Austin Greene
Been spending a lot of time on here!
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2012
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- 1,472
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- 855
- Location
- Mountain View, California
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My first attempt at doing star trails, taken last night. I'd really appreciate any and all feedback :hail:
Background on the image, and issues I ran into below. Hope you enjoy it!
1.
Tower to the Stars by TogaLive, on Flickr
Background: So a friend and I went out to shoot, driving about 20 miles west of town, near where I did my last night-sky image. We found a neat location, and started shooting. I set up this shot to run for 1 hour, composited between 240 images (15" ISO800 f/4), which should have yielded some great, smooth, star trails. Setting the intervalometer to work, I felt like something was off, but couldn't place it so I just let it run. At the end of the night, I realized my mistake in that since I had mirror lockup on, the intervalometer was wasting half of its shots to activate the mirror, and then the image wasn't taken until the next 15 second cycle. So I ended up with shots being taken 50% less often then they should have been, and thusly, rougher trails. The tower was lit entirely by passing cars. I did light-paint on a few exposures at the end, but really preferred the warm light of the car headlights.
Lastly, I do have one question. Considering that, including mirror-up time, my sensor spent ~30 minutes uncovered (still had lens on) last night, do you guys think I have anything to worry about as far as dust-bunnies go?
Updated: Oh, and I should mention this. I initially was shooting the image with what I thought to be Polaris (North Star) at the tip of the tower. Only halfway through the shot did I realize that in fact I was not looking at the big dipper, where Polaris resides, but it's little brother! I decided to just let it go, seeing that the rotation would bring the lines across the tower, rather than around it, and I thought that might contrast nicely with it's vertical lines.
Background on the image, and issues I ran into below. Hope you enjoy it!
1.
Tower to the Stars by TogaLive, on Flickr
Background: So a friend and I went out to shoot, driving about 20 miles west of town, near where I did my last night-sky image. We found a neat location, and started shooting. I set up this shot to run for 1 hour, composited between 240 images (15" ISO800 f/4), which should have yielded some great, smooth, star trails. Setting the intervalometer to work, I felt like something was off, but couldn't place it so I just let it run. At the end of the night, I realized my mistake in that since I had mirror lockup on, the intervalometer was wasting half of its shots to activate the mirror, and then the image wasn't taken until the next 15 second cycle. So I ended up with shots being taken 50% less often then they should have been, and thusly, rougher trails. The tower was lit entirely by passing cars. I did light-paint on a few exposures at the end, but really preferred the warm light of the car headlights.
Lastly, I do have one question. Considering that, including mirror-up time, my sensor spent ~30 minutes uncovered (still had lens on) last night, do you guys think I have anything to worry about as far as dust-bunnies go?
Updated: Oh, and I should mention this. I initially was shooting the image with what I thought to be Polaris (North Star) at the tip of the tower. Only halfway through the shot did I realize that in fact I was not looking at the big dipper, where Polaris resides, but it's little brother! I decided to just let it go, seeing that the rotation would bring the lines across the tower, rather than around it, and I thought that might contrast nicely with it's vertical lines.
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