Star Trails

Alpha_Plus

I tried my first star trails shot tonight. Turned out not too bad and thought I'd share. The tree is a long way out of focus as auto wasn't working in the light and being the first time didn't bother too much to get it perfect as I couldn't really tell myself on location anyway.

Made up of 25 x 30sec exposures processed in Photoshop.



Comments and ideas for next time are appreciated.
Thanks.

kdog

Yup, you have star trails, which in themselves are rarely interesting as a composition. You usually need a foreground element as well, and obviously your dark blurry trees don't quite cut it here. Deciduous trees in close foreground usually won't work well because you'll get blurring from movement of leaves in addition to the DOF challenges.

You've got the skills now, you just need to go out and find yourself a composition. One trick you can try is light-painting the foreground element. Click here for an example: http://www.jacara.com/cpg144/albums/death_valley/IMG_4388.jpg

Regards,
-joel

Alpha_Plus

kdog wrote:

Yup, you have star trails, which in themselves are rarely interesting as a composition. You usually need a foreground element as well, and obviously your dark blurry trees don't quite cut it here. Deciduous trees in close foreground usually won't work well because you'll get blurring from movement of leaves in addition to the DOF challenges.

You've got the skills now, you just need to go out and find yourself a composition. One trick you can try is light-painting the foreground element. Click here for an example: http://www.jacara.com/cpg144/albums/death_valley/IMG_4388.jpg

Regards,
-joel

Thanks for your comment Joel. I'll see what I can find for my next attempt. Looks like light-painting is a great trick. Definately have to try that some time.