Death Valley Star Trails

chrismoore

Here's one of a few star trails I shot at the racetrack. With a new moon and clear sky, the sky was very dramatic. This one was about two hours, I believe.

Mark Ledingham

Truly a stunning shot! And the light in the foreground not only creates depth of field, without adding a certain abstract feel to the image. Well done.

Eia

Very interesting - really cool. How did you add the light to the rock?

GORIO

that is some star trail.. usually to get this streaking effect of the stars it would take more than 2 hours of exposure.. care to share the settings here, and just one question the inclusion of the light on the foreground.. how were you able to keep the lighting control at long exposure?

dls

that is one wild star trail. i like how you painted the rock. how did you get the timing right on that exposure by the way? i would imagine you could easily over or under light the rock. and what time of the year was the picture taken? the stars seem to go from concave to convex higher up in the horizon... pretty cool.

chrismoore

Thank you for the comments. Here are a couple more. The first one we were just playing around but it looks kinda cool. The second was four hours of exposure- kind of looks like you're about to enter hyperspace!





To answer your questions about the first image, the settings are as follows:

Camera: 5d Mark II
ISO: 1600
Exposure: 30s
Aperture: f/5.0
Manual mode
Total of 278 shots stacked in CS3.

The lighting on the rock was done with a flashlight and trial and error. With the small aperture and high ISO all it took was a quick burst of light. I did find it odd how the stars seem to be traveling in two separate paths. The north star (bottom shot above) was about 110 degrees camera left.

Awais Yaqub

Jaw Dropping !
Great work

lizzard_nyc

As far as your hyperspace shot goes...:jawdrop :jawdrop

IanJ

Wow! Some amazing photos. I even like your test one with the light trail. Have to go to the country side now!

Ian

chrismoore

Its nice to let the camera do the work for you. I just set the intervalometer and took a nap. Quicktime Pro allows you to compile the image sequence into a movie file. It is neat to watch in motion and see the shooting stars appear a few times.

Dionysus

I always heard that longer than 30 min could possibly fry your sensor, is that not true then? when doing star trails and light painting like that, do you usually go for a wider aperture, or smaller...fascinating.

chrismoore

Dionysus wrote:

I always heard that longer than 30 min could possibly fry your sensor, is that not true then? when doing star trails and light painting like that, do you usually go for a wider aperture, or smaller...fascinating.

in this case the exposure was not two hours, but many separate frames that were 30 seconds each, then I stacked them in photoshop. I usually go for a wide aperture to let more light in, and a higher ISO, in this case 1600. There are other threads, however, where people recommend ISO of 200 or so. whatever works.

craig_d

chrismoore wrote:

in this case the exposure was not two hours, but many separate frames that were 30 seconds each, then I stacked them in photoshop. I usually go for a wide aperture to let more light in, and a higher ISO, in this case 1600. There are other threads, however, where people recommend ISO of 200 or so. whatever works.

What was the reason for doing a huge number of 30 second exposures as opposed to a smaller number of exposures of a few minutes each? Would the final merged image be significantly different?

Dionysus

but is there any truth in the belief that for long exposures after 30 minutes you run the risk of frying your sensor?

chrismoore

craig_d wrote:

What was the reason for doing a huge number of 30 second exposures as opposed to a smaller number of exposures of a few minutes each? Would the final merged image be significantly different?

The exposures could have been longer than 30 sec, but when shooting digital exposures of longer duration there is a whole lot of noise. Since I was using such a high ISO I wanted to minimize noise.

chrismoore

Dionysus wrote:

but is there any truth in the belief that for long exposures after 30 minutes you run the risk of frying your sensor?

I suppose it would depend on the sensor. I've done 60 min exposure with no problems.

wendell

Great image, the painted rock makes it appear to be of another world.
wl

pyry

Great work all around!

Love the blue light job, looks like it should end in the hand of gymnast

I think the foreground light in the first could be more spread out, but better this than nothing

chrismoore wrote:

I did find it odd how the stars seem to be traveling in two separate paths. The north star (bottom shot above) was about 110 degrees camera left.

Assuming we are seeing the same thing here: isn't that because you are shooting across the celestial equator, so that some stars are seen revolving around the north celestial pole and the other around the south making two sets of circles.