Hot take: I think that overprocessed astrophotography is ruining the hobby for beginners

Last week I spent 4 nights out at a dark site near Tucson, just shooting with a basic DSLR and a tripod. I kept it simple, no fancy stacking or heavy editing. But when I posted my shots online, people told me they looked boring compared to all those crazy color boosted nebula photos. I get that we all want pretty pictures, but I think we are losing the real magic of just seeing what the night sky actually looks like. The raw photos I took that week had this quiet beauty that I never see in the overdone ones. Why does every star cluster need to look like a rainbow explosion? Has anyone else felt like the hobby is getting too focused on the final edit over the actual experience of being under the stars?

2 comments

2 Comments

christopher95219d ago

Yeah it’s the same with food pics online, everything’s filtered and plated perfect but nobody just enjoys eating anymore.

alice12119d ago

Guilty as charged, I spent 20 minutes arranging my sandwich for a pic the other day and it was cold by the time I ate it (worth it for the likes, maybe not though).