Star trails

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Arnold ten Pas
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Star trails

Post by Arnold ten Pas »

Hi,

During my holiday in the Slovak Republic, I experimented with some star trail photography. I have been fascinated by this for some time and wanted to try for myself. Below is a first try-out, definetaly not the last one! After reading some tutorials on Internet, my set-up was:

Tri-pod
Eos 5D Mk11
Tamron XR Di 28-75/2.8
Shutterspeed: 30 seconds
Aperture: 2.8
Manual Focus
Remote control TC80-N3

The latter I used to lock the shutter release, enabling the camera to make multiple images, unattended. I centered the image on Polaris (the current Polar Star) as it virtually does not move, making a great center for the images.I used 109 images which post-processed in StarStax. As the output file was rather big, I did quit some compression. Looking forward to your C&C (or better; experiences / your examples on this topic!)

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Arnold ten Pas
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RogierV
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Re: Star trails

Post by RogierV »

Very nice pictures ( ;-) ) Arnold, especially for a try-out! I did my first try-outs last year at campsites in Switzerland. I didn't go for the stacking method, but instead chose for single long exposures. Since, I haven't been in suitable locations without much ambient light anymore, so I didn't experiment any further with star trail photography. The stacking method makes it easier to expose the photo correctly and make trails as long as you prefer. I think it also introduces less noise and does not make defective pixels as visible as a long exposure does. Still I like the long exposure method as it gives you really a picture as made on site.

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10 minute exposure without moonlight

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12 minute exposure with moonlight

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An almost full moon and a 20 minute exposure gave this "daylight star trail". Interesting to see that the light spectrum of the reflected sunlight does not differ that much from direct sunlight.

I personally think star trail photos with foreground subjects are more eye-cathing than plain black sky with trails. Many great and inspiring pictures can be found online, i.e. at http://www.danheller.com/star-trails.html.

Light painting with a flashlight can give interesting effects, as shown in the picture below, although the star trails are much too short.

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Looking forward to see more examples! A headlamp, coffee and patience are useful items to bring along ;-).
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Arnold ten Pas
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Re: Star trails

Post by Arnold ten Pas »

Hi Rogier,

Very nice pictures! I do like the pictures with a subject in the foreground but this was bit difficult to accomplish in my case. I see what you mean with the single-shot-exposure, but I was afraid that opening the shutter for almost an hour (or 109*30 = 54.30 minutes..:-) would harm the sensor in some way. Can't wait to make some more!
Arnold ten Pas
4Aviation
http://www.4Aviation.nl
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Re: Star trails

Post by Key »

Great work guys, very interesting. Thanks for sharing!

Erik
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