star trails- 1 , Bram- 0

Bram · Feb 9, 2011

Alright so last night I was driving home from work and noticed the skies were clear and the stars were out.
When I got home I grabbed the tripod and the camera set it up outside, and let er rip so to speak. Now when i came back after the 10 minutes or so. I ended the exposure and when the photo came up, the picture was OOF, after another attempt at infinity, still the same thing happened. Now how in the world are you supposed to focus on the stars?
I see alot of you are able to do so and get them clear as water. I apparently can't

Any help on focusing the stars? I am unable to post photos of the attempts sicne i'm at work.

Thanks for looking.

Tired but willin · Feb 9, 2011

Hi there - not done this yet but have been reading a lot of information on it. I'm sure someone will post who has already done these shots but i've heard the following helps...

Shoot in manual
Use Star trails software (its a free download)
take a 5 min exposure shot first to locate the 'Polaris Star' (North Star)
Shoot around 12 x 4min exposures then use the star trail software to put together - there's loads of tutorials on line explaining
ISO 100 at f4
Shoot jpegs
Try AWB first and see what the results are like

As mentioned these are the tips i've picked up but not actually put into practice yet. I have a holiday booked up in Easter time to a place with hardly any light pollution. This maybe all wrong but i'll be interested to hear from people who have done this already....