1. Plan and prepare: consider location, time of year, sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, moon phase, etc. and how each of these might affect your proposed image.
Before you head out the door: have a safe way back to the car, be prepared for spending some time alone, in the cold and dark. Bring a headlamp, GPS, warm clothes, food and water.
2. Compose your shot early: don’t wait until the stars are out, you’ll miss the best light. Bring a compass to help you find the north star.
3. Exposure: I recommend trying multiple exposures, each of iso 400, f/5.6, 5 minutes. Use a programmable remote to make your life easy. Remember: it’s not just the star trails you’re exposing for, but also the foreground and sky. I recommend starting soon after the first stars start to appear, and use a moonless night unless you want to lighten up the foreground more (in that case shoot around moonrise/set).
4. Power constraints: most batteries don’t last as long as you might want to shoot for. Depending on the temperature your battery might only last about an hour. Use a battery grip or external supply to make your life easy, or be really quick in replacing a dead battery!
5. Processing: For an easy solution stack everything in ‘lighten’ blend mode. For high quality results, use the algorithm described above.
Jan 07, 2009 at 04:02 AM
Previous versions of floris's message #6567320 « Star Trails Tutorial »
