Firstly, thank you to everyone who has viewed, commented or faved my recent photographs -- the response to the last few images I've posted has been overwhelming! I don't usually reply to comments unless they ask a question, but they are all read and very much appreciated!
This is probably the last photo from my trip to Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington earlier this month.
Firstly, a confession: This wasn't taken with the intention of creating a star trail photograph! I'm still learning how best to maximise the quality of my images in these conditions, and this was the last shot I took of the night. The plan was to use this, a long-exposure, low-noise image, as a higher-quality foreground which I would then blend with a short-exposure, high-noise image of the night sky. Accordingly, I calculated the exposure required at ISO 400, which was about 30 minutes.
I didn't even see the shot until I got home that night. I have dark-frame noise cancellation enabled for most of these photos, which reduces the noise in the image by taking a second photo of the same duration with the shutter closed, and using this to work out where any non-random noise is and remove it from the main photograph. So after the shutter closed and it started doing this (which would take a further 30 minutes), I packed the camera away and headed back to Canada.
Once I got the photo back onto the computer though, I realised that, while the foreground was excellent quality and could be used in the way I'd envisioned, the whole shot was actually pretty good -- and that's from someone who doesn't particularly like star trail photographs!
Because the camera was pointed at approximately 90 degrees from Polaris, the stars in the centre of the image appear to streak in a straight line, with those above and below curving up and down. Also, the Milky Way has been captured in this photo, clearly visible as a brighter vertical stripe just to the left of the middle of the photo.
In the foreground is Mount Shuksan and the Mount Baker Ski Area -- if you look very closely you can see some of the ski lifts.
The foreground light in this photograph came entirely from the stars (and Jupiter, the brightest streak in the top-right of the image).
I'm a British software developer and photographer living in Vancouver, BC. I mainly photograph landscapes, cityscapes, night scenes, and water.
If you're interested in any...
Absolutely positively amazing! Maybe when the weather warms up and I can get back to camp, on the shores of Lake Ontario, I'll actually try to do something like this with long exposure...
dark fram noise cancellation??? I've been wondering how you get your images so crisp and sharp. I'll have to look into this... I've only recently found you here and everything I see is just stunning! Fav, of course.
@cameronknowlton When appropriate. The problem with Canon, at least, is that there are three settings, on, auto and off. On enables it for 30 second exposures at ISO 100 (when it really doesn't need it), and Auto doesn't seem to enable it for 30 second exposures at ISO 8000 (when I'd prefer it).
As such, I tend to control the setting manually depending on what I'm shooting. Generally, if it's possible to use it (i.e. if I don't need continuous exposures) and I'm at a high enough combined ISO and shutter speed to justify it (which I'll freely admit is very much a finger in the air guesstimate) I'll enable it, the rest of the time I leave it disabled.
In some cases it's clear to see where it would have been beneficial -- for example, on my star trails video I had to edit out in post about 4 or 5 hot pixels that LENR would have dealt with quite easily, but of course, enabling it would have introduced a gap between my exposures.
I don't seem to get as much sensor bias as I did on my crop-frame camera though (although the 50D was pretty poor, noise-wise), so on the full-frame camera I'm not sure how much benefit over and above hot pixel removal I'm getting. More experimentation needed (when I have the time).
hi alexis. i had a quick question because i'm going to attempt this tonight! what was your f-stop for this shot? sorry, but exif info isn't working for me at the moment.
@allegresse Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -- this might be too late now! I took this shot at f/2.8 and ISO 400. If your lens doesn't go this wide, don't worry -- you would get the same effect at f/4.0 with ISO 800. (This will capture the same amount of light).
Be aware that if you're not in a really dark sky environment you might get a shot that's too bright. In that case you could either reduce the ISO or narrow the aperture (my preference would be to reduce the ISO, as this also reduces noise). This will capture fewer trails, but also make any light pollution less evident.
Hope that helps if it's not too late, and if it is, that you got some good shots anyway!
@abirkill No problem! Thanks very much. We didn't end up shooting the stars Friday night because it was cloudy. So, we're going to have another go tonight. However, I'm not sure if we'll be able to accomplish this because our camera won't do an expsoure longer than 30 seconds. Guess we'll see! :)
Instant FAV!
As such, I tend to control the setting manually depending on what I'm shooting. Generally, if it's possible to use it (i.e. if I don't need continuous exposures) and I'm at a high enough combined ISO and shutter speed to justify it (which I'll freely admit is very much a finger in the air guesstimate) I'll enable it, the rest of the time I leave it disabled.
In some cases it's clear to see where it would have been beneficial -- for example, on my star trails video I had to edit out in post about 4 or 5 hot pixels that LENR would have dealt with quite easily, but of course, enabling it would have introduced a gap between my exposures.
I don't seem to get as much sensor bias as I did on my crop-frame camera though (although the 50D was pretty poor, noise-wise), so on the full-frame camera I'm not sure how much benefit over and above hot pixel removal I'm getting. More experimentation needed (when I have the time).
Be aware that if you're not in a really dark sky environment you might get a shot that's too bright. In that case you could either reduce the ISO or narrow the aperture (my preference would be to reduce the ISO, as this also reduces noise). This will capture fewer trails, but also make any light pollution less evident.
Hope that helps if it's not too late, and if it is, that you got some good shots anyway!