Star Trails -canon 20d w/17-40 multiple exposures

Another night shot, this time 5 exposures combined so that the star trails are visible without overexposing the image. As the stars are so bright you can stack the images in photoshop and use the 'lighten' blend, then only the star trails will show through. Each exposure is about 2 1/2 minutes.

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Shot of the day
Slunce Ve Skle

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Comments

  • Tim Walker

    This is really nicely done.

    2005-11-14

  • peter

    oh. my. god.
    this is just incredible! it looks like there were stars in the sky at daytime. i love it!

    2005-11-14

  • GKP

    This is my favourite of your night series so far; classic stuff. I love the deep blue hues of the sky and the way the trails rotate around a point just off the upper right hand corner of the pic.

    2005-11-14

  • tread

    Gulp, this is marvelous!!!!

    2005-11-14

  • dissdigg

    I love this

    2005-11-14

  • Derrick

    That's great! I've been wanting to do some star trails myself, however I've been so busy. Once my semester's done, I'm heading out of city limits for some.

    2005-11-14

  • gck

    This is great! The others in your night series didn't do much for me with their wild color. But this one is just great! I am using it as my wallpaper.

    2005-11-14

  • ROB

    Another thanks for the description of how. Really helps to describe the shots you create. I am amazed you "see" the end result when out with the camera.

    2005-11-14

  • emma

    great to hear how you achieved this - excellent star trails

    2005-11-14

  • payam

    star trail shots are a pretty old technique, but this way of capturing the foreground really changes perspective. It almost feels like mid-day, like the stars are brighter and are moving much faster. fantastic image! (and thank for the ps tip :)

    2005-11-14

  • T

    Nice pictures!
    If you'll have a minute you should look on my blog: http://trilobit.blogspot.com/

    2005-11-14

  • michael

    Fantastic!

    I love long exposures. You really did this one well.

    2005-11-14

  • ConsciousLab

    Great stuff. Will get out there and shoot tonight! Do you use the in-camera noise reduction?

    2005-11-14

  • tom

    great startrail shot, interesting technique with picture stacking. I know astrophotographers stack photos together and it usually turns out grainy, but you kept this very clean. I love it!

    2005-11-14

  • Andy

    Beautiful shot and a great idea. I like the ability of the "lighten" blend mode to replicate double exposures on film.

    2005-11-14

  • Keith

    Respect.

    2005-11-14

  • Jasmin

    This is so beautifully done. It's gorgeous and surreal.

    2005-11-14

  • Patricia

    nice indeed.

    2005-11-14

  • nathan

    awesome man!

    2005-11-14

  • Walker

    The image turned out nice, so this was obviously an adequate solution. But couldn't you have just stopped down?

    2005-11-14

  • Andy

    Great idea and superb image.

    2005-11-15

  • kupka27

    hi this is great, a cool idea with that 5 exposures, how long were the gaps in between shots?

    2005-11-15

  • Miles

    Thanks all, as Payam mentioned this is a classic technique. There are varying gaps between the shots because at first I wasn't thinking about showing the star trails like this, it was such a bright moon that I didn't think any would show. When I reviewed the second or third shot I noticed they were visible so added a couple more exposures of the same scene to make this image.

    You can see I paused too long between shots in a couple of places, next time I go out I'll make sure I leave as little time as possible between exposures and see if I can get as many as 20 exposures together.

    First I have to recharge these batteries :)

    Walker, it's better to have a moderately wide aperture for long exposures, though I have to say I don't know the exact technical reasons why, but that seems to be the accepted method. Next time I'm out I'll try a couple at a high aperture and see if it makes any difference to the colour, flaring etc.

    2005-11-15

  • crespo

    Waw... Amazing Landscape!!!! very great shot congratulation.

    2005-11-15

  • Walker

    I would the it's the accepted method because stopping down too much might make your exposure hours long instead of minutes. And with no reciprocity failure from digital, I can't think of any other problem it would cause. At least theoretically.=)

    2005-11-15

  • prasoon

    priceless..

    2005-11-15

  • Jordi Anton

    Oh! My god! I'm a simply amateur. You're the best.

    2005-11-15

  • Jamb

    Excellent work!

    2005-11-15

  • chris

    Excellent night photography lately.

    2005-11-15

  • Walker

    Wow. I love coming back hours later to read my own mangled comment. Should've said, "I would imagine that it's the accepted method because..."

    2005-11-15

  • Raffi

    I love this shot. I want to go out and take a pic like this too, since I live near these kinds of fields... Maybe one day.

    2005-11-15

  • Massimo

    Nice work these night landscapes. These technique is quite interesting, I have rarely seen photos able to show details with this high dynamic range.

    2005-11-15

  • Ian

    Very very cool. The effect looks awesome.

    2005-11-16

  • Ryan

    Wow. I am amazed at how good the ground looks...and you just can't beat that sky!

    2005-11-17

  • Saroy

    WOW. I mean, WOW. This is a beautiful photograph.

    2005-11-17

  • Conspi

    The colors are stunning for a night shot. Very nicely done.

    2005-11-19

  • Joe Lencioni

    Miles, sweet shot. Did you combine the five exposures using some HDR (High Dynamic Range) software like the stuff built into Photoshop CS2 or did you do it sorta manually?

    Also, about using a wider aperture for night shots: at least for digital night photography, you want to use a wider aperture in general because the longer you have your shutter open, the more noise gets introduced into your photo. You can go a few minutes and be pretty fine, but when it starts to get to be too long, the noise unfortunately gets a little bit exaggerated. I use a Canon 10D and that seems to be pretty true for me, but perhaps it is different for other cameras. Also, I am not a film pro, but I bet that it would be different with film.

    2005-11-20

  • pfong

    wonderful shot. thanks for sharing your technique.

    2005-11-21

  • peter

    Looks great - and thanks for sharing how you did it.

    2005-11-28

  • john

    Nice shot and thanks for the star trails tip

    2005-12-02