star trails please c&c

[iamsneaky13]

i was up in hidden valley pa and i drove around for about two hours to find a good place to do star trails. i asked the owners permission and then i went onto his farm and took these shots. sadly it was almost a full moon so i didnt get the shots i wanted because the sky was so bright, but im going back next week. anyways, please comment and critique, would love to know what you guys like, and more importantly what you don't like. so if you see something compositionally poor please tell me.

1.
i kindof like the ghost person on the bottom left but let me know what you think


2.
it is just one 48 minute exposure, hence the noise. i want to try again doing a lot of 1 minute exposures and then stitch them together, but ether way it came out ok

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[Stephen.C]

Came out pretty awesome to me! I like the composition in #2.

[den9]

the full moon might of helped you, seems like it lit the landscape up

what were your settings?

[Desire]

#1 the horizon seems a little off. But the second one is great! I love the light in it.

Curious of your settings as well!

[iamsneaky13]

thanks for the comments!
for the star trails: iso 100 f5.6 48 minute exposure 10mm
for the milkyway about 1 minute exposure f4 10mm iso 1600

[KillerKowalski]

1. There is a person on the left side. I was shocked no one mentioned it yet

2. Love the comp!

[iamsneaky13]

yeha i mentioned the person underneath the photo but noone has really said anything about it yet. by the way, the person is not me.

[oldmacman]

If you are open to post processing, you can get the shots looking a little more like night time. Here is the first one:

Steps:
- duplicate layer
- multiply new layer
- NR to reduce competition with the stars (at least I hope that was noise)
- curves adjustment to deepen the saturation of the dark tones
- colour adjustment to a cooler overall image

[sbunting108]

I love your second photograph it looks like the stars are actually circling round the tree

[iamsneaky13]

@oldmacman i do like your darker image, however im not really into post processing much. i would rather try to take the image i want than edit a marginal one to look better.

@sbunting they are circling around the tree!

[Neil S.]

yeha i mentioned the person underneath the photo but noone has really said anything about it yet. by the way, the person is not me.

Maybe its a ghost!

[Sachphotography]

When it comes to astrophotography you dont want to darken. You lose a lot of the stars and the milky way. Your shots are clean. The only down side is you can tell there is light pollution.... IT is hard to get away from these days.. Looks nice though. good job

[iamsneaky13]

thanks for the comments sachphotography. yeah there was a little light polution, however i think most of it was shooting by a full moon that was still low in the sky, brightning the horizon. i was actually in a mostly unpopulated area, if youve ever been to somerset(which i very much doubt) you would know that it is pretty much the middle of nowhere. there was nothing but the occasional farm for miles around.