An attempt at start trails

greenpea

I went camping at Deer Park (NE corner of Olympic National Park). At an elevation of 5400+ ft, the air is pretty clear and we were well above any clouds. After the moon set, I decided to make an attempt at getting a picture of start trails. Here's what I got. C&C welcome.

rustic

Hi Andrew,

Nice Grab! I very much like the trees in the front. How long an exposure was this?

My only complaint would be that it looks like you almost got the north star in the upper left corner, but not quite. Did you leave it out for any particular purpose, or just not realize where it was until after the exposure?

greenpea wrote:

I went camping at Deer Park (NE corner of Olympic National Park). At an elevation of 5400+ ft, the air is pretty clear and we were well above any clouds. After the moon set, I decided to make an attempt at getting a picture of start trails. Here's what I got. C&C welcome.

greenpea

rustic wrote:

Hi Andrew,

Nice Grab! I very much like the trees in the front. How long an exposure was this?

My only complaint would be that it looks like you almost got the north star in the upper left corner, but not quite. Did you leave it out for any particular purpose, or just not realize where it was until after the exposure?

Thanks rustic!

The exposure was 519 seconds. I forgot to bring my remote, and with a Nikon D70 the only way to hold the shutter open w/o a remote (that I know of) is to hold your finger on the shutter button. So I held it down until I started getting cold and bored.

With the off center thing, I also didn't have my flashlight with me, and it was kind of hard to see the compass and figure out exactly which way to point to get due north. Also there were a couple of purple areas on the upper left corner from the long exposure that I cropped out of the picture (you can still see a little of the purple in the picture).

rustic

Wow, that's quite a while to hold your finger on the shutter!

Betcha won't forget the remote next time, eh?

schmoo

Andrew, really nice trails and composition! If there is something I could change about it it would be a slightly brighter horizon to bring out the trees more, maybe just a little earlier in the evening? I love the silhouettes, such classic shapes.

I admire your patience for sitting there holding the button down. You have very still hands!

greenpea

schmooo wrote:

Andrew, really nice trails and composition! If there is something I could change about it it would be a slightly brighter horizon to bring out the trees more, maybe just a little earlier in the evening? I love the silhouettes, such classic shapes.

I admire your patience for sitting there holding the button down. You have very still hands!

Thanks shmooo.

As for holding the button down, I actually switched fingers several times (it was really cold out). I read somewhere that with very long exposures that a little shaking of the camera won't effect the overall exposure as long as camera is still most of the time.

I'll see what I can do with the horizon in this pic.

And I'm hoping to get an opportunity to improve on the picture at Glacier

schmoo

greenpea wrote:

Thanks shmooo.

As for holding the button down, I actually switched fingers several times (it was really cold out). I read somewhere that with very long exposures that a little shaking of the camera won't effect the overall exposure as long as camera is still most of the time.

I'll see what I can do with the horizon in this pic.

And I'm hoping to get an opportunity to improve on the picture at Glacier

You're right about the shake... I always forget how dark it is in real life at that hour when I see the resulting photo.

I am looking forward to getting some star trail practice up there, too! Stars and sunrises.

Goodbye, sleep.

DaddyO

If this is your first time at star trails you did great. Especially if your finger was on the trigger! Very nice capture. I'm thinking that next time your remote will be in the bag. I still need to buy me one of those crutial gadgets.

schmoo

Er, now that I'm looking at your shot from my computer at home on a real monitor, the horizon looks plenty bright enough to really make the silhouettes pop out. Ignore what I said earlier!!