Long exsposures - how he is doing it??

[terry7cook]

Hi,

Many times I see this star trails pictures and they are stunning, but this guy is brilliant with his work!
Check him out:
500px / v2.0 by Lincoln Harrison
500px / *** by Lincoln Harrison
500px / *** by Lincoln Harrison

I have tried to figure out how can I do that as well?
How he takes 90 pictures of 30 sec exposures and blend them all together??
I know that he's playing with the zoom in/out to do this effect, but how do you do that when you blend multiple pictures into one?
500px / *** by Lincoln Harrison

Would really love to read a guide or watch a video if you know of such.

Thanks.

 

[TWright33]

I am a complete Photoshop noob, but I'm pretty sure this is standard picture stacking.

Stacks color hue has been altered to have the different color trails.

This is once again a complete noob translation of how I think he did it.

 

[Gavjenks]

You could just use one of the blending options available in layers. Burn/add/multiply, whatever works. Or transparencies to blend (but then the stars wont all look full strength). Plus probably masking out the land portion and using one of the shots for that.

 

[NedM]

Standard picture bracketing. Probably uses a wireless shutter remote with the functionality of being able to do interval shots in a series. Then uses some sort photo software to blend all the images together.

 

[terry7cook]

Standard picture bracketing. Probably uses a wireless shutter remote with the functionality of being able to do interval shots in a series. Then uses some sort photo software to blend all the images together.

As i have already mentioned, In theory I know what he's doing, but I want to see/read a guide for it..
Thanks for the help.

 

[BillM]

Here you go:

 

[Tailgunner]

Standard picture bracketing. Probably uses a wireless shutter remote with the functionality of being able to do interval shots in a series. Then uses some sort photo software to blend all the images together.

As i have already mentioned, In theory I know what he's doing, but I want to see/read a guide for it..
Thanks for the help.

Location - You want a place outside far way from the city. Then locate the North Star. The North Star is the only star that does not rotate in the sky. You want this star to be in the middle of your frame.
Time - The best time is during a New Moon where the sky is darker.
Gear - Camera, remote shutter cable, tripod, image stacking software

Settings - I don't think there is anyone setting for this, there is some math equations that can help zero in on the desired settings but I don't know it. I would start off with trying F/4, ISO 800 and 30sec. You can play with your F-Stop and ISO in order to help get a nice 30sec exposure. Once you start capturing nice 30 sec exposures that shows some star movement, set your camera to continuos shooting. Then plug in your remote shutter button and lock the bottom in the shutter clicking position. The camera will now continuously shoot 30sec star trail photos. The more photos you take, the brighter or thicker the star trails.

PS: Place you lens on manual focus and set it to infinite.

 

[terry7cook]

Here you go:

Just perfect!!
That is the best tutorial I have ran into.

Thanks.

 

[terry7cook]

Standard picture bracketing. Probably uses a wireless shutter remote with the functionality of being able to do interval shots in a series. Then uses some sort photo software to blend all the images together.

As i have already mentioned, In theory I know what he's doing, but I want to see/read a guide for it..
Thanks for the help.

Location - You want a place outside far way from the city. Then locate the North Star. The North Star is the only star that does not rotate in the sky. You want this star to be in the middle of your frame.
Time - The best time is during a New Moon where the sky is darker.
Gear - Camera, remote shutter cable, tripod, image stacking software

Settings - I don't think there is anyone setting for this, there is some math equations that can help zero in on the desired settings but I don't know it. I would start off with trying F/4, ISO 800 and 30sec. You can play with your F-Stop and ISO in order to help get a nice 30sec exposure. Once you start capturing nice 30 sec exposures that shows some star movement, set your camera to continuos shooting. Then plug in your remote shutter button and lock the bottom in the shutter clicking position. The camera will now continuously shoot 30sec star trail photos. The more photos you take, the brighter or thicker the star trails.

PS: Place you lens on manual focus and set it to infinite.

Thanks for all the help, really appreciate it.

 

[NancyMoranG]

Very good tutorial! He was easy to understand and helpful
Nancy

 

[KmH]

FWIW, the North Star (Polaris) does indeed rotate in the sky, but Polaris is the closest naked eye star to the Earth's axis of rotation so it makes the smallest naked eye star circle.
With enough magnification the small circle can be seen in a photograph.

Polaris is approximately three quarters of a degree from the North Celestial Pole, so it makes a circle that has a diameter of about 1.5°.

 

[jsecordphoto]

As far as settings go iso800 might not be enough. In truly dark locations I usually start at iso2500 and adjust from there, always between 1600-3200 though. F2.8, 30 seconds for anywhere between 30min-hour

 

[TCampbell]

The star colors are not natural - at "best" he might have an application that considerably stretches the difference between color temperatures of the stars. When we say a star is a "red" star, what we really mean is that it has a slight red tint to it. A "blue" star has a slight blue tint. There are a few extreme stars... red carbon stars ("Hind's crimson star" in the constellation Lepus just below Orion is such an example -- that star is as red as the color the tail lights on your car ... no kidding.) But red carbon stars are rare.

Immediately I realize the images have been strongly modified... but I considered that the star trails themselves might have been real and only the colors were adjusted.

BUT THEN... I saw his 3rd image. That image is NOT real. That's completely photoshopped.

He has a blurred background composite image of the milky way (which would take quite a while to capture) with some stars coming toward you (as if zooming in the lens while capturing the image.) There is no way to record this as an image... not even through stacking. It is a composite image. The EXIF data in the images likely refers only to the exposure of a single "sub" in the image.

 

[petrochemist115 140]

The star colors are not natural - at "best" he might have an application that considerably stretches the difference between color temperatures of the stars. When we say a star is a "red" star, what we really mean is that it has a slight red tint to it. A "blue" star has a slight blue tint. There are a few extreme stars... red carbon stars ("Hind's crimson star" in the constellation Lepus just below Orion is such an example -- that star is as red as the color the tail lights on your car ... no kidding.) But red carbon stars are rare.

Immediately I realize the images have been strongly modified... but I considered that the star trails themselves might have been real and only the colors were adjusted.

Cameras will generally see much more colour in the stars than our eyes. Our eyes have rods & cones on the retina that give the light sensitivity. One of these (I forget which) provide colour information whilst the other is more sensitive. In low light situations our eyesight is basically monochrome. when using a telescope with it's greater light gathering power the visual colour in the stars is significantly more noticeable.

With the camera setting other than aperture/shutter speed/ISO in normal positions shots of the stars will often show significant colours. Though if the star is overexposed this tends to get lost as all the colours fill up to maximum.

I suspect the saturation was turned up on his camera to maximize the effect, but most of my junk shots of stars show very obvious colour.

The second & third shots are clearly Photoshopped. To get the second would take 24hrs of frames to stack, without the sun coming up or near the horizon. Whilst there are places/times where this is possible the foreground is not consistent with them.

 

[KmH]

Cones are the color receptors in our eyes. There are 3 types of cones.
The most sensitive ones are concentrated on the middle part of the retina in our eyes called the foveola, which is the central 0.2 mm of the larger 1.5 mm fovea.
Our fovea sees only the center two degrees of the visual field (about twice the width of your thumbnail at arm's length).

Since the fovea does not have rods, it is not sensitive to dim lights.
Though the fovea only comprises about 1% of our retina, 50% of the visual cortex in our brain is used to process what the fovea sees.
The fovea is the only area of the retina where 20/20 vision is attainable, and very important for seeing fine detail and color. Fovea centralis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cone cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Macula of retina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rods are more sensitive to light but do not detect color.
In order to observe dim stars with their naked eye astronomers use averted vision, looking just to the side of a faint night sky object, so they use that part of their eyes where the density of rods is greater.
Rod cell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Averted vision - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia