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I used to think stacked astro photos were cheating, now I do it every time
For the first 3 years of shooting night sky stuff, I refused to stack anything. I thought it was fake, like you weren't a real photographer if you didn't nail it in one shot. Then I spent a weekend at Cherry Springs back in 2021 and this older guy set up next to me. He showed me his single frame of the Milky Way versus his stacked version and I couldn't argue with it. The stacked one had detail in the dust lanes that just wasn't there in the single. I still try to get a good single exposure first, but now I always grab at least 20 frames and stack them in DeepSkyStacker. Has anyone else gone from hating stacking to loving it?
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aaron_wilson1712d ago
My buddy refused to stack for years too, said it was cheating. Then he spent three hours editing a single noisy shot and finally gave in. Now he stacks everything and sleeps better.
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ward.mason12d ago
Yeah I went through almost the exact same thing with my own astro shots last year. Thought stacking was some kind of shortcut until I spent a whole night fighting a single Milky Way frame that looked like garbage. Finally gave in, threw it into Sequator, and the difference was night and day. Now I stack everything and honestly I don't feel like I'm cheating at all, just using the tools to get the shot I actually wanted.
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