KyleForemanPhoto

Brant Lake Star Trails

Star trail photos are not something I do a lot of however, I would consider this my best attempt at it so far. I was in Brant Lake New York for a family vacatio...
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Star trail photos are not something I do a lot of however, I would consider this my best attempt at it so far. I was in Brant Lake New York for a family vacation. We only had 2 clear nights the entire week we were there so I tried to make the most of it. This photo is made up of around 250 photos stitched together. I was also lucky enough to have Polaris clear in the sky so I could create the circle pattern in the stars which is my favorite. Would love to know what you think?
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Brant Lake, New York, US

upload_date

Aug, 2021

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101

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+11

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Behind The Lens

Location

This photo was taken while I was on vacation at Brant Lake New York.

Time

I knew I wanted to take some night photos while I was on vacation at the lake. We ended up only having two clear nights throughout the entire week. The nights it was cloudy I made the most of my time and scouted out different compositions. I settled on this shed because I noticed that the big and little dipper were lining up perfectly with it which I know would give me the perfect circle shape in the star trails. The reflection in the lake was also a nice bonus. This photo was taken between the hours of around 11:30 to 1:30 at night/in the morning.

Lighting

We had a campfire going basically right next to where I was set up which was casting an ugly orange glow on the shed/foreground. Which was fine because my main focus was the sky. However to off set the glow from the fire I used an LED flash light, one to light the foreground which I would blend into my final image and two to offset the white balance from the fire to nice cool bluer color.

Equipment

I shot this with my Sony a7iii a Zeiss 16-35 f/4 and of course my tripod. As I mentioned above I also used a flash light to light the foreground for a few images that I would use in my final photo. My camera has a built in intervalometer which is nice, and I set it to take 20 second exposures every second for about 3 hours. The nice thing about this is after I had everything set up and after I got my foreground images I could go back to the fire to enjoy some beers with the family while the camera did the work by itself.

Inspiration

I've always enjoyed star trail photos. We also vacation in Lake George area particularly on Brant Lake every summer. From past experience I know that the night sky is very clear and amazing up there granted it's clear. This particular summer the lake was also much higher than it usually is. This worked out great for me as the shed in the foreground is usually no where close to the water. However, with the lake being that high I was able to capture the reflection which I think adds a lot to the photo. These types of photos also allow for a lot creativity in post processing. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I tried to take borrow from Van Gogh and take kind of a Starry Night approach to this when I was editing.

Editing

This type of photo is honestly all about post-processing. You can capture star trials in camera in one shot but you have to nail everything in one photo. The other option is to take many photos and combine them together. There are many ways to combine the photos but I chose to use the application Star StaX. This photo is made up of around 250 photos taken over a 2 1/2 - 3 hour period. The first thing I did was choose one of the frames that I mentioned above that I lit with a flash light for my foreground. Once I got the perfect one I did my normal global adjustments to it in lightroom. Then I picked one of the photos with out the lit foreground and edited it to get the sky the way I wanted it, not worrying about the foreground at all knowing that I would use the other photo for the foreground. Once this was done I used the "Sync" feature in lightroom to sync all of the other 200+photos I would be using for my star trails. Now all 200+ photos have all the exact same adjustments made to them. The next step is to export all 200+ as jpegs for the Star StaX app (this will take quite a bit of time). Once they are exported it's as simple as copying and pasting them into Star StaX then with the click of a button the app will process them into one photo giving you the star trails. Then I took the star trail photo and the photo w/o the star trails with the lit foreground and opened them both as layers in photoshop. Once I had the two photos in PS the next step is to mask in my lit foreground photo into the star trail photo creating the final image. I also masked in the reflection of the star trails in the lake into the foreground photo. After I have the photos combined into a final image I save it and go back to lightroom to make some final global adjustments just to make the two photos blend together a little better (this could also be done in PS using camera raw I just prefer LR). After all of that I was left with the final result which is honestly my favorite photo I have taken to date.

In my camera bag

Aside from my Camera and which ever lenses I choose to bring with me, mostly my wide angle 16-35 f/4 and my 70-18 f/2.8, I also carry a set of neutral density filters with me where ever I go as long exposures are some of my favorite things to capture. However, for this particular photo besides a camera, lens and tripod all you really need is an intervalometer and some post processing software.

Feedback

Practice and trial and error. Another thing is use your time wisely. As I mentioned we only had 2 really clear nights while I was there. We had a fire going every night and while hanging out around the fire I was making mental notes of things so when I finally did have a clear night I already knew how to execute what I wanted. For instance I knew I wanted more than just star trails. To make a good photo I knew I needed a foreground element. I decided on the shed because I thought it was my best option. I also noticed the reflection of the shed on the cloudy nights and knew that once it was clear the reflection would be a nice addition to the photo. So during the cloudy nights I was thinking about and putting together my composition in my mind. Another thing I made note of is the moon would rise every night between the hours of 1:30 and 2:00. So I knew to pull of this photo I had to be done by 1:45 at the latest as the moon light would just wash everything out. All of these factors played a role into me being able to pull of this image. Another thing I would say is try not to get frustrated with your post processing. Getting my selection in photo shop to mask in my ground was tedious and took multiple tries before I got what I wanted. The important thing is to just experiment and have fun with it.

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KyleForemanPhoto

KyleForemanPhoto

Brant Lake Star Trails

Star trail photos are not something I do a lot of however, I would consider this my best attempt at it so far. I was in Brant Lake New York for a family vacatio... Read more

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow KyleForemanPhoto

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Star trail photos are not something I do a lot of however, I would consider this my best attempt at it so far. I was in Brant Lake New York for a family vacatio...
Read more

Share photos. Enter contests to win great prizes.
Earn coins, get amazing rewards. Join for free.