Star Trails

E

eeverson

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Euge
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Hiya,

Not been doing much togging recently however decided to give star trails a go....

This is an old Chicken Farm. Wasnt the best place to spend 1.5 hours on a Friday night in the dark and cold! It was a little hazy so not all the stars were on display.

StarTrail.jpg


This was more of a snap shot.. Came home late and noticed all the stars were out, with beer in my veins it meant the garden was the only suitable location. So set everything up and went to bed :)

Star_Trails_WA5.jpg


The bright bit on thr left is the moon.

Cheers for looking
Euge
 
Not bad attemps at all, am waiting for a nice clear night to go give it ago myself.
 
Very good... been itching to try this myself but not managed it yet.

If I get anything like those when I do try I`d be very happy. :)

Just noticed...

There seems to be a straight line (for want of a better description) starting from the middle left hand side going into the center (or from the center to the left) on the first.

Not a nit-pick... just noticed it when I went back for another look.

Still very good shots. (y)
 
Saw a similar shot a few weeks ago and really must give this a try. What was the exposure?
 
Thanks for the comments.

Not sure what the straight line is, I will have a look through the originals and see if i can find it!

I took about 180 x 30 second exposures (F5.6? ISO200) and then used an action witihn Photoshop to merge them all together. I originally wanted to do this with a single exposure but quickly realised that was never going to happen. The advantage of using lots of 30 second exposusres is that you can remove planes and things.

The 2nd shot was setup to run for 4 hours but the clouds came in and scuppered my plans.

I have 2 more locations to try this on that will give a much more interesting foreground :)
 
They've both worked very well (y)

I'd say that line is probably a satellite track. If you can find the original frame or two it was from, then using the times and your location you can work out which one it is.
 
No i didnt use any filters.. But they would give a little more flexibility when getting the right exposure. This was all very much trial and error, I am sure there is a scientific way but it worked...

Set Camera to Manual and select 30 second shutter speed and widest aperature available (f5.6 for me on this lens). Take a shot and check the foreground isnt blown and that you can see some stars. They are pretty hard to spot on the viewfinder. I then adjusted the ISO to get the exposure correct in my case went to ISO200. When you have the exposure set the camera to continuous shooting mode and lock the shutter open with a remote release.

Dont forget to everything revolves around the north star.. so take a compass or know your stars :)

I will go and have a look and see if it was a satelitte :)
 
One thing, if you shoot in jpg, you can use the startrails application to combine the frames.
 
no.1 I very much like. Love the colours and the trails have worked well. Two I like also, but not so much. I think it's because the multiple exposures have created a stepped effect rather than a smooth blur on some of the clouds. Keep up the good work.
 
Thanks eeverson....couple of questions:
1) why the widest and not the smallest if details is what we are after?
2) Was ISO200 the lowest you could go to for that shot - was it not possible to adjust to ISO100?

Many thanks!
 
1) why the widest and not the smallest if details is what we are after?
2) Was ISO200 the lowest you could go to for that shot - was it not possible to adjust to ISO100?
Click to expand...

1) Because of the focal length. The focus was set to infinity and as the closest thing was infocus at this length there was no need to use a smaller apature; everything would have the same detail if using F4 or F22. (someone correct me if i am wrong on this!)

2) I tried ISO100 and the building was blown out in places so went with ISO200. I could have used a 15 second Shutter speed and ISO100 but that would have meant taking twice as many exposures and thus more to sort out afterwards post processing.
 
eeverson said:
2) I tried ISO100 and the building was blown out in places so went with ISO200. I could have used a 15 second Shutter speed and ISO100 but that would have meant taking twice as many exposures and thus more to sort out afterwards post processing.
Click to expand...

You've lost me here... You had blown out highlights, so you increased the sensitivity to light and it solved the problem?
 
I would just ignore me i am talking rubbish!

I was in the middle of another conversation about blown highlights and seem to have written than on here in my subconcious!

The correct response is:

"I tried ISO100 and the building was under exposed so went with ISO200."
 
Nice trails there, the light from those stars had ceased to exist when the stars burnt out well before the camera you used was ever made and your birth to progression into adulthood in activating the shutter in recording those images. (or words to that effect) :D
There's a great long fascinating paragraph in last months Photo Monthly magazine.
 
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