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Mt. Hamilton Startrail



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4+ hours of exposure from over 500 images...

4+ hours of exposure from over 500 images...
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Awards

Absolute Masterpiece
Marcin_Wozniak nibsClick MarliaPhotography ventenni kbondan42 PhotographyByDonnaG marcobertazzoni +5
Outstanding Creativity
magnus_fett abhishekchaudhary ImagesinFocus SaleMarley carolhagood trune66 ricklee_7010 +5
Top Choice
Leon213 brennanellis gondmagdi djleroy lynstew amj920
Superb Composition
JaredVJohnson72 pietnel gauravgupta ivyluna
Jaw Dropping
onyanita paulshannon Taps
Superior Skill
danhaganphotography paulosborne JosephClark
All Star
AZPhotos MatthewDavidGager
Peer Award
akshaychandakkar grn_turtle
Magnificent Capture
HRImages

Top Ranks

Star Gazing Photo ContestTop 10 rank
Our World At Night Photo ContestTop 10 rank
Into The Night Photo ContestTop 10 rank
In the Center Photo ContestTop 20 rank
In the Center Photo ContestTop 20 rank week 2
In the Center Photo ContestTop 10 rank week 1
Day Or Night Photo ContestTop 30 rank
Long Exposure Views Photo ContestTop 20 rank
Light Sensitivity Photo ContestTop 10 rank week 1
Nature At Night Photo ContestTop 30 rank week 1

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2 Comments | Report
onyanita PRO+
 
onyanita September 05, 2013
fantastic!
CreativeDragon PRO
CreativeDragon October 24, 2013
Thanks!
HRImages
 
HRImages November 24, 2013
Great capture.
CreativeDragon PRO
CreativeDragon December 31, 2013
Thank you.
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Behind The Lens

Location

This was taken near the top of Mount Hamilton, just outside of San Jose, California.

Time

This 4 hour adventure began around 10pm, and lasted until around 2am.

Lighting

The entire image is lit with ambient light. A quarter moon was out and behind me, which helped to light up the foreground a bit. Also, passing cars helped light the foreground as well.

Equipment

Nikon D800, 24-70 f2.8 Nikor lens, Manfroto CF tripod with ball mount.

Inspiration

Star trails are one of my favorite things to capture. Finding a nice remote location with an interesting foreground is part of the fun. See the end result after 4 hours of shooting always inspires me to go out and do it again.

Editing

Basic post processing, nothing too heavy. Contrast and color saturation adjustments in LR. Plus there is the processing of stacking all of the images into a single shot. There are a couple programs out there for this. At the time I used Startrails.exe. However, I now use Star Circle Academy's "Advance Stacker Plus." The software takes all of the images and stacks them in "lighten" mode so that you can get a nice star trail.

In my camera bag

Everything... camera, lenses, flashes, shutter release... It's actually time to get a bigger bag! LOL

Feedback

Be patient. Make sure you compose your shot, and have your focus set for the foreground. Do not do exposures longer then 5 minutes or so... I usually keep my exposures under 2 minutes. If you do too long of an exposure you run the risk of burning out your sensor! Adjust your ISO accordingly so that you can keep your exposure under 2 minutes. Use an intervelometer (like the Velbon Shutterboss), that way you can set it and forget it for the next couple hours. Oh, and bring a book, or an iPad or something to keep you entertained :)

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