Starry sky image for compositing?

[Stephen Pruitt]

Hi all. . .

I'm looking for a great high resolution night starry sky shot to put into a scene. Most night sky shots I see look completely unreal. I'm looking for one that looks like you're looking at a real night sky in clear country air.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Stephen

 

[Joe Taylor]

Hey Stephan,

I've tackled this twice and got excellent results. The first job was compositing 3 layers, (1) was the original super 16 footage with the actors. (2) was a shot of several pine trees made with the Red ONE (3) was the star field with Orion photographed with a Canon 5D. The key was making everything look realistic. For the star field I took 5 longish exposures (2-6 sec), each of the 5 where different exposures then married them together in After Effects to give them a 'twinkle.' Then also with After Effects I composited all 3 as live action real-time shots and the end result was seamless, ever with the wildly different resolutions.

The 2nd job was a bit different since we needed close-ups of the actors an the stars had to be captured as soft focus. This was actually a bit easier since the twinkle effect was much easier to control. Just find someone who is competent with After Effects and it should be an easy day for them as long as you hand them well exposed deliverables.

For reference, the movie "The Proposition" has the best and most realistic use of a "night sky" that I have yet seen.

 

[Radim Schreiber]

I have a 120 megapixel stitched night sky, almost horizon to horizon shot using 50mm lens on 5D Mark II. Realistic brightness of stars and planets, just as you can see it in the sky before milky way comes up. Holds up great in 4k footage, even if you want to do zoom or pan effect. Most constellations line up well, but not all. If you are interested, send me an message.