4+ hours of exposure from over 500 images...
4+ hours of exposure from over 500 images...
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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! LOLFeedback
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 :)