True? A True Image from False Kiva (APOD 29 Sep 2008)

[JohnD]

I've seen pics by Pacholka before and thye are stunning as pictures and examples of technical expertise. So how did he do this one?

The exposure for the stars must have been long enough for the camera to need to move, or trails would be visible. So how is that there are no stars seen 'through' the edges of the stone arch, only recorded during a brief flash?
And the stars are as well exposed right across the arch. Some would have disappered behind it, and so shown up 'through' it, and some would have appeared during the exposure and so be under exposed>

How does he do it?

John

[robvs]

I agree - I don't see how this image by Wally Pacholka can be a single, unedited exposure. Wally does great work, but this one looks like it is at least two exposures, where the sky was "photoshopped" onto the foreground image. In addition to the evidence mentioned in the parent post, there is the issue of the horizon. The contrast where the horizon meets the sky is too great. The slight haze that is evident in front of the land is not evident at all in front of the sky.

[JohnD]

Sorry, should have referenced 29th September.
John

[Chris Peterson]

The exposure for the stars must have been long enough for the camera to need to move, or trails would be visible. So how is that there are no stars seen 'through' the edges of the stone arch, only recorded during a brief flash?John

Aesthetically, I find this image quite ugly. And part of the reason, I expect, is because of the overprocessing required to make it possible.

A Milky Way exposure like this doesn't require very long- just a couple of minutes will do it. That's short enough that star trailing may not be apparent at the image scales seen here. Or, the camera may have been on a tracking platform, and a light source used to expose the foreground.

The sky has been contrast stretched during post processing to the point that the colors are distorted, and a huge amount of noise is evident. Very unnatural in my opinion.

[bystander]

Aesthetically, I find this image quite ugly. And part of the reason, I expect, is because of the overprocessing required to make it possible.

A Milky Way exposure like this doesn't require very long- just a couple of minutes will do it. That's short enough that star trailing may not be apparent at the image scales seen here. Or, the camera may have been on a tracking platform, and a light source used to expose the foreground.

The sky has been contrast stretched during post processing to the point that the colors are distorted, and a huge amount of noise is evident. Very unnatural in my opinion.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080929.html

I liked this APOD, until I read Chris's rant. I thought the composition of the picture truly remarkable and the framing exquisite. Then I read what Chris had to say, and thought, it could have been better. But I still like the photo, at least until somebody does it better. Probably not likely to happen anytime soon.

BTW: the landscape was lit by a cresent moon, and the cave interior by a flashlight, per APOD.

http://www.astropics.com/
http://apod.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search?Pacholka
http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/galleri ... lka&page=1

The America Southwest is home to thousands of caves that were once home for millenniums of various Indian cliff dwellers. Few are as hauntingly beautiful as False Kiva, given its name for the round stone circle structure. The hidden cave sits half way down a mesa cliff and has a stunning "room with a view" of rock formations in Canyonlands. One can only imagine the thousands of times individuals through the ages saw the same view of Jupiter and the Milky Way parade across the heavens from their very own back yard... False Kiva is by far the most magical place I have ever been to and everyone that has been there says it is a hauntingly beautiful place lost in a time. During the exposure for this image the crescent Moon lit up the canyons and I artificially lit the inside of the cave. If the photo looks unreal, believe me that place looks like the most unreal scene time wrapped place I have ever been to. I have gotten unbelievably spooked at times being in there alone at night while I was just waiting for a mountain lion to return to its den!

[iamlucky13]

I think the lack of star trails is primarily due to the scale. They simply aren't visible in the relatively small image, and overflow of light onto adjacent pixels may also help hide them.

Also, the image looks fairly noisy, so I'm guessing it was taken at around ISO 1600, or perhaps even 3200 if he was using one of the latest generation of SLR's. When I do sky shots, I usually go for ISO 800 to keep the noise under control on my camera and exposures between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. At 2 minutes, star trails are clearly visible at 100% zoom, but you have to look fairly close to see them at typical viewing sizes. I haven't personally gotten nearly as much brightness and detail in the Milky Way as he got here, but I could definitely believe it at ISO 3200 and 60-120 seconds.

Chris, I agree the brightness curves are stretched too far, making primarily the mid-range objects looks slightly unnatural, but the initial impression is stunning.

[walfy]

Here's another thing that really makes me think this is NOT just one exposure, besides the ones mentioned above: There is no fading out of the stars caused by the increasing amount of earth's atmosphere the closer to the horizon you look. The starry sky looks the same throughout. The landscape itself fades out in the haze. You have details in the nearby landscape coming through, but fade out the farther you recede to the horizon. No such fading happening in the sky.

Also, the border between the farthest horizon and the sky is hardly blurred, as you would expect with such a distance. It is even sharper than the border between the ceiling of the cave and the sky, which is very nearby. (Maybe the camera was focused to infinity, you might say, but the sharpness of the distant horizon really looks fake).

I would be very shocked if this was indeed one exposure, but would not bet on it! Cool photo, but very, very highly likely the starry sky portion was photoshopped in. Such a claim that this is one exposure needs to be backed up with more proof. Let's see the original!

[bystander]

From the photographer's comments, I would bet it is a single exposure.

http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3001638

It may not be great astrophotography, but it is great art.

[JohnD]

Hang on, hang on.

I didn't start this to challenge Wally Pacholka as a fake. He is a phenomemal photographer, as well as a photographer of phenomena. I previously expressed severe doubt about the authenticity of some of his pics, for example this of Hale-Bopp: http://www.astropics.com/halbp30a.jpg from his own website. The mesas seem to cast shadows on the heavens, as if the sky was a back-drop!

Wally emailed me to explain, that the 'shadow' is due to the camera moving to still the stars, with the picture of the actual mesas superimposed by flash. His explanation worked for me, so maybe he'll explain how this one was done. That pic is subtitled "Taken 4/06/97 at 9 PM with 135mm lens at f2.4 mounted "piggyback" on 2.4 inch Tasco telescope used to track the comet during this 5 minute exposure on Kodak 400 Pro film."

John

[bystander]

Hang on, hang on.

I didn't start this to challenge Wally Pacholka as a fake. He is a phenomemal photographer, as well as a photographer of phenomena...

... His explanation worked for me, so maybe he'll explain how this one was done...

I agree. I really like his work. I've sent him an e-mail with a link to this discussion, requesting a comment.

[soupphysics]

I doubt that it is real!

I understand how the dark cave could avoid having trails, by being briefly lit during the long exposure. However, 5 things about this picture make me suspicious.

1 - I am sure the cave would have been lit enough from moon and starlight, that it would have shown without any flashlight, and therefore had trails.

2 - How about the landscape? The landscare was surely not lit by a flashlight, so it should have trails.

3 - As mentioned, the stars should show through it, at the edges.

4 - The edges of the cave and landscape looks like they have been cut out in a photo editing program. They are too sharp and have white edges. Not only does it look photoshoped, it looks like a bad job at that too.

5 - If you manage to take such a stunning looking photo, then why post it in such a low resolution? Seems to me it was too much work to photoshop it in full resolution!

On the other hand - strange looking edges and other effects can happen exactly from the long exposure, and someone with some camera skills (like the photographer of this I guess) might be able to set all the camera settings just right to get a picture looking just like this. Still, it does not look real and I am very suspicious.

[bjnicholls]

I see a fringe edge around the opening of the cave that looks like a compositing artifact.

The story of painting the cave with a flashlight seems implausible. Look at the shadows of the stone ring and the rocks. They show a light source in front of the cave with shadows facing the photographer. You can't paint light from in front of the camera without seeing the flashlight in the exposure. The amount of color in the cliffs and landscape is suspicious - starlight tends to produce more monochromatic landscape images. And I don't see how the bright Milky Way sky could be taken from a static tripod location without producing star trails. The view is south, so the apparent motion of the star trails would be fast at the lattitude of Canyonlands N.P.

I don't mind seeing composite images that are identified as such, but this image doesn't ring true to its description on APOD.

Folks who photograph the stars need to explain to us how you get such a colorful Milky Way image without filtration that would throw off the landscape's colors. And I think the observation that the sky doesn't grade near the horizon is the strongest evidence for a composite. I live near the Canyon Country and even on a clear day there's haze near the horizon.

[rubbertramp]

I also think it is fake. On extremely rare nights, I've been able to photograph the milky way on my 5D using ISO 1600, f2.8, and 30 sec exposures with a fisheye, and push the contrast around in photoshop to avoid startrails. It is possible to avoid startrails at that speed and focal length. But this is clearly not one image, because I can't see how that exposure time could've been matched, and this is an approximate 17mm view from in the alcove.

I also have a hard time believing you could image the milky way when there is that much moonlight out... Plus, it just looks really bizarre, the transitions between the sky and foreground look horrible. And, he said he used a flashlight to light the interior of the cave. A light as small as a flashlight would cast very distinct shadow edges. Only a big light source can cast very smooth shadow edges. I can't see how that alcove was lit by a flashlight. The light in the cave, according to the shadows, appears to be coming from outside the cave. Where exactly was his flashlight? Looks more like it is coming from the sky.

Candlestick butte is at least a few miles away from this alcove, and you can tell that it gets progressively more hazy the closer to the horizon, yet the sky is crisp all the way through.

Also, if you've ever been to false kiva, you know that you shouldn't step into the back of the alcove, because it is a cultural resource. He is clearly standing inside the part of the cave that still has structures in it, where there are signs that say not to enter. (this may have changed?) Note the rocks on the right that appear to make a wall, which he is clearly behind. You can stand between the two structures, but standing between the wall of the cave and the rock wall is frowned on, as is stepping inside the false kiva. Kind of disappointing to see this, though it is tempting to photographers because it is the only way to include the top of the alcove without a super wide angle lens or stitching multiple images.

Seems to me like he has told a tall tale. At the very least, if it is one single image, he has done some very poor processing to the image to enhance the contrast in the sky, perhaps accounting for the bizarre transitions between the sky and the ground.

[Moonshadow]

Love the "photo". Whatever the technique, the perspective is real. I wonder if some being with eyes the size of the giant squid's would see a similar view. ??

Very cool. My nomination for APOD of the year.

[JohnD]

There's a lot of firing here without thought or research.
A mere click away from that APOD is this: http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3001638
including a quote from Pacholka, "During the exposure for this image the crescent Moon lit up the canyons and I artificially lit the inside of the cave. If the photo looks unreal, believe me that place looks like the most unreal scene time wrapped place I have ever been to."

The pics on his own site http://www.astropics.com/default.asp are in low res., to deter copyists I presume, so view some of his work, on APOD: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap071225.html
and on TWAN:
http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3001628
Here is a master photographer at work.

I'm content to hope that WP will tell us how it was done, at least in outline.
I doubt if many could emulate it.
John

PS OOps", Sorry, my first link already used by bystander. never mind, I've added the WP quote.

[orin stepanek]

I like the photo as is. Real or not I think it is great art. Anyway; I saved it in a file and will use it as background from time to time.
Orin

[emc]

I especially like the image of a mountain lion lurking in the back of the cave trying to decide if it’s hungry enough to eat a photographer... Probably not because of the film it would leave in its mouth.

[bystander]

Love the "photo". Whatever the technique, the perspective is real.

I like the photo as is. Real or not I think it is great art.

I agree, it is great art, and it is real.

There's a lot of firing here without thought or research. ...

Here is a master photographer at work. ...

I doubt if many could emulate it. ...

If others would take as much time to look at the artists' comments and other works as they do thinking up ways the photo couldn't possibly be real, they might not have to eat crow.

As I've said before, this may not be great astrophotography, but it is great art. The composition and framing of the photo is perfect. Hopefully WP will respond and explain his methods, but the picture speaks for itself. See more of his work on The World at Night and Astronomy Picture of the Day:

http://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/galleri ... lka&page=1
http://apod.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search?Pacholka

[JohnD]

bystander,
Thanks for posting that list of WP pics on APOD. I didn't know you could search the archive like that!

The one of which I wrote above was this:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap040420.html
See what I meant about a back cloth?

But how about this one? Very recently on APOD.
No 'back cloth', a sharp horizon, yet no star trails.
The False Kiva pic is not the first in which he has acheived that.

John
PS Someone explain why "false" kiva, and what is a "kiva", please?

[bystander]

Someone explain why "false" kiva, and what is a "kiva", please?

A kiva is an underground room used by Pueblo Indians for religious or ceremonial reasons. Although most kivas of Modern Pueblo Indians (Hopi, et al) are square, those of Ancient Pueblo Peoples were round. The False Kiva is so called because of the uncertainty of the origin and purpose of the circle of stones seen in the picture.

[soupphysics]

If others would take as much time to look at the artists' comments and other works as they do thinking up ways the photo couldn't possibly be real, they might not have to eat crow.

If you people took the time and actually read what people wrote, you would see that it's clear that people did indeed read the artists comment, and that it just doesn't explain anything that makes it plausible.

[bystander]

If you people took the time and actually read what people wrote, you would see that it's clear that people did indeed read the artists comment, and that it just doesn't explain anything that makes it plausible.

I don't see how this image by Wally Pacholka can be a single, unedited exposure.

I would be very shocked if this was indeed one exposure, but would not bet on it!

I doubt that it is real!

I don't mind seeing composite images that are identified as such, but this image doesn't ring true to its description on APOD.

I also think it is fake.

... During the exposure for this image the crescent Moon lit up the canyons and I artificially lit the inside of the cave. If the photo looks unreal, believe me that place looks like the most unreal scene time wrapped place I have ever been to. ...

I read what other people wrote! Of course, someone with 49 entries in TWAN and 29 in APOD over 11 years is, almost certainly, not telling the truth. Mr. Pacholka is a very impressive photographer. I wish I had the time, resources, and talent to take such imaginative pictures.

[soupphysics]

If you people took the time and actually read what people wrote, you would see that it's clear that people did indeed read the artists comment, and that it just doesn't explain anything that makes it plausible.

I don't see how this image by Wally Pacholka can be a single, unedited exposure.

I would be very shocked if this was indeed one exposure, but would not bet on it!

I doubt that it is real!

I don't mind seeing composite images that are identified as such, but this image doesn't ring true to its description on APOD.

I also think it is fake.

... During the exposure for this image the crescent Moon lit up the canyons and I artificially lit the inside of the cave. If the photo looks unreal, believe me that place looks like the most unreal scene time wrapped place I have ever been to. ...

I read what other people wrote! Of course, someone with 49 entries in TWAN and 29 in APOD over 11 years is, almost certainly, not telling the truth. Mr. Pacholka is a very impressive photographer. I wish I had the time, resources, and talent to take such imaginative pictures.

You only just proved my point. You don't read what people write.

Try to read more than the first line of the posts, before you think that you know anything about what they are saying.

It's clear that people did indeed read the artists comment, and that it just doesn't explain anything that makes it plausible.

[bystander]

soupphysics, you are hopeless. Believe me, I read everybodies lame excuses why WP must be faking, lying, or whatever. What's clear to you is obvious garbage to me. I only found two explanations that seemed plausible to me, (they weren't included above).

Aesthetically, I find this image quite ugly. And part of the reason, I expect, is because of the overprocessing required to make it possible.

A Milky Way exposure like this doesn't require very long- just a couple of minutes will do it. That's short enough that star trailing may not be apparent at the image scales seen here. Or, the camera may have been on a tracking platform, and a light source used to expose the foreground.

The sky has been contrast stretched during post processing to the point that the colors are distorted, and a huge amount of noise is evident. Very unnatural in my opinion.

I think the lack of star trails is primarily due to the scale. They simply aren't visible in the relatively small image, and overflow of light onto adjacent pixels may also help hide them.

Also, the image looks fairly noisy, so I'm guessing it was taken at around ISO 1600, or perhaps even 3200 if he was using one of the latest generation of SLR's. When I do sky shots, I usually go for ISO 800 to keep the noise under control on my camera and exposures between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. At 2 minutes, star trails are clearly visible at 100% zoom, but you have to look fairly close to see them at typical viewing sizes. I haven't personally gotten nearly as much brightness and detail in the Milky Way as he got here, but I could definitely believe it at ISO 3200 and 60-120 seconds.

Chris, I agree the brightness curves are stretched too far, making primarily the mid-range objects looks slightly unnatural, but the initial impression is stunning.

While Chris didn't find the work aesthetically pleasing, at least he didn't claim it was faked or unreal. Most of the photo's you find posted on APOD have some amount of post-processing. That doesn't make them fake or unreal. I find it very hard to believe that someone with eleven years of acceptance at TWAN and APOD would need to mislead the public about his photographs.

[Wally Pacholka]

I am simply an amateur astronomer that loves the night sky and has a passion for recording the night sky as it really is from interesting settings like national parks and landmarks that folk are familar with. I have been doing this now for 44 years and in that time not only have I learnt a few things but I have seen tremendous advances in technology that enable folk to take photographs of the stars as pin points in seconds rather than minutes like in the old days. My night sky/landscape photographs which are my trademark have traditionally always been single frame shots of both the night sky and landmarks in one single exposure. In the olden days like for comet hale-bopp, the longer time exposures with tracked camera to follow the stars would always leave a tell tail sign on the landscape rocks as they would blur if lit or they would cast a shadow against the background stars if you lit them momentarily like with a flash. Now a days, all is different. Anybody with a decent digital camera like canon 20D and 24mm lens with high iso like 1600 at f/1.6 can record deep detail in the Milky Way in just 20 seconds and 10 times more stars than the eye can see. So now it is an easy matter to capture stars frozen as points of light and the foreground in sharp focus with no movement even when focued on infiniti with the right lens. Folk that are saying there must be star trails or ground movement in a shot like the False Kiva shot are very accurate in their accessment for eguipment and technology that is several years old, but they are sadly lacking in what can be done today with some of the more basic DSLR cameras cameras that are available at the local costco store.
How False Kiva was taken:
Been to False Kiva (1200 mile plus round trip) 4 previous times, all photographic failures, hiked the 2 mile trail with last part down a very steep canyon wall trail, hiked out in dark and got lost each and every time. It's dark out there.
Canon 5D, iso 1600 Raw, f/2.5, 25 second exposue with camera on a stationary tripod (no tracking). The cave is huge, so the 24 mm lens required me to take 4 separate (camera veritical) shots shooting one shot at 25 seconds and then moving the camera horizontally for the next shot and so on until I got the entire cave. Each shot was a sky/landscape shot and I had a professional lab sticth the photos together with a panoramic blending software to make it one continous horizontal shot as I am a photoshop moron.
The lighting was from 4 sources (which I learnt from my 4 previous failed attempts - after all one can drive 1200 miles to take a single shot only so many times). The stars/Milky Way of course provided their own light for the sky, the trip was planned for a small cresent moon to be setting in the west to light up the left and center canyon walls, and a large flashlight was positioned out side the cave on the left to bounce light off a flat rock to hit the right canyon wall with some faint light. Inside the cave, I used a series of flashlights and or strokes to bounce light off the far left/right walls to evenly light the cave (there was no direct lighting).
There was absolutely no superimposing of any portion in this image or any other image I have ever done. To me that's important as my whole purpose is to show folk what the sky really is like from different landmarks in this great country of ours. As for the questioning about why no haze is seen next to the horizon in the sky yet is seem in the far canyon hills then my guess would be that those saying such are thinking of a day shot. This is a night shot - everything is dark. It rained that day heavily so there was no haze. It is the cresent moon that is lighitng up the close canyon walls and they are sharp, but the farther you go down you run into moonshadow that is not haze but simply darkness where the camera can not record detail so it looks like haze. The same for the far canyon walls look like they are covered with haze, but it is just because they are so far, the slight moonlight does not bounce back enought light from those far canyons for the camera to see any detail (you folk are calling that haze), yet the stars which have their own light of course show thru the haze which is not there (but only in folks minds) and hits the camera sensors full on.
I have been around long enough to know that no matter what explaination I give as to how real a photograph I took is, there are always the arm chair folk that would rather critizise others than do anything themselves. If you don't believe what I say (everything here is testable) and then believe the great body of work I have done over the years that is clearly recognized by experts in the field of astronomy/photography. This is my 29th APOD. Those folk are not dummies. I might be able to fool the APOD folk one time, but 29 times????
How about TIME-LIFE photo editors. They picked my Hale-Bopp pic as Pic of year in 1997 - out of millions submitted. They also picked my Mars Closest encounter in 50,000 years as Pic of year in 2003 for both LIFE magazine and a different image for TIME magazine, again out of millions submitted. My night sky work sells in over 30 national parks, where each park goes thru an intrepretive review process to determine that the photos are genuine - none have been turned down. NASA still has my Hale-Bopp shot on their front Hale-Bopp web page, etc....
For those of you who can, just enjoy the photograph and for others that can't do that then simply take one that we all can enjoy.
We live in a great country with so much to see and photograph.
There is much that is untouched waiting for us to capture.
May you enjoy the process.
All the best.
Wally
An amateur astronomer - my greatest honor