I mostly stick to the landscape forum but I think this may work here as well. I posted this shot there a couple months ago. Anyway, I'd like to know what you think.
This is about an hour's worth of air traffic over Seattle.
That looks crazy man.
Never seen anything like this before. Unfortunately there are no airplanes over the city of Leipzig (where I live), because the airport is a far away from downtown.
-Sebastian
Great website by the way... I would love to have skills almost close to yours.
Sebi wrote:
That looks crazy man.
Never seen anything like this before. Unfortunately there are no airplanes over the city of Leipzig (where I live), because the airport is a far away from downtown.
-Sebastian
Great website by the way... I would love to have skills almost close to yours.
I'm flattered.
Thanks for taking a look at my website. I went and looked at yours as well and I don't think your skills are anything to complain about. You have some really good stuff!
Alistair Watson wrote:
Beautiful shot and an interesting idea!
One small point though, I find that bright diagonal line top left a bit distracting, if it was me I would clone it out. Super shot though.
Yeah, I wasn't sure about whether to keep it in there. I think it may have been a planet (but I'm not sure). It's a lot brighter than the other star trails.
Very cool image.....also enjoyed looking at your coastal pics, incredible colors showcased in that series. It's images like those that make me want to visit the NorthWest coastal region.
That's a really great and unique image! Never seen anything like it before. Your description of the technique was very good. I noticed you just held the shutter button down, but I guess you could also achieve a similar effect using a timer remote or similar.
bbgobie wrote:
Is this a composite of images?
Or 1 exposure for 1 hr
Very Nice
Yes, it's a composite. Here's the explanation copied from the link given a couple comments up:
<b>How it was made:</b>
This was my first ever attempt at capturing a scene with such a lengthy exposure. During the planning stage, I wasn't sure whether this would work out or not, but it was worth a try. My equipment consisted of a sturdy tripod, my Canon 40D coupled with a 50mm lens, and a remote shutter release cable. It would be very difficult, if not impossible to take this as a single image. With the shutter open for an hour, the city lights would be completely blown out and the noise would be unacceptably high.
To get around this problem, a composite would have to be made by stacking a number of shorter exposures. As mentioned above, I have never attempted such a shot so quite a bit of experimentation was involved. Due to the fact that so many individual exposures were to be blended, it is absolutely critical that all the exposures are consistent and that they are perfectly aligned.
To achieve consistent exposures, I set the camera to Aperture Priority mode in order to maintain the same depth of field and if necessary, the camera could automatically adjust the shutter speed to accommodate changing light. To make sure the images properly align in post processing, the camera should not be touched. I used a remote shutter release and locked the shutter button down in order to reduce the time between exposures. Another precaution I took was to set the lens to manual focus just to make sure it wouldn't hunt before each picture was taken, as that could seriously compromise my chances of getting good results.
One problem that is created by stacking images taken of a moving object is gaps will appear in the light streaks during the brief time that elapses between exposures. My aim was to take the longest exposures possible as a way to reduce their number. I initially experimented with 30 seconds (the longest shutter speed on my camera before bulb mode). However, this shutter speed was too long and caused the buildings to be overexposed. I then tried closing the aperture down from f/7.1 to f/11 but this still didn't yield optimal results, as the airplane streaks were too dim and undefined because they were moving too fast for the sensor to gather light. I eventually settled for 15 second exposures at f/9 as the balance between properly exposed buildings, and streaks that were bright with limited discontinuities.
In the end, I decided that the buildings were still a little too much on the bright side so I took a shot that was 10 seconds with plans to manually blend it later on.
Creating the composite image was tedious but simple. The hardest part was having the patience to stack 120 layers - one at a time. It was easy because the process was repetitive and limited in steps. With each new layer, I changed the blend mode to lighten, which allows only for the highlights (airplane streaks) to be visible. I then flattened the image (in order to not overload my computer) and did it all over again with the next image. When all the layers were added and the composite was complete, I blended in the exposure designated for the building lights. The final step was filling in each of the gaps that resulted from between exposures.
XFBO wrote:
Very cool image.....also enjoyed looking at your coastal pics, incredible colors showcased in that series. It's images like those that make me want to visit the NorthWest coastal region.
It's definitely worth the trip. The coast is just beautiful.
