For get-pushed challenge from Andy @hookandy to shot star trails. i looked up instructions, followed them and got... this. I was surprised as anything that the stars moved! Well, this may not be the classic smooth star trail (and I think that a much wider lens would have allowed trees or something else in the picture and given a better panorama). And the camera took awhile to process in between each 30 second exposure (not sure how to fix that issue), making the result a collection of dots rather than a smooth trail. And you can see where I reset the self-timer in between shots nine and ten. But. The stars actually moved! This is 18 30 second shots.
@hookandy Well, I gave it a shot. i'm pretty impressed not by the picture but rather by the variety of colors and the fact that the stars actually moved. Not sure why they look like balls of light rather than pinpricks.
I hate to burst your bubble but the stars aren't moving! The earth is moving 😜 However, I love your star trails picture! I like seeing them as little dots of light instead of one long trail of light I'm impressed with how well you did!
Your camera is set for long exposure noise reduction, that is why it took 30 seconds between shots. I did one for 30 minutes and had to wait 30 minutes for the noise reduction processing.
A wider lens helps a lot - did you crop this at all or is this the full view given by your 50mm?
Another thing that helped me massively was to set up and focus on something in the foreground while there's still a bit of light, then wait for a bit before starting to shoot.
I think the in between processing can be helped by changing settings like turning off noise reduction as someone else has said, but on my D5100 there's still a bit of a pause in-between.
In my first star trail, I'm pretty sure I didn't even get to capture any stars since it clouded over, so managing to capture the trails first time is a job well done!
An interesting result! Good for you for at least trying. I'd love to do a star trail shot but not sure if I can with the cameras I have. Someone in the photo club does them and has promised to hold an informal workshop some time but I'm not holding my breath- he seems to be a bit scattered! Anyway- bravo to you on this one!
January 16th, 2016
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Another thing that helped me massively was to set up and focus on something in the foreground while there's still a bit of light, then wait for a bit before starting to shoot.
I think the in between processing can be helped by changing settings like turning off noise reduction as someone else has said, but on my D5100 there's still a bit of a pause in-between.
In my first star trail, I'm pretty sure I didn't even get to capture any stars since it clouded over, so managing to capture the trails first time is a job well done!