Here's pretty much my first attempt at stars - without the trails. It was a little rough hanging out for an hour at 20 below zero, (between 30 and 40 below with the wind), but it was a great test for my new winter gear!
The stars were exposed for 4 minutes at ISO 1600 using a tracking device (easy to setup at home, kind of tough in the cold with a metal flashlight in my mouth). This seems to let me capture more stars than a quick 30 second exposure, and there's zero trails going on. The canyon was exposed with a combination of twilight and moonlight.
Now that is super cool! And I am betting in that super cold it was a pain in the butt... But you did really well here, I like it a lot. Now you tracked the stars, so did you do a single shot for the ground to blend in? It looks seamless, so good work. Which tracking device do you have? I guess for all the stars I shoot, I ought to look into something like that.
I use a device called "Astro Trac". I have the AstroTrac TT320X AG Tracking Mount.
It's not cheap, but it's pretty easy to setup once you've done it a time or two. If you get one make sure it comes with the scope and battery pack. The company I purchased it from sold them separately and I kind of get the feeling it's all supposed to come together.
As for the landscape part of the shot, yes, it's blended. It helps to have a relatively bright horizon, made it easier. Did it once on another shot with a black horizon and man, had a tough go making it look right.
Very impressive.
astrodave does some cool shots like this too. I have a vixen polarie which works well. Its portability is offset by weight limitation but I can hang my 70-200 f4 or samyang 14mm on it just fine.
You may want to shoot a couple sky photos, then some darks and combine them in deep sky stacker. this can help with noise, but you might loose a toe! Toe warmers are nice for your toes, but also to put in a sock and wrap around your lens. My first session in the Shenandoahs was cut short by dew.
As for the landscape part of the shot, yes, it's blended. It helps to have a relatively bright horizon, made it easier. Did it once on another shot with a black horizon and man, had a tough go making it look right.
astrodave gave me some tips on luminance masking for this kind of thing. I sent you a pm on it but looks like his screen shot did not copy over. If you want the screen shot, pm your email to me.
Amazing shot. Just on the brink of to many stars which is a crazy thing to say.
I just had a question about your settings though. My understanding is that for most "non-tracked" star shots an iso setting of 3200 is used with an exposure of sub 30 seconds. Now, by using a tracked exposure of 4 minutes why didnt you reduce your iso further then 1600, to perhaps 800 or even 400? Is your camera extremely clean at this high iso or did you want to capture the maximum amount of stars by keeping the sensitivity high?
