Wow, I recently voted for this on the loupe! NICE!!!

I love it, great job again the God of Photography, Macindows.

was this picture, this piece of beautiful art enhanced a lot in photoshop or is it just the nature of the camera and sick ass lens you use?

As I said, just the pure beauty of a full moon night and a low noise camera with a f/2.8 lens. ;-)

I used Photoshop only for resizing - no alterations, no adding contrast or saturation or whatsoever!

Unbelievable. Probably your best effort to date and well worth the hike.
Thanks :)

this is outstanding...from web to wallpaper!

WOW! I'm a photographer and look at a lot of pictures every day, and this is one of the nicest I've seen in a very long while. Awesome capture!

Awesome picture. I'm just speechless.

Looks like the beginning to a Paramount movie.

Love it, thanks submitter!

Excellent clarity, the colors are simply awesome. One of my favorite wallpapers to date.

Thanks for all your compliments and nice comments! As a thank you I uploaded a wide angle version to my wallpaper section at:

www.dominickamp.de

Head over there and have a look.

Stunning, simply stunning.

Nice work, Mac. Clear but creamy and dreamy. You just dislodged a picture I've had on my desktop for weeks.

an instant classic.

although too bad half the stars look like dust specks. i didn't know you could capture the earth's rotation in 15 seconds. either that or just a record number of meteoroids.

Unaltered? Simply stunning.

Magnificent!!! I could use many other adjectives to this fantastic photo. Well, I believe you feel it was worth the hard trip to capture this one. Congratulations!

Whoa, this is an amazing picture! It went straight to my destop, and I think it's going to stay there for a while... Great work!

incredible

A truly amazing shot. The fact that it is completely unedited in any way makes it truly a masterpiece. Very well done.

Terrific shot! That's so damn beautiful! Thank you so much for this awesome submission!

magnificent shot. it is truly breathtaking. thank you

It's hard to believe that it's unedited, the photographer really makes all the difference.

Great job!.

How can some of the stars be in front of the clouds ??
Got me beat.

Amazing!!

Awesome beyond belief...

@ Thomatis:

Question:
How is it possible that a star seems to be in front of a cloud?

Answer:
Very simple. During a long exposure the camera sensor collects all light for the determined time frame (in this case 15 seconds). So at second #1, the star is yet uncovered by the cloud but towards the end of the 15 seconds time frame, the star has been covered by the moving cloud. And since the star is emitting far more light that the cloud, it seems to shine through the cloud or as you said "in front of the cloud".

Very nicely done!

@ macindows
This appears to be cirrus cloud, probably about 30,000 feet high. In the 15 sec exposure it would barely move in the frame. Certainly nowhere near the amount you suggest. Also, the big star at the very left should have disappeared behind the hill.

Amazing!!! definitely my next destination!
But.. how did you get a shot so clear? No noise at all!!!
And in your site version, at the foot of the mountain there are two small colored lights that are not on this version. Have you removed them?
Awesome picture, awesome place!

@ Thomatis/Weather expert/Photography expert/Troll:
Sorry, I forgot that you've been there when I took the photo! So, of course I'm lying about the star! I totally photoshopped it there on purpose to fool you all!

@emmanueliarussi:
Exactly, I removed the two lights because I thought they were distracting the overall image. However, as I said, the photo has not been altered, no color changes, no contrast changes, no nothing. I probably should have removed the star within the cloud as well to avoid these stupid and smartass discussions as with John Coleman...

Awesome shot!

BTW, I would just keep my composure and ignore the skeptics.

lol! It's fine!! I really like the stars through the clouds! but I was not sure of the colored lights.

Absolutely amazing capture! Thanks for sharing.

Quick question: The stars seem to have moved during the 15 second exposure. Is this due to the shallow DOF? Or is the light just bleeding from the stars due to the long exposure? Just curious. thanks again.

@ Thomatis: Being a cloud expert, you should know that cirrus clouds are very thin. I don't believe it is to far fetched to believe that a star shining though the edge of very thin cloud would appear to be in front of a cloud.

epic ....total perfection !

Simply fantastic. I usually change wallpapers frequently, but I'm honestly going to keep this one up clear through my studying abroad in Switzerland Spring semester of next year. I love the amazing clarity in conjunction with the stary sky. I'm just so used to these pictures being taken at sunset and highly saturated. This one took my breath away. Bravo.

Wooooow, Jesus on a bike....

@EastTN:
Thanks for your question!

Well, the stars have moved mainly due to the earth's rotation. ;-) Furthermore, there is no shallow depth of field because I was using a 12-24mm wide angle lens which basically has almost no depth of field, meaning that everything from 2m is crisp. Of course, it also depends on the aperture you're setting on a lens. The lower you set the aperture level (e.g. f/2.8 or even f/1.4 on certain lenses), the more blurriness you get beyond your focal point.

In this photo the focal point is the Matterhorn in the very back. It is so far away that even if you'd be using a 400mm f/2.8 lens, the stars in the back would still be sharp (depending on your shutter time of course).

If you want to prevent the stars from moving you don't have to be god but simply get yourself a star observatory tripod which automatically follows the stars. This allows you to shoot a perfectly sharp image of the night sky without having to increase your camera's ISO. Then I'd take a regular long exposure of my motive and merge these two images in Photoshop. These tripods however, are pretty expensive and really heavy - so not really an option to carry around for a 4 miles hike on top of a mountain! ;-)

I hope that clarifies your question.

Another amazing photo that will grace my desktop for a good while. And Mac, just ignore the haters. I come here for quality wallpapers, and you sir, deliver just that. Keep the incredible submissions coming =D

I hate to be a skeptic too, but:
- no starlight reflected in the lake?
- that's a lot of light for moonlight.
- and 15 seconds isn't enough to show the motion of stars...

However, even if this is a composition, or it is a once-in-a-lifetime capture, it's still an unbelievably great shot! Thank you!

This should be featured in the wallpaper pack for Windows 8! Excellent Picture!

Ummm, you wouldn't see the reflection of most stars because of the movement of the water. And the reflection only covers an area of the sky slightly higher than the height of the Matterhorn. Despite that, a few of the brighter stars are visible in the water.

And with a long enough exposure, you can take a picture in near pitch black conditions and make it look like daylight. It's been done on this website before.

Macindows is one of the most distinguished artists on Interfacelift, so I for one trust him when he says this is close to raw.

The movement of the water would still reflect starlight (distorted though). And there are numerous stars between the summit and the lake which aren't reflected (despite the summit and tree line being reflected. Those bright stars we see in the lake don't line up to anything in the sky.

This isn't to discount the magnificence of the composition; just to point out the difficulty in believing that it is one photograph that has not been manipulated. A lot of us amateur photogs are going to want to go try and create something like this with just our camera and nothing else but I doubt it's possible......Yes Macindows is very talented and yes this is a beautiful picture but we also know Macindows talents extend from the camera to digital manipulation (see some of his other amazing work).

First, according to my calculations, in 15 seconds the Earth should rotate .0625 degrees. Second, as we all know, the Matterhorn only exists in travel brochures. Third, the star field shown in this particular image does not belong to this quadrant of the galaxy. My surmise: Dominic Camp, (aka Macindows), is an alien and does not own a camera. The image here is a telepathic projection directly from his enormous brain to the IFL server! I am shaken to the core, but still a huge fan of his work.

PS: Dominic, your secret is safe with me.

:-D Good one, Stubulman!

Well, to finally end this discussion as to whether I'm lying or not, please watch the following video. I hope this will quiet the last remaining disbelievers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGcrbNjO3u8

Gorgeous! Instantly to my desktop. Thanks Macindows!

Yep Yep, went on mine aswell! I'm new on here but latly followed a few discussions like this one and I've been following Dominic's work on here and his homepage for a while. And THESE discussions are so not needed and off topic, arent they? I mean to a certain extent this site is still about arts and who cares if its "fake" or not or technicly doubtable? As long as the artist stands behind it with his own idea and composition, which Dominic does each time he uploads one of his stunning works so he shouldn't be questioned for such things.
Some people should appreciate the great works we get to see on here more because it's still about enjoying it and encouraging those artists to share more of their works with us not taking them apart like no tomorrow.

Oh and btw, how would it make sense always pointing out how his pictures are "manipulated" (hate that word) as Dominic always does. And then to lie about one work to make us think its real, without any reason. Unless it's a super long con ... probably the greatest one in IFL history. Come on guys haha
Thank you Macindows for your great !photographs!...best compositions on here by far...

P.S.:I personally agree with Stubulman in every point!

Hey Macindows
Contratz for the marvelous shot!

One question : how do you decide of the exposure time (in this case 15 seconds) ? Do you just try several exposures until you have a satisfying result, or do you somehow "measure" the luminance of the scene and choose accordingly ?

Thanks

It took me about a day, but I finally figured out the stars. Dim stars are almost as bright in this picture as much brighter ones. That makes it hard to recognize the patterns. However, they are correct for the time the picture was taken. Virgo is right above the Matterhorn and two planets, Saturn and Mars, are also in the picture (lower right). Great picture!

You did nothing to enhance this? WOW!!!

This is the best photo/wallpaper I have seen on the site, hands down!

@Thomatis
1) You have a point, but I think he clarified what he meant by no alterations. Perhaps he wasn't clear at first, but that is not a lie.
2)Where is that quote from? It is nonsense. You can easily see stars during a full moon. Besides, just because your eyes shut down due to the moon light doesn't mean a camera will.
3)My planetarium program confirms the date and apporximate time.
4)As others have stated, the water is not a perfect reflector. It blurs everything. Dim stars end up being spread out to the point of not providing enough light to show up. I live on a real lake and can almost never see the stars reflected. Venus might have been visible, but it just set before the picture was taken.
Pat

Although everybody knows this by now, I just wanna say that Macindows definitely has a distinct, awesome style. I could tell this submission was his before reading his name.

Wow!

ive had this on my desktop for about a week and evey time i boot up i take a second to look at it ....amazing photograph !

Only 3 wallpapers in last 2 years
1 Driftwood
2 spectrum of Sky and
3 Matterhorn's Midnight Reflection

You ROCK!