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Archive 2014 · Flatiron star trails

  
 
alatoo60
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Flatiron star trails


So I spent Sunday night shooting Flatiron… found a good spot thanks to Google maps that was easy to access.
I was there mainly for Milky Way shots that I really like and will post later, but also, for practice, did some star trails that came out rather fat and bright, not sure why. Lens was focused to infinity, mountain looks just fine (it was not shot separately).
Any ideas and feedback very appreciated.
Sasha.





© Lumiscience 2014

Star trails over Flatiron




May 29, 2014 at 05:54 PM
PeaktoPeek
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Flatiron star trails


I like the big , fat star trails -- looks like the jump to light speed
Paul



May 29, 2014 at 06:04 PM
river rover
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Flatiron star trails


I'm actually a fan of star trails that splay out like this. The hint of rotation around the Polaris and Sigma Actantis is pretty cool.


May 29, 2014 at 06:44 PM
JimFox
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Flatiron star trails


Hey Sasha,

I like the butte, but for myself, I don't like when the star trails curve two different directions in a scene. It's not bad here, but I prefer to avoid that.

As to focusing to infinity, that stopped working pretty much about 40 years ago when Auto Focus lenses came into being. I never focus to infinity on my star shots.

Jim



May 29, 2014 at 07:28 PM
alatoo60
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Flatiron star trails


JimFox wrote:
Hey Sasha,

I like the butte, but for myself, I don't like when the star trails curve two different directions in a scene. It's not bad here, but I prefer to avoid that.

As to focusing to infinity, that stopped working pretty much about 40 years ago when Auto Focus lenses came into being. I never focus to infinity on my star shots.

Jim


Jim, what do you mean - stopped working?
Sorry, I don't get it. Where do you focus for your star shots?

Also, I did not expect much from this shot on artistic side, knowing it will be splinted. Just a practice for me, to be able to do it properly when really needed.



May 29, 2014 at 07:39 PM
dgdg
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Flatiron star trails


Nice shot. the foreground is quite nice. The star trails seem a little thick with gaps. For a noisy night shot you may not notice being slightly out of focus with your foreground as much as you'll notice with stars.

I recall a very similar shot recently but behind some low bushes with more light glow on the right. Was that yours?

I think Jim meant -
Many current lenses, particularly zooms but also some primes, do not have a hard infinity stop. I guess more lenses had this back in Jim's younger days - lol. Anyway, that means if you just move the focus ring to infinity, you will not have the sharpest stars possible You need to go to live view, magnify, find a bright star, focus until sharp as possible. Then tape it down. I had a manual focus wide angle pancake lens that did have hard infinity stop, but the coma was horrific.

I don't, but should, do star trails. My unqualified comment would be those gaps in the trails could be easily corrected by certain options in stacking software. You may want to explore that.

Again, nice shot especially since this was an experiment!

Okay, show me your Milky Way images!

David



May 29, 2014 at 08:26 PM
JimFox
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Flatiron star trails


Hey Sasha,

David nailed it exactly, except it was in my extremely younger days not my younger days as I am currently in my younger days...

Jim



May 29, 2014 at 08:52 PM
Greg Campbell
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Flatiron star trails


Cool!
I'm a little surprised the sky is tolerably dark so close to Phoenix.

There are several programs that will 'add' a bunch of shots together to make smooth star trails. You might play with http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html http://www.markus-enzweiler.de/StarStaX/StarStaX.html etc.

p.s. I like the divergent stars!



May 29, 2014 at 09:45 PM
alatoo60
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Flatiron star trails


PeaktoPeek wrote:
I like the big , fat star trails -- looks like the jump to light speed
Paul


Paul, thank you! That's came into my mind, too, when I saw the result

river rover wrote:
I'm actually a fan of star trails that splay out like this. The hint of rotation around the Polaris and Sigma Actantis is pretty cool.


Mark, thanks!
Glad you find it cool

dgdg wrote:
Nice shot. the foreground is quite nice. The star trails seem a little thick with gaps. For a noisy night shot you may not notice being slightly out of focus with your foreground as much as you'll notice with stars.

I recall a very similar shot recently but behind some low bushes with more light glow on the right. Was that yours?

I think Jim meant -
Many current lenses, particularly zooms but also some primes, do not have a hard infinity stop. I guess more lenses had this back in Jim's younger days - lol. Anyway, that means if you just
...Show more

David, thank you for deciphering Jim's comment for me

I did exactly what you describe, focusing in LV mode, except it was not the bright star but rather a bright object about mile away, but for this lens it should not matter.
The "approximate focal distance" in EXIF is 4294967295, so that qualifies as "infinity", I guess.

Yes, you remember it well, I posted a picture from the same area a week ago, that was from my scouting trip. Milky Way picture(s) will be coming tomorrow.

Greg Campbell wrote:
Cool!
I'm a little surprised the sky is tolerably dark so close to Phoenix.

There are several programs that will 'add' a bunch of shots together to make smooth star trails. You might play with http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html http://www.markus-enzweiler.de/StarStaX/StarStaX.html etc.

p.s. I like the divergent stars!


Greg, thanks! I did stacking in PS, but will try the ones you mention.

This location is very cool because it is close - just 40 min drive from my house, has dark enough sky to observe Milky Way, and also provides some ambient light on a butte.

Sasha.



May 30, 2014 at 02:27 AM
dsjtecserv
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Flatiron star trails


Sasha, nice shot. It doesn't bother me that the trails curve different directions; that the natural difference between the southern and southern hemispheres of the sky, and I think it adds interest beyond the usual polar focus. I really like the overall tone level of the cliffs, but the brightest highlights give the impression of being too bright. maybe masked them slightly in the stack?

I suspect that the fat trails are due to having used f/2.8; I have used f/4 at ISO 400 and liked the result better than at 2.8. At the wider aperture, each "moment" gets more exposure and there is some spreading, especially of the blown highlights of the brightest stars.

Dave



May 30, 2014 at 04:21 PM
lionking
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Flatiron star trails


I like it!
It works for me...

Andrey



May 30, 2014 at 05:06 PM





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