The Sky at Night

[Black Pearl]

Got a phone call of a mate to say he was heading out to shoot the stars and did I want to come play - well with an offer like that I couldn't say no.

This is the result of about an hours worth of 30 second exposures stacked in Photoshop - we had clouds coming in so no point in hanging around longer........and frankly I had a bottle of wine at home and central heating and my TV and work in the morning

Once your eyes have stopped spinning you might note the various things that passed through the camera's field of view and the number of stars the camera can pull out of the night sky...



Fuji X-T1 + 18-55mm
800iso - f3.2 - 30sec - 119 shots

[Shadowman]

Nice.

[James G]

Robin, really stunning... an hour, 30 secs 120, sorry, 119 images.... excellent. And I'm envious!

Is the foghorn the one at the Souter Lighthouse?

[marlunn]

Very nice Robin. When it warms up a bit I may well have to have a go at that - but its the foreground that I need to find - the one you have is great and fits so well.

[ST1]

Well put together Robin, I must try this sometime


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[All3n]

Hi, great job
what kind of lens gets this effect or how its taken?

[Black Pearl]

Robin, really stunning... an hour, 30 secs 120, sorry, 119 images.... excellent. And I'm envious!

Is the foghorn the one at the Souter Lighthouse?

It is Souter, its about a mile from me so easy to pop along to if the sky is nice or in this case clear.

[Black Pearl]

Hi, great job
what kind of lens gets this effect or how its taken?

The lens is just my standard Fuji XF18-55mm f2.8/4 @ 25.4mm

I looked online for recommendations then had a fiddle with the exposure when I got there ending up with the 800iso - wide open (f3.2 in this case) and 30 second shutter speeds. Then it was a case of setting the camera going and letting it take shot after shot after shot until I got bored and cold....turned out to be about an hour.

Processing is amazingly simple - I opened the raw files in Lightroom - synchronised then - tweaked the WB - tweaked the level - exported them to Photoshop as layers - selected all the layers at once - changed the Blend Mode to Lighten.

One of the files had someone walking in front with a torch (hence 119 not 120 from an hours worth of shooting) so I deselected that layer and the light streak disappeared from the final image. There are a couple of glitches and gaps when I stopped shooting to see if everything was working - I'm not confident in this type of photography - but next time I'll just let it run and run.

[Rainforest]

Super Robin. Love the graphic nature of your shot. Is the red line at the bottom a roadway?

[Black Pearl]

Super Robin. Love the graphic nature of your shot. Is the red line at the bottom a roadway?

Its a boat passing by out to sea.

[Wavelength]

Great image

[bnnrcn]

Very nice, thanks also for the explanation

[Rainforest]

Its a boat passing by out to sea.

Ah yes a lighthouse!...sea... Anyway, it's a big plus in this shot. ;-)

[IzzieK]

Good one, Robin. 'Wish I can go out one day to do one of this. At the moment, fat chance!