the area's urbanization. In the wee hours of October 9, 2015, Yadav drove into the mountains, set up his Nikon D600, and programmed it to take 15 second exposures every 10 seconds until 4:30 am. Then he made camp and dozed until dawn.

The next day, he reviewed the thousand or so images on his camera and spotted a brilliant flash of emerald light. At first he thought it was a fluke, but several astronomers confirmed that it was a meteor. It's a perfect shot. “I was there, and that’s what photography is all about—being there in the right place at the right time,” Yadav says. That, and a bit of luck."

No idea why Greg has his problems with this shot! I can't see anything wrong, faked or blended here! I can't imagine a scientist like this molecular biologist would risk ruining his reputation by delivering some fake photos!

Liewenberger

Click to expand...

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being skeptical about anything you see, read or hear on the Internet, and asking questions, on the contrary, and even more so when it's about the picture of a green colored flying object in the night sky. There's plenty of fake UFO pictures floating out there. Also, there is certainly a discussion to be had about where to draw the line between an actual photograph and photographic imagery, an image made from a photo. Even reputable space agencies are well-known to 'enhance' their images beyond the point where they can actually be considered as photographs. This is what led me to dig a bit and find out more about the photo, who took it and how it was taken. This is good because in doing so I discovered a great photographer I didn't know about.

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‘You don’t take a photograph, you make it.’ - Ansel Adams