Rocket Launch shoot with Canon 1dx

[shaf]

I'm privilege to work for the European Space Agency, I was lucky enough to be apart of the launch team.
The images were shot about 4 km away I used a Canon 300mm lens.
Please let me know what you think ? This was my 1st launch at night

[distant.star]

.
Looks pretty amazing to me. Thanks!

[TrumpetPower!]

That's got to be a seriously fun gig, and an amazing experience in person.

The shot works, but I think I'd go a lot brighter -- as in, at least a few stops brighter. I'm guessing the rocket is moving pretty slow that close to the ground. I don't see any motion blur at 1/1000s and not much noise at ISO 800 and no signs of too shallow a depth of field at f/6.3, so you had plenty of room to brighten it up.

I've taken the liberty of fooling with it in ACR; attached is my rough interpretation. Obviously, starting with the original raw file instead of a JPEG would give better results.

Cheers,

b&

[TrumpetPower!]

Oh -- one more thing.

I think I would have gone for a portrait orientation, pulled back so you had the same field of view and framing at the bottom, but a bunch of black sky above the rocket. There might also be some interesting compositional opportunities with an off-center framing, perhaps with just the towers to the right. It'd also be neat to get a bit more elevation for yourself for the shot, to be able to include the launch pad in the shot rather than have it be obscured by that building. Indeed, if not too unsafe, the roof of that building would be the perfect spot....

Here's hoping you have lots and lots of opportunities to experiment with this...sure wish I did....

Cheers,

b&

[Mr Bean]

Nice pic. Night shots (of rockets) are so challenging. I've only done a daytime launch of the Shuttle in Feb 2011 and that worked well, with a bit of bracketing

[Jim Saunders]

I can't offer any suggestions, but I like it.

Jim

[scrappydog]

Nice shot!  I think the suggestion to lighten the shot a couple stops is a good one and if possible, try to bring out any details in the flame.  I recently shot a launch at NASA in portrait mode.  If I could do it over, I would not shoot portrait unless I really wanted the smoke trail, so I like the orientation.

[bycostello]

wow would love to see something like that....

[privatebydesign]

Its a damn sight more interesting than my attempt at the last Space Shuttle night launch ever. Mind you I was 14 miles or so away so I could never frame anything like as tight as you did, so I didn't bother trying.

[rpt]

Its a damn sight more interesting than my attempt at the last Space Shuttle night launch ever. Mind you I was 14 miles or so away so I could never frame anything like as tight as you did, so I didn't bother trying.

Lovely!

You guys are lucky bugs! The only rockets I see are firecrackers!

[Menace]

Looks amazing 

[Mr Bean]

Discovery, Feb 2011 - from 6 miles (9.5km) away, un-cropped.

Sadly, I was film back then, using a EOS3 with 300mm f4 + 1.4 TC 

[Dylan777]

Awesome shot.... It's the "king of low light"

[sanj]

I like it. I prefer the darker version. Regards

[Aaron78]

Looks good as is, shaf. Everything in the frame is sharp and identifiable, i really like it. There is no wrong way to take a photo, and for being shot in pitch darkness that photo turned out great.