Ishpuini
Veteran Member
While in Namibia I finally had an opportunity to have my go at star trails. Here in Europe there's way too much light and hardly any stars visible most of the time. But in Namibia I knew it would be different. The night sky was amazing on most nights, but only in Damaraland I could setup my camera to capture only the light emitted by the stars. It was also the best place where I had an interesting view in the southern direction from just outside our sleeping quarters. I only got one more opportunity after this, but it wasn't close in terms of compositional potential.
I set it up outside our tent and pointed it towards the south after locating the southern cross. Since it was the very first try, I decided to set the DA10-17 at 10mm to capture as much as possible from the sky (as many starts as possible), set the largest aperture (f/3.5) and programmed the remote for a 30 minute exposure to start 3 minutes after pressing the release on the remote. This gave me enough time to shut off the lights I needed for the setup and to get back inside the tent. I left the camera outside for 30min and took it in half way through the 30min dark frame subtraction that followed. Fell asleep in my bed (it was a big tent) subsequently so I only saw the result the next morning. First conclusion was that I should have tried longer than 30min because the star trails are a bit short for my taste. Also I had left it to ISO200 (with D-range) which was the base setting for the entire trip, and realised perhaps I should have used ISO100 to reduce noise a bit more (I could have brought out the foreground more then).
I tried another one a few days later in another place, but the scenery wasn't nearly as good and there was some stray light. I setup for 1h15min which turned out to be too ambitious as the result was too noisy. Forgot to adapt the ISO again, so probably that way partly the problem. Another problem then was that I couldn't locate the southern cross (it turned out to be behind a hill) so I guessed the south deriving the west from where I remembered the sun had set earlier. Slightly missed it, so the result wasn't really decent. Furthermore that night some clouds must have passed through the sky since the star trails were interrupted at times. They were nice and long, but overall I prefer the first trial by far. I haven't processed the second one yet (and I don't think I will), so I cannot show it.
Critiques, suggestions and so on are welcome on the one I am showing here. Not that I'm going to have another go at star trails soon, if only because I live in an area where this type of photography is just impossible... But perhaps you may have some pointers for the best post processing of this type of image?
tx, Wim
--
Belgium, GMT+1
I set it up outside our tent and pointed it towards the south after locating the southern cross. Since it was the very first try, I decided to set the DA10-17 at 10mm to capture as much as possible from the sky (as many starts as possible), set the largest aperture (f/3.5) and programmed the remote for a 30 minute exposure to start 3 minutes after pressing the release on the remote. This gave me enough time to shut off the lights I needed for the setup and to get back inside the tent. I left the camera outside for 30min and took it in half way through the 30min dark frame subtraction that followed. Fell asleep in my bed (it was a big tent) subsequently so I only saw the result the next morning. First conclusion was that I should have tried longer than 30min because the star trails are a bit short for my taste. Also I had left it to ISO200 (with D-range) which was the base setting for the entire trip, and realised perhaps I should have used ISO100 to reduce noise a bit more (I could have brought out the foreground more then).
I tried another one a few days later in another place, but the scenery wasn't nearly as good and there was some stray light. I setup for 1h15min which turned out to be too ambitious as the result was too noisy. Forgot to adapt the ISO again, so probably that way partly the problem. Another problem then was that I couldn't locate the southern cross (it turned out to be behind a hill) so I guessed the south deriving the west from where I remembered the sun had set earlier. Slightly missed it, so the result wasn't really decent. Furthermore that night some clouds must have passed through the sky since the star trails were interrupted at times. They were nice and long, but overall I prefer the first trial by far. I haven't processed the second one yet (and I don't think I will), so I cannot show it.
Critiques, suggestions and so on are welcome on the one I am showing here. Not that I'm going to have another go at star trails soon, if only because I live in an area where this type of photography is just impossible... But perhaps you may have some pointers for the best post processing of this type of image?
tx, Wim
--
Belgium, GMT+1
