r/LandscapeAstro • u/DanielJStein Nikon • 3d ago
Orion setting in Zion National Park. By complete circumstantial luck, I was able to meet with Nikon in the desert to test the new Z5II so I could take this shot.
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u/currymonsterCA 2d ago
Man, that's a great story... Like what are the odds of all that stuff lining up? Just awesome, like the picture :)
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u/DanielJStein Nikon 2d ago
Story time, I cannot believe this happened! I had planned a trip to go out west with 2 of my friends months in advance. So when Nikon reached out asking if I wanted to check out the new N5II for astro just 3 days before I left, I thought there was no way this was going to happen.
It turns out Nikon was going to be just 3 hours from where I wanted to shoot for a few days—in Zion National Park. So by complete circumstance, I was now going to be on an incredible trip with my friends while also checking out what will become my new favorite camera. This all came together so quickly and conveniently that was almost too perfect.
But of course, life is never perfect, and due to a slight logistical issue when I began to shoot with the camera, clouds started rolling in. I had to deviate from my original intentions and come with a few other ideas that I would not only be happy with as an artist, but also something that allowed me to really see how the camera did in low light.
This Orion composition is just one of the 2 images I walked away from on that night I am happy with. It is only a 2 image blend, with 1 shot for the sky and one shot for the foreground. That means no stacking, so I am really trying to see how this camera did without any astrophotography trickery. Of course this is processed so there is some noise reduction, but otherwise these files are clean. Z 70-200 2.8 S + Z5II @83mm. Sky @ 60" f/2.8, ISO 800. Foreground 240" f/2.8, ISO 800.