jaehoppa
Offline
Image Upload: Off
|
Dpic_arctic wrote:
Dpic_arctic wrote:
I use ISO 100 or 200 and Long Exposure NR "on". Otherwise my 40D will give me hot pixels. Use Bulb. Your star trails aren't straight continuous lines. It must be all the merged images. I use a TC-80N3 remote that can lock down the button (or program it for a certain exposure length). Be VERY careful of stray light- use a lens hood. Work on the foreground subjects a little (although the lighting is nice on yours). Here are some of mine. You said this is your first try? Great job. It is much better than where I started.
jaehoppa wrote:
thanks, i will give bulb mode a try..how long should i set it for? like 30min? i guess longer since my picture is roughly 70minutes worth of shots.
and it would take another 30min for NR right? that's a long time to wait lol.
yeah foreground is very important. the light shining on the truck was orangish but to make it blend with the sky i changed WB a little to make it look white.
anyway thanks for your tip~
btw, awesome pictures. so clean and i like the foreground. it's hard to find a good spot with a nice foreground, and since I live right across the city (i'm in NJ) i need to drive at least an hour away to see decent amount of stars..i guess i just need to keep searching for a nice spot..
Thanks for the compliments. I try anything from 5 minutes to almost 2 hours (then my battery dies). It just takes experimenting to get the effect you want. Yes, unfortunately you do have wait for the NR for as long as the actual exposure was. The remote shutter release I use can be programmed (I use Canon, it was a total coincidence I was on the Nikon forum), so I set the camera to Bulb mode, set the exposure for 30 minutes on the remote (for ex.) and set the interval between shots for about 30 minutes (so it has time to perform NR) and set it to take 5 shots (I set it longer than I know the battery will last, so I get the max. no. of shots I can out of the battery charge). So, after I have these settings down, it will go like this:
1: 30 minute exposure
2: 30 minute interval (NR is performed in this interval)
...and it does this either 5 more times (for those particular settings), or until the battery is dead, which ever comes first. I love using this programmable remote because I can set up the camera and everything and go to bed. It usually works very well. If you live in an area with significant condensation, you might have to clean off the lens during NR. If the image is a drab grey, condensation is likely the problem (or the lens cap might still me on  ).
I recommend using a battery grip or a continuous power source (cord), and DO NOT use any kind of filter. It will create distinct circular patterns in the photo. Note that when you use one long continuous exposure, it will not be as contrasty as it was in your photo. The sky might be a bluish or brown or green, etc. (as you might have noticed in my photos). I live close to a smaller city, so I like to point away from the minor light pollution. If you want to get the contrast that you had in your photo, then I recommend stacking short exposures (a couple minutes) without NR, so you get continuous trails. What software did you use to stack those images? Also, try pointing at Polaris. It is really cool how it is almost stationary and all of the stars seem to rotate around it. (If you want to know more about this, search for "North Celestial Pole" (NCP). NASA should have some good articles on it. There is also a South Celestial Pole if you're in that hemisphere, but it has no significant star marking it) Keep in mind that if you point towards the NCP the trails will be shorter. If you point away from the NCP, the trails will be longer. What may take 5 minutes pointing south, may take 10-15+ minutes pointing north to get the same length of trails.
I hope that helped a bit.
Eli
Edit:P.S. I do focus on infinity almost all the time.
thank you very much for your detailed info.
if you use bulb mode with 30min exposure with 30min interval for NR your star trail must have gaps in between. i'm just sticking to taking 30second pictures using interval mode on my D700 and stacking it using this free program that I downloaded online. main reason is because I don't have a cable release so i can't use bulb mode lol. well i'm going out tonight for another try.
i'm probably gonna set aperture to about f4-5 and iso around 400. and take about 100 photos, each 30 seconds. hopefully it'll come out alright. i will post it here if it comes out decent.lol
again thanks for your help.
|
