Back to Basics

[Colin Southern]

Hi Carl,

It's not too hard - just 1 shot with a very long exposure (actually on bulb mode) to capture the light trails, and a 2nd with a very short exposure to freeze the motion of the aircraft.

From there it's a relatively straight-forward composite in Photoshop.

[MilT0s]

Ok, two camera, two tripods, same (almost) viewing angle for both cameras, same lens (???) or at least focal length, same ISO and aperture. How did you synchronized the cameras??

Perhaps two remotes, with one hand pressing the bulb and with the other shooting the second while leaving the bulb on the first one?

[Colin Southern]

Ok, two camera, two tripods, same (almost) viewing angle for both cameras, same lens (???) or at least focus length, same ISO and aperture. How did you synchronized the cameras??

Perhaps two remotes, with one hand pressing the bulb and with the other shooting the second while leaving the bulb on the first one?

Hi Miltos,

Two cameras - 1 tripod - same focal length - vastly different ISO and aperture. No need to synchronise the cameras; the first is on bulb mode (with a remote release) so I trigger and hold the release as soon as the plane comes into view (to capture the light trails) (at an aperture / ISO setting that I know will work well from previous experiments). The second camera is setup to fire a burst at as fast a speed as possible - so what I do is wait until I'm almost ready to stop the first camera - start the 2nd camera firing a burst - then stop the first camera so that I'm guaranteed to get a frame with the aircraft close to where the light trails end.

[MilT0s]

Hmm, still don't get it.

Two cameras on one tripod concurrently??

[Colin Southern]

[MilT0s]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

OK then! Thanks for sharing your wisdom Colin!

[MilT0s]

Colin you placed your tripod over the fence of an airport? Why you are not in prison?

[Stagecoach]

Hi Colin, thanks for the info it's always interesting to find out how some images are actually produced.

I recall seeing a series of excellent similar night time airport shots quite some time ago but do not rember about the light trails at all. Not sure if they were here at CiC or another forum that I used to follow, but have you posted similar before or is this something you have recently been doing ?

Grahame

[Donald]

Good to see you making images again.

[FrankMi]

Hmmmm... If I were to merge two images into one, what would the EXIF data tell me?

By the way, nice capture Colin! I need to get out to an airport at night and get some shots!

This was a fun image to figure out!

When you merge two images, the EXIF data from only one of the two images is retained and the other is lost. In this case, the long exposure of the plane's light trails couldn't possibly match the EXIF data! That EXIF data must have been from a different image.

Why couldn't the 1/800sec exposure been for the overall scene? Look at the shape of the lights. The longer the exposure, the more pronounced the star shape pattern will be. The only thing that is left in the image that could match a fast shutter speed is the aircraft.

[Sergio M.]

Colin, thank you for very instructional posts and for a really cool looking image.

Serge

[Carl in Louisiana]

This was a fun image to figure out!

When you merge two images, the EXIF data from only one of the two images is retained and the other is lost. In this case, the long exposure of the plane's light trails couldn't possibly match the EXIF data! That EXIF data must have been from a different image.

Why couldn't the 1/800sec exposure been for the overall scene? Look at the shape of the lights. The longer the exposure, the more pronounced the star shape pattern will be. The only thing that is left in the image that could match a fast shutter speed is the aircraft.

I have indeed learned much today! It has also taught me that I have only scratched the surface thus far. Thanks Colin for the lessons.

[nimitzbenedicto]

I have indeed learned much today! It has also taught me that I have only scratched the surface thus far. Thanks Colin for the lessons.

Gosh! and they call this "Basic".

[Colin Southern]

Colin you placed your tripod over the fence of an airport? Why you are not in prison?

What they don't know won't hurt them!

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin, thanks for the info it's always interesting to find out how some images are actually produced.

I recall seeing a series of excellent similar night time airport shots quite some time ago but do not rember about the light trails at all. Not sure if they were here at CiC or another forum that I used to follow, but have you posted similar before or is this something you have recently been doing ?

Grahame

Hi Grahame,

Just these two as far as I know ...

Starry Starry Night

Tired & Hungry, One by One, the Birds Returned to Roost

[Colin Southern]

Good to see you making images again.

Thanks Donald

[Colin Southern]

This was a fun image to figure out!

When you merge two images, the EXIF data from only one of the two images is retained and the other is lost. In this case, the long exposure of the plane's light trails couldn't possibly match the EXIF data! That EXIF data must have been from a different image.

Why couldn't the 1/800sec exposure been for the overall scene? Look at the shape of the lights. The longer the exposure, the more pronounced the star shape pattern will be. The only thing that is left in the image that could match a fast shutter speed is the aircraft.

Yep - spot on Frank!

I also took some reference shots without any aircraft activity so I could shorten the trail if needed, but I didn't need them.

This is just a warm up - what I really want is an aircraft taking off towards the camera (50/50 change, but the gods of aviation weren't smiling at me that night).

[Colin Southern]

Colin, thank you for very instructional posts and for a really cool looking image.

Serge

You're very welcome Sergio

[Colin Southern]

I have indeed learned much today! It has also taught me that I have only scratched the surface thus far. Thanks Colin for the lessons.

No worries Carl,

The theory is straight-forward enough, but in practice it's not as easy as it may seem!

[Colin Southern]

Gosh! and they call this "Basic".

It's not toooooo bad to do -- the biggest problem is having only a few very noisy pixels of the aircraft to work with; I really need a 800mm F1.0 lens!