As a child I always liked the way the stars blinked in the night sky. It is always amazing looking at the stars. And then we were habituated to looking at falling stars and praying for our good.
When I got my first dslr, I wanted to see and shot the moon which was amazing experience and then came the stars. I did see some stars as a kid too, through the telescope our school had in the science laboratory, courtesy our science teacher. Frankly speaking I did see nothing except darkness. And when I saw on internet that we can shoot the stars as they move (Or should I say the earth moves, because the stars are stationary objects, as per the scientists).
I had been trying a lot to do this and failed miserably a couple of times too. Although I am writing this now, I am not sure whether I have succeeded in shooting a star trail or not, that my readers will judge.
My Preparation :
A DSLR with long shutter speed facility and burst mode. (I took many shots of 30 seconds duration). And then stacked the images on above the other to get the shot. Also some people suggest you take a BULB mode shot. I tried that too, but did not find suitable results.
A steady tripod is a must so that the camera does not move a bit.
A silent and dark sky is a must, so I chose a night before new moon so that there is no moon in the sky. Also disturbances from light sources should be avoided. Unfortunately I could not do that, because I am in the heart of a city. Anyway I positioned my camera in such a manner that it focussed only on the sky and did not got distraction from city lights. My house fortunately is at a part of city where darkness prevails.
I needed a remote shutter release mechanish, which I purchased form ebay for 300 rupees. It works well.
And last but not the least PATIENCE is the key to the shot.
PROCEDURE :
I mounted my Nikon D5100 DSLR on the tripod and set the aperture to f/5.6 and shutter to 30 sec and multiple shots mode. I chose the ISO to be 1000 and took a test shot of 30 seconds and then adjusted the focus by looking at a distant source of light and then kept the camera still and with the remote trigger I pushed and locked it so that the camera goes on taking 30 seconds shots till I let it do it.
After almost an hour I remembered that I had left my camera outside and rushed and stopped the trigger and found it had taken some 100 shots.
Then I downloaded the images to my computer and used a freely available software called Starstax (DOWNLOAD) to compile the single image. I chose the gap filling mode on the software.
After the single stacked image came out I created a new document in photoshop of 900px X 596px and pasted the image and reduced the size and then improved the contrast and color and added some sharpness and got this result.
I know this is not a big image compared what people have got, but I am glad I have found a good quality star trail. My experiments will continue though.
Description: Shooting star trails with minimum equipment
When I got my first dslr, I wanted to see and shot the moon which was amazing experience and then came the stars. I did see some stars as a kid too, through the telescope our school had in the science laboratory, courtesy our science teacher. Frankly speaking I did see nothing except darkness. And when I saw on internet that we can shoot the stars as they move (Or should I say the earth moves, because the stars are stationary objects, as per the scientists).
I had been trying a lot to do this and failed miserably a couple of times too. Although I am writing this now, I am not sure whether I have succeeded in shooting a star trail or not, that my readers will judge.
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| http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/spectacular-australian-star-trails |
A DSLR with long shutter speed facility and burst mode. (I took many shots of 30 seconds duration). And then stacked the images on above the other to get the shot. Also some people suggest you take a BULB mode shot. I tried that too, but did not find suitable results.
A steady tripod is a must so that the camera does not move a bit.
A silent and dark sky is a must, so I chose a night before new moon so that there is no moon in the sky. Also disturbances from light sources should be avoided. Unfortunately I could not do that, because I am in the heart of a city. Anyway I positioned my camera in such a manner that it focussed only on the sky and did not got distraction from city lights. My house fortunately is at a part of city where darkness prevails.
I needed a remote shutter release mechanish, which I purchased form ebay for 300 rupees. It works well.
And last but not the least PATIENCE is the key to the shot.
PROCEDURE :
I mounted my Nikon D5100 DSLR on the tripod and set the aperture to f/5.6 and shutter to 30 sec and multiple shots mode. I chose the ISO to be 1000 and took a test shot of 30 seconds and then adjusted the focus by looking at a distant source of light and then kept the camera still and with the remote trigger I pushed and locked it so that the camera goes on taking 30 seconds shots till I let it do it.
After almost an hour I remembered that I had left my camera outside and rushed and stopped the trigger and found it had taken some 100 shots.
Then I downloaded the images to my computer and used a freely available software called Starstax (DOWNLOAD) to compile the single image. I chose the gap filling mode on the software.
After the single stacked image came out I created a new document in photoshop of 900px X 596px and pasted the image and reduced the size and then improved the contrast and color and added some sharpness and got this result.
I know this is not a big image compared what people have got, but I am glad I have found a good quality star trail. My experiments will continue though.
All good..except one line...stars are not stationary. Nothing in this universe is stationary in fact. Stars orbit the center of galaxy.
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