Turning to the Dark Side.

[Wayland]

Hello, I found this site while doing some research into noise and low light sensor properties and the tutorials here had just the sort of information I was looking for.

Very nice to find it's a UK based site as well though I don't suppose that's all that important these days.

I'm an old school photographer from the "wet" days of film and chemistry and I think after a few years of digital working I'm just starting to get to grips with this new medium and understand it like I did in the darkroom.

I mostly produce landscape images these days but I've experimented with lots of different things in the past.
At the moment I'm looking to expand my photographic horizons by turning to the Dark Side

I figure just about every landscape in the UK has already been photographed so many times that the only way to produce something really different is to go out when the sun goes down.

I'm sure to stumble a few times along the way but this looks like the sort of place I could find answers if I trip up.

[Mark von Kanel]

dark side????

[Wayland]

Night Photography...

[Mark von Kanel]

ahhh i see , and if id read your post properly i would have sussed it for myself well, welcome to the forum youll enjoy it. keep us informed about how you get along. i havnt done any night stuff, but i keep saying im going to try.

if your above image is anything to go by youll do well i think. (though it looks more twilight than night). If you need any help youll find it here!

[Wayland]

That one is just twilight but I'm aiming to go a bit further into the darkness.



I've done a couple of star trail shots so far but I haven't had many clear skies to work with recently.

[Mark von Kanel]

Nice shot Gary, you seem to be well on the way! i assume you added the sky on to an earlier shot of the standing stones. the contributors would probably enjoy a brief description of how you achieved this. I know i would!

[Wayland]

It's a stack of 161 shots.

The top layer is taken in the last light of the setting sun and the rest are 30 second exposures taken from the same position starting about half an hour later.

The trailing stars are layers, blended in PhotoShop's "lighten" mode, with a few masks to remove aircraft trails where needed.

I would have taken more shots but a load of crusties turned up, set up a tent and started partying in the middle of the circle.

[Donald]

It's a stack of 161 shots.

My compliments, Gary. That's a beauty.

And welcome to CiC. I hope that as well as you advancing your knowledge and skills, that you'll be willing to share you're obviously pretty well-developed set of skills, with others who are trundling along the learning curve behind you.

[Wayland]

I still feel pretty low down on that curve Donald but I'm always willing to share the meagre contents of my old noggin.

I'm fortunate that I learn quickly by reading and the rest is just down to luck and perseverance.

[Steaphany]

Don't forget, astronomical photography doesn't have to wait for the Sun to set

[Wayland]

I tend work a lot in the golden and blue hours but I've seen a lot of interesting images of landscapes taken after astronomical twilight recently, especially from your side of the pond.

Adding that to the fact that my education work seems to be filling more and more of my daylight hours it seems like an interesting road to travel.

[geraldlieteau]

How did you make the sky look like that?

[Wayland]

As described in post #7.

Each exposure is long enough that the Earth's rotation causes the stars to be rendered as a streak rather than a point.

Each shot is then loaded into PhotoShop as a layer with the blend mode set to "lighten" which passes the lightest pixels to the top of the stack forming a more or less continuous trail to be described for each star.

The almost stationary star near the top is Polaris at the celestial pole so all the other stars appear to rotate around that point from our perspective.