Granite Canyon Star Trails

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DRwyoming

DRwyoming

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Cold dark nights of winter and sorting through older folders when I came across this star trail shot from a couple of summers ago while camping up in the Gros Ventre mountains. It's a stack of 270 images plus the foreground image which was captured towards the end of the blue hour just before things got really dark.

Nikon D3s, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 wide open, 30", ISO 3200
Granite Star Trails Flattened 9-18-Edit.jpg
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Ahhhh so that’s what star trails are .. “light bulb moment”” lol ...

I always assumed, to take a shot like that you simply shot 1 very very long exposure and as the earth turns the stars become elongated however if I’m understanding you correctly you take a series of single shots over a period of time to achieve the star trail , is that correct ?

Cool shot 😎


Harry.G
 
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Super image Dave 😍 👌
Got the PhotoPills app and am going to try it once I get chance to get to the Kalahari again away from our light pollution here in Gauteng.
 
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DRwyoming said:
Cold dark nights of winter and sorting through older folders when I came across this star trail shot from a couple of summers ago while camping up in the Gros Ventre mountains. It's a stack of 270 images plus the foreground image which was captured towards the end of the blue hour just before things got really dark.

Nikon D3s, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 wide open, 30", ISO 3200
View attachment 11631
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Wow, beautiful image ❤️
 
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Harry.G said:
Cool shot 😎
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Thanks Harry!

Harry.G said:
I always assumed, to take a shot like that you simply shot 1 very very long exposure and as the earth turns the stars become elongated
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That's how we did it with film but digital cameras run into big time noise problems when you try to capture a single two plus hour exposure like this.

Harry.G said:
if I’m understanding you correctly you take a series of single shots over a period of time to achieve the star trail , is that correct ?
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Correct, when shooting star trails with digital cameras you typically shoot a series of long, but still relatively short exposures and stack them in a post processing tool. Normally I'd shoot a sequence like this using the Nikon MC-36A external intervalometer and program each shot for around 3 to 5 minutes which means many fewer images to make up the stack but I didn't have the intervalometer with me so I used the built in multi-exposure capability of the D3s which was limited to 30 second exposures that's why there were so many captures in this stack.

Lot's of good stacking tools out there but Photoshop does a great job for something like star trails and that's what I used for this image. Just import the whole stack of images as layers and set the blending mode of every layer except the bottom to Lighten and the brightest bits of each image will be combined (the moving stars). I had to do some layer masking on the foreground layer to mask out the brighter twilight sky but the star trails group itself was just a matter of loading the images as a layer stack and group changing the blending mode then sitting back to let PS do its thing.
 
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Callie said:
Super image Dave 😍 👌
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Thanks Callie!

Callie said:
Got the PhotoPills app and am going to try it once I get chance to get to the Kalahari again away from our light pollution here in Gauteng.
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PhotoPills is a great tool. It's my go-to for figuring out where to be and when to be there for Milky Way images. The planning utility and the night vision AR function is really helpful for scouting potential astro shoots. I've got it loaded on my phone and sometimes even when doing daytime shooting or maybe while out hiking if I see a potentially interesting foreground feature that seems like it has potential for an astro shot I pull out the phone, launch the night vision AR function and get a quick look of how the stars would align for a given time and date and if it looks promising I'll make a note to return for the shoot.
 
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Great and arresting photo! Just as well that it's a composite image as a scene like that in real life would make me drive off the road :)
cheers,
Alex
 
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Not only really great images but a really useful debate which I am finding very informative and exemplifies the depth of talent and expertise across forum members.
 
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Wonderful shot Dave, unfortunately we either have too much cloud cover and/or too much light pollution here in N.Ireland to attempt something like this !
 
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Gottshotz said:
Wonderful shot Dave, unfortunately we either have too much cloud cover and/or too much light pollution here in N.Ireland to attempt something like this !
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Thanks for the kind words.

I hear you, clear skies and very dark places away from manmade lights are the key. Even out this way we have to travel for the dark skies and I've been skunked plenty of times when clouds rolled in and night shots just didn't happen.
 
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DRwyoming said:
Cold dark nights of winter and sorting through older folders when I came across this star trail shot from a couple of summers ago while camping up in the Gros Ventre mountains. It's a stack of 270 images plus the foreground image which was captured towards the end of the blue hour just before things got really dark.

Nikon D3s, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 wide open, 30", ISO 3200
View attachment 11631
Click to expand...
WOW. I guess now we know where the painters, Munch and VGV got their inspiration.
Great photo!!
 
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DRwyoming said:
Cold dark nights of winter and sorting through older folders when I came across this star trail shot from a couple of summers ago while camping up in the Gros Ventre mountains. It's a stack of 270 images plus the foreground image which was captured towards the end of the blue hour just before things got really dark.

Nikon D3s, Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 wide open, 30", ISO 3200
View attachment 11631
Click to expand...
Hi Dave.

Terrific!

JIM
 
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