An Evening In Penang Hill... Milky Way On Top of George Town Penang

It has been awhile since I last update my blog. Lately I am very busy with my work. I am a full time engineer. And, it’s a hell of a job. :) Photography is my hobby and part time side income to support my gears.

Recently I bought a used lens. Its the Tamron 28-300mm which one of the most flexible lens of all time.  At 28mm focus length, it is wide enough to capture most of the landscape scenes. And at 300mm FL, you will be able to zoom in into your desire objects and be a stalker... :) With this versatility, it is very easy for me to compose my composition.

At 28mm

At 300mm (sorry, slightly blur due to tripod to stable.. :) )

And this is not the main story that I wanna share. My intention of going up to the Penang Hill is to shoot the Ultimate Milky Way. This is one of the shot I did 2 weeks ago.

It seems fine. But there are tiny clouds that irritate me. I have waited for years for the prefect moment to shoot something miracle and this year I will not miss it again. The last train from top of Penang Hill is 11pm after the local gov extended the service time. Meaning I have around 2hrs to do my shooting.  The timing is very crucial.

1)    Clear Sky – No/less cloud
2)    No Fog/haze
3)    Less Moonlight Pollution.
4)    Availability of train service. But some people say that I can overnight there. But I prefer not to.  

After praying for years, on that evening, oh hell yeah… With my Tamron 17-35mm F2.8/4, I captured it. With minor light pollution of waning crescent and minor haze, I can be able to see the milky way after some post processing.

 Milky way On Top of George Town Penang

I took few shots with multiple exposure (25,15,8s) in order to get the best dynamic range. I blended all these exposures in order to balance up the sky and the foreground.

  Milky way On Top of George Town Penang (another spot)

Timing is an issue, but post processing is another. To allow the visibility of milky way, your setting must be “Just Nice” and not ruin your overall photo. Few shots are taken and the best settings are determined. The rest are post processing.

Besides, I did some panorama shots. Stitching it is a challenge. Distortion correction is another challenge. Huh.. it took me few hours. But the result is OK for me for now.. :)

 Panorama Summer Milky Way In George Town Penang

All processing is done using Lightroom 5.3 & Photoshop CS5. May be I need to get Lightroom 6.1 with Dehaze function which I can be able to enhance my photos…

Besides basic astrophotgraphy, I did some selective focus photography with my Tamron 28-300mm. With a different focus point blended into a single shot, we can see the miniature effect.

 Miniature Effect of Komtar

Shot towards Paya Terubong housing area.

Here is the shot at 160mm from Penang Hill with Selective Focus Effect using Multiple Focus Point…

  Miniature Effect of George Town Penang

To learn more about processing your milky way shot, here is my previous post :

http://informationwebsite.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-to-edit-milky-way-astrophotography.html

Here are the locations I did my milky way shooting around Penang :

http://informationwebsite.blogspot.com/2014/06/milky-way-around-penang-with-keong-da.html

Enjoy and have fun.. The most important thing is your safety.