Album Night Shots and Star Trails

[HomerJ]

Love the shots with the milky way in them!

 

[HomerJ]

Took this last night up Logan Canyon. The full moon really lit up the hillside.

 

[Nick]

Took this last night up Logan Canyon. The full moon really lit up the hillside.

That's killer man!!! Stacked or single exposure?

 

[HomerJ]

That's killer man!!! Stacked or single exposure?

Thanks man. Its stacked.

I figured out the aperture on my camera and the focusing to infinity (thanks for the help on that). Turns out I was focusing PAST infinity, which I didn't know you could do until I did some research on it. Turns out that in extreme temperatures you have to go just past (or before) infinity to get the focus right. I tired to do some star trails of the Wellsvilles the other night that would have turned out killer, but I was just a hair off on the focus and it didn't turn out.

 

[Yvonne]

my first temporary attempt for this year. Have to work on all my shots at home. This one is from Snow Canyon CG, I would love to have the trail more in the middle, but there was an ugly building on the left and that night I was too tired to head out somewhere else in the park. So it's just for practice

 

[jdgibney]

my first temporary attempt for this year. Have to work on all my shots at home. This one is from Snow Canyon CG, I would love to have the trail more in the middle, but there was an ugly building on the left and that night I was too tired to head out somewhere else in the park. So it's just for practice

Nicely done, Yvonne!

 

[Nick]

Nice job, Yvonne! It looks like there must have been some high thin clouds or something that made the trails a bit choppy.

 

[HomerJ]

Great job Yvonne, much better than my first attempt!

 

[Yvonne]

Nice job, Yvonne! It looks like there must have been some high thin clouds or something that made the trails a bit choppy.

There were high thin clouds every night. Anyway, I have to check the results at home with my laptop. That little netbook isn't very useful for that

 

[Yvonne]

here is another star trail, taken in Valley of Fire.
But even in the middle of the night there was a lot of air traffic and unfortunately a car spoiled the composition.
Anyway, it was nice to play around a little bit.
I guess sooner or later I need a better camera, there is still a lot of noise in the composition and maybe a problem of the D90.

 

[Nick]

I really like that one, Yvonne.

There is an easy way to fix that car though. You did stacked stars, not single exposure, right? Just pick a foreground from one of the stacked images that you like better. Then go into photoshop, throw that one in a layer behind the image above. Now grab your eraser with a feathered edge and probably at partial opacity and start 'painting in' the foreground that turned out better. It's one of the wonderful convenient things about stacking stars, you have a wide variety of foreground options to choose from.

 

[Yvonne]

I really like that one, Yvonne.

There is an easy way to fix that car though. You did stacked stars, not single exposure, right? Just pick a foreground from one of the stacks you like better. Then go into photoshop, throw that one in a layer behind the image above. Now grab your eraser with a feathered edge and probably at partial opacity and start 'painting in' the foreground that turned out better. It's one of the wonderful convenient things about stacking stars, you have a wide variety of foreground options to choose from.

yes, those images were stacked. I used your manual for shooting star trails and the results were much better than anything else I did before.
Hmm, photoshop, I need to buy a version of it. Maybe I'll get an inexpensive version in our university store.
Is it difficult to get familiar with the program?

 

[Nick]

yes, those images were stacked. I used your manual for shooting star trails and the results were much better than anything else I did before.
Hmm, photoshop, I need to buy a version of it. Maybe I'll get an inexpensive version in our university store.
Is it difficult to get familiar with the program?

I don't think so. And there are plenty of tutorials online. You could try a program called 'The Gimp' too. It is free and is touted as a Photoshop alternative. If you don't already know Photoshop, it could be easy but I don't like it since I already know my way around PS. You can download The Gimp here.

 

[Yvonne]

I don't think so. And there are plenty of tutorials online. You could try a program called 'The Gimp' too. It is free and is touted as a Photoshop alternative. If you don't already know Photoshop, it could be easy but I don't like it since I already know my way around PS. You can download The Gimp here.

thanks Nick. I'll check it out soon
I'll also download a trial version of Photoshop and try to play around a little bit with it.

 

[Nick]

A snippet of the time lapse I shot in Coal Pits wash last weekend. This is only 19 thirty second exposures stacked. Amazing how much faster the stars appear to move when you shoot towards the equator. I wonder if using mirror lock up would help eliminate the micro gaps in the trails caused from the time in between exposures?

 

[Yvonne]

amazing shot, Nick!! :twothumbs:
Your new camera really takes great pictures and what a difference compared to my Nikon D90.

 

[wes242]

A shots from this morning/last night

 

[Nick]

Nice, Wes. Is that just a bit of flare up in the sky on the first one?

 

[wes242]

Nice, Wes. Is that just a bit of flare up in the sky on the first one?

Yeah, I thought about cloning it out, but I left it in for some extra color

 

[Nick]

Yeah, I thought about cloning it out, but I left it in for some extra color

I would have done the same. It makes it look like some insane distant galaxy or something. Especially if you didn't know much about lens flare.