Ceri Evans, Portland Bill Lighthouse (SINGLE SHOT 2024)

A shot of Portland Bill Lighthouse at night. For this shot I took five images of the foreground and lighthouse at twilight and focus stacked them. Taking the images while there was still some natural light around meant that I was able to minimize noise in the foreground. I then sat down and got comfortable and prepared for a long wait. I took the image of the sky and the lighthouse beacon a couple of hours later once it was fully dark, all the while hoping it didn't get any cloudier! I was worried that the beacon would overpower the sky but it was flashing in a pattern that meant it was lit for a total of about 8 seconds of my 25 second exposure and so it balanced out nicely. I then blended my image of the sky (just one) and my focus stacked image in photoshop.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.