Gave star trails a go - Re-edited version

jake337 · May 9, 2016

Was up north near Canada in Warroad Minnesota helping the in-laws work 0n their new trailer. Later on in the night we were relaxing around the campfire drinking and I decided to try some star trails. I wish I wasn't drinking because I would have jumped in the car and drove to an area with less light pollution.

Nikon Df
28mm f2.8 ais
30 seconds
Iso 1000

81 images stacked in PS

Parker219 · May 9, 2016

In my opinion. You did a nice job.

It looks like you had a little break towards the very beginning of your photos, the break in the trails stand out ( to me ) so since it would only be taking out a few photos, I would take them out, to get rid of the break.

Nice exposure on the trees and great composition getting the pole.

jake337 · May 9, 2016

Parker219 said:
In my opinion. You did a nice job.

It looks like you had a little break towards the very beginning of your photos, the break in the trails stand out ( to me ) so since it would only be taking out a few photos, I would take them out, to get rid of the break.

Nice exposure on the trees and great composition getting the pole.

Yeah that break, lol. I shouldn't have been lazy but I pulled 4 images that had a airplane through them Instead of cloning it out. I'll just blame late night editing after driving 400 miles, hahaha. I'm going to try and work those 4 images properly tonight as a tried one other star trail image while I was up there as well.

jake337 · May 10, 2016

Parker219 said:
Nice exposure on the trees and great composition getting the pole.

I'd like to say I'm proud of that because all I did in post was stack the images and minimal contrast/ tone/color adjustments.

Derrel · May 10, 2016

Nits aside, still pleasing to look at. Love the foreground tree choice.

DarkShadow · May 10, 2016

Very Nice.

kalgra · May 10, 2016

I think this is great! Still have yet to try trails myself.

jake337 · May 12, 2016

kalgra said:
I think this is great! Still have yet to try trails myself.

Thanks. I plan to do more!

jake337 · May 12, 2016

I re_edited the image and posted the new version in the OP. I removed the airplane trail properly and worked on some other things. In the original I just through the images into layers and posted up that version. I feel this is the finished version.

kalgra · May 12, 2016

So just curious, perhaps I missed it. Why stacked images? Couldn't you have achieved the same/similar results by stoping down and or decreasing ISO or using an ND filter and just exposing for 40 minutes instead?
Did you stack the images in order to reduce noise?

I suppose you may have gotten some additional motion blur with the trees with an extended exposure if there were occasion wind gusts. Was that the reason?

jake337 · May 12, 2016

kalgra said:
So just curious, perhaps I missed it. Why stacked images? Couldn't you have achieved the same/similar results by stoping down and or decreasing ISO or using an ND filter and just exposing for 40 minutes instead?
Did you stack the images in order to reduce noise?

I suppose you may have gotten some additional motion blur with the trees with an extended exposure if there were occasion wind gusts. Was that the reason?

Not really sure. That's just the first method I've tried. I'm not sure if there could be issues with sensor heat.

kalgra · May 18, 2016

Good point at the sensor heat I hadnt thought of that. I'm curious if anyone else has experience with sensor heat issues. I know it will vary depending on the sensor. I've noticed that the temperature on my 6D start to get into the red using magic lantern when I use live view for a long time but it seems like it was about an hour before it started to get like that.