Star Photography

[amisueloo]

I looked for a post on this, but was unable to find it. I remember seeing a photo someone took of the stars, where the stars looped around the north star and made trails of light.


Does anyone know how to take these pictures? Where should I aim my camera? Can I do this with a DSLR? How long should I leave my shutter open?

I remember how interesting it was, and wanted to try it.

Thanks!

[mseigafuse]

Is this the one you were looking for?

http://digital-photography-school.co...cking-software

[amisueloo]

Originally Posted by mseigafuse

Is this the one you were looking for?

http://digital-photography-school.co...cking-software

Haha! I didn't even know this part of the site existed! I was just using the forums. Thank you!

[henryscat]

I'm actually attempting these shots at the moment with a friends old totally manual camera - no batteries required!

Only problem is, with exposures between 30 mins and 2 hours, it takes quite a long time to fill a spool of film...

[Durbs]

There's a good article in this months DLSRPhotography mag which explains how to set up the camera, exposure etc. - didn't need the software either.

One nice tip was to check which way you're facing - if you're facing North you'll get the stars turning around polaris - east or west leaves more vertical trails.

[mseigafuse]

Maybe it was this one you were looking for then...

Twilight Star Trails

[rediguana]

Originally Posted by amisueloo

Does anyone know how to take these pictures? Where should I aim my camera? Can I do this with a DSLR? How long should I leave my shutter open?

There are two ways you can do it.

1. Lots (e.g. 50+) of short exposures that are then stacked on each other to produce star trails. Generally requires a timer remote, but can be done manually. Requires more postprocessing to produce final image and produces far more data - hundreds of megabytes probably.

2. One longer expsoure. Requires a shutter release or timer remote but only produces a single file at the end. Depending on the temperature, you may get a number of hot pixels and may need to compensate in post by cancelling them out with a dark frame of the same length exposure. E.g. to take one 30 min exposure for trails, you need to take two - one with the lens cap on to produce a black frame and identify any hot pixels.

Finally, the length of trail is related to the focal length - the longer the focal length, the less time required to create a trail. If you want to create trails with a wide angle lens, you're going to require very long exposure (or a lot of shots).

Here's a sample one I did last year. I wrote it up in the forums here somewhere, I explain it here on my blog.



The biggest things is having an hour or two to experiement to get the exposure you're after.

[Xposurepro]

Here's a post I did not long ago .. quick tips on how to shoot star trails and some of my favorite star trails shots I've found on flickr ... Top 5 Star Trails on Flickr