First Star Trail Image

[cliffmccartney]

Here's my first attempt at capturing star trails.

Taken from the patio at my house in the Smoky Mountains.

Tripod mounted Nikon D800 + Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 @ 14mm, 30 second shutter speed, ISO 800. 90 images, timed and shot with a Nikon MC-36a cable release / intervalometer, and stacked together in Photoshop CC. I used a Nikon SB910 speedlight with a full CTO gel to flash the first 3 images.



Thanks for viewing!

[Donald]

Here's my first attempt at capturing star trails.

FIRST ATTEMPT? I look forward to seeing the pictures once you get used to doing it!!

This, I think, is a very impressive image. I think what particularly makes it for me is the fact that it's different. We've seen lots of start trails with mountains in them. But in this one, the trees craft a wonderful sky space. It's irregular. And we also got teh trails going through the trees. Super.

[Digital]

Beautiful photo. Nice work.


Bruce

[cliffmccartney]

Thanks Donald and Bruce!

[Nancy Moran G]

1st attempt? Kidding right?!
Wonderful. Did you find Polaris to get the circular motion ?
Does high ISO give you brighter stars? Obviously, I have not done this yet
Nancy

[cliffmccartney]

Thanks Nancy. Yes, my first try. I used a compass app on my iPhone to find Polaris, but it said it was further back. You can't see it, but my house is just out of the frame to the right. I thought that North was behind the house, and I didn't really want to include the house in the shot. As it happens, it was actually just up and to the right of the top right corner of the shot (you can see the concentric circles getting smaller that way). I wanted to go out the next night and try again, but the moon was a bit fuller and I had quite a few more clouds. I'm waiting for a clear night to try again. I'd like to try and get Polaris on the upper right intersection in a rule-of-thirds grid.

I tried test shots using ISO from all up and down the range from 200 to 6400. I settled on ISO 800 after looking at all of them. I used a flash on the first three shots to light up the trees. I didn't want bright white light so I used a full CTO gel on the flash.