The temple of Pura Luhur Poten in the Bromo-Tengger-Semeru National Park is situated in a vast plains halfway towards the volcanic crater of Mount Batok.  It was an arduous 40 minutes trek from the entrance of the park before we arrived at this location.  What had made this trek even more laborious was the choking sulfuric ashes that was spewing out of Mount Batok's crater - making this trek even the more impossible.  Our eyes were red and watery and our lungs felt like bursting just by breathing in the sulfuric fumes.  The freezing cold weather also did not help us much.


As with all Milky Way shoots, it was completely dark upon arriving at this location and we really did not know what was in front of us while making this shot.  We only knew that a temple was in front of us - the shape and size of the temple was an unknown element.  Manual focusing had to be made in pitch darkness.  Small torchlight was used to enable the camera to lock focus before switching back to the manual focusing mode.  Shooting the Milky Way is completely a "hit and miss" affair - I was just pressing the shutter with various combinations of ISOs, Shutter Values and Aperture Openings, just hoping that one exposure out of the hundreds would work.


In post processing, the White Balance, contrast and clarity of this exposure was adjusted to enhance the stars and the milky way.  A slight post sharpening using Nik's Output Sharpener was used.  Localized adjustment in Lightroom was used to selectively brighten the temple and to ensure that the temple had stood out from the completely dark background.


EOS 5DS R / Lens EF 17-40 mm f/4.0 L USM