Self Portrait with the Milky Way: Capturing the Cosmos from Alabama Hills

Embark on a visual journey to the heart of California's stunning Alabama Hills, where a breathtaking astrophotograph captures a solitary figure silhouetted against the sprawling tapestry of the Milky Way.

This captivating image was captured on August 14th, 2020, using a Sony a7iii camera paired with a 24mm F1.4 GM lens. The settings for this shot were F1.8, a 10-second exposure, and an ISO of 6400.

What makes this photograph particularly remarkable is not just its aesthetic beauty but also the story behind its editing. This was one of the very first images processed after Adobe introduced its AI DeNoise feature into Camera RAW. As the photographer explains, this new technology proved to be a "huge help editing older single astro images," significantly enhancing the quality and detail that can be extracted from night sky captures.

The success in gathering sufficient light within a 10-second exposure is attributed to the wide aperture of F1.8 and the high ISO of 6400. While the image might have been slightly underexposed initially, clever post-processing, including boosting the shadows and leveraging the power of Adobe DeNoise, brought out the incredible detail of the Milky Way and the surrounding landscape.

The composition is lauded for its artistic merit, with the edit being described as "stellar." The Alabama Hills, a well-known filming location and a prime spot for stargazing, provided the perfect backdrop for this incredible display of both photographic skill and technological advancement.