Hello everyone,
I have never really done any astro or star photography before so this whole endeavour has been an enjoyable adventure. I thought rather than just posting up a photo i would give a little explanation as to how i actually took the photo. If nothing else it should serve as a reminder to me for the next time.
The forecast for Friday night wasn't great cloud cover-wise, but my father and I decided to chance our luck anyway. We headed up to near Blakeney in Norfolk (a good 2-hour drive) in the hopes that it would be dark enough to shoot. We arrived about 8:15 and went searching for the boat wreck shown below while it was still light. Locating the wreck and deciding it would work we headed back to the car for some dinner and to prep the gear. Checking everything was in order we discovered that one of the wireless intervalometers was malfunctioning. Fortunately, the cameras we were using have built in intervalometers so we survived one that mini disaster. We also discovered that i had left my tripods on the stairs in the rush to leave. Dad to rescue as he had 3 in the car just in case. We headed back to the wreck and got their about 10:30 armed with cameras, tripods, chairs and a thermos of coffee.
I mentioned before that I have never done this type of photography before and the same goes for my father so the setup was a bit hit and miss. The moon was almost directly behind us and made setting up a nightmare. It was lighting to boat so effectively that it was hard to judge our man-made lighting. we also discovered that the lights we have brought (read hand torches) were fantastically overpowered for the purpose. Even my tiny 5cm torches were too bright. After trying everything we could to dim the lights we opted to use the USB power bank i had brought to charge my phone as it had a weak led light in it. Weak though it was it was still too bright. Out came the 2 standard flash gels from the camera bag, folded over pinned in their plastic case they gave just the right amount of light for our exposures. We used black electrical tape to fix the gel container to the battery pack and then more electrical tape to fix the power bank to a tripod, Premium quality bodge job
With that done and the composition sorted we set up the chairs about 30metres away behind the cameras and started shooting about 12:30. I should add that it actually get quite cold up on the coast despite it being summer and was very windy (as the time-lapse should show) we ended up shooting till about 2:30 and packing up. I made it home just before 5am
This is also my first Time-Lapse, hope you like it. (best viewed as high res as possible)
Best of the meteors a blend of 3 images:
Persied Meteors 12 Aug 2016-
by David Baterip, on Flickr
thanks very much for looking, please let me know what you think, i'm new to this type of photography and would appreciate tips/feedback
I have never really done any astro or star photography before so this whole endeavour has been an enjoyable adventure. I thought rather than just posting up a photo i would give a little explanation as to how i actually took the photo. If nothing else it should serve as a reminder to me for the next time.
The forecast for Friday night wasn't great cloud cover-wise, but my father and I decided to chance our luck anyway. We headed up to near Blakeney in Norfolk (a good 2-hour drive) in the hopes that it would be dark enough to shoot. We arrived about 8:15 and went searching for the boat wreck shown below while it was still light. Locating the wreck and deciding it would work we headed back to the car for some dinner and to prep the gear. Checking everything was in order we discovered that one of the wireless intervalometers was malfunctioning. Fortunately, the cameras we were using have built in intervalometers so we survived one that mini disaster. We also discovered that i had left my tripods on the stairs in the rush to leave. Dad to rescue as he had 3 in the car just in case. We headed back to the wreck and got their about 10:30 armed with cameras, tripods, chairs and a thermos of coffee.
I mentioned before that I have never done this type of photography before and the same goes for my father so the setup was a bit hit and miss. The moon was almost directly behind us and made setting up a nightmare. It was lighting to boat so effectively that it was hard to judge our man-made lighting. we also discovered that the lights we have brought (read hand torches) were fantastically overpowered for the purpose. Even my tiny 5cm torches were too bright. After trying everything we could to dim the lights we opted to use the USB power bank i had brought to charge my phone as it had a weak led light in it. Weak though it was it was still too bright. Out came the 2 standard flash gels from the camera bag, folded over pinned in their plastic case they gave just the right amount of light for our exposures. We used black electrical tape to fix the gel container to the battery pack and then more electrical tape to fix the power bank to a tripod, Premium quality bodge job
With that done and the composition sorted we set up the chairs about 30metres away behind the cameras and started shooting about 12:30. I should add that it actually get quite cold up on the coast despite it being summer and was very windy (as the time-lapse should show) we ended up shooting till about 2:30 and packing up. I made it home just before 5am
This is also my first Time-Lapse, hope you like it. (best viewed as high res as possible)
Best of the meteors a blend of 3 images:
Persied Meteors 12 Aug 2016-
by David Baterip, on Flickr
thanks very much for looking, please let me know what you think, i'm new to this type of photography and would appreciate tips/feedback
Last edited:
