Canon 40D @10mm, f5.6, ISO800, 45 minutes of 30sec exposures stacked with StarStax

I have taken about 4 other star trails but still hadn’t been happy with the finished images. Heading out I knew I wanted to make sure I pumped my ISO up to at least 800 and that I wanted a fairly clear landscape. Ballow view offered the best bet with some amazing trees that had been ring-barked over 50 years ago.

This week I want to share with you some quick tips on shooting star trails but I will be concentrating on how I process my star trails with photoshop and a great new free program I use called StarStax. I will have a video post latter this year on the technical side of star trails from the field.

Click here to view the embedded video.

I couldn’t be much happier with the way the image turned out. My gamble on the rotation of the stars was spot on and I have a few more tricks up my sleeve for the next star trail adventure. Here are a few more shots taken the following day just down from my location the previous night.

Canon 40D @85mm, f5.6, ISO800, 180sec

Canon 40D @17mm, f4, ISO800, 250sec

]]> http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/06/24/star-trails-ballow-view/feed/ 2 http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/02/10/make-the-most-of-the-conditions/ http://www.thephotojourney.com/2011/02/10/make-the-most-of-the-conditions/#comments Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:01:30 +0000 Scott http://www.thephotojourney.com/?p=1630 All week I was searching for a great sunset but mother nature just didn’t do her part. So after another flat colourless sunset on Saturday afternoon I was running short on time for getting the weeks image when I realised the lack of clouds during the sunset presented me with the chance to shoot an image I had pictured in my minds eye for a the past year. So this weeks lesson is that you should shot for the conditions you have and make the most of them.

Since a I was 12 I have been spellbind by star trail images and its a technique I have been working on over the past 2 years but I still have plenty to learn. Anyhow the skys were clear and after dinner I headed out to the Coffs Harbour Jetty to setup for a 2 hour star trail session. The technique I use is to take continues 30sec exposures then using a program called Startrails V1.1 that merges all of the images together. After that I mask in with photoshop the best foreground image from the set or I use another photo that I had changed specifically taken to make the best exposure.

Here are a few of my first ever star trail images and I think I have slowly been improving over the 2 years. Plenty more to come this year.

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