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A 'lil HooHaa

Messing with the blogging world since 2005

star trails

Day Zero Project: Completed No. 95

May 23, 2012

It's not the greatest, but I understand it and plan to do more star trails!

A Day Zero Project goal of P.J.’s has been completed!

Goal completed: Learn how to do star trails and do at least one photo of them.

Date completed: August 11, 2011.

Number: 95 (remember, these goals will not all be done in order. It’s a random list where the numbers actually are).

Description: Star trails have always intrigued me. Patience, timing and the right setup seems to be key in doing these. It was a photographic technique I had never done and was interested.

Why I wanted to do it: I am always looking for ways to improve my photography. Whether it be through technical skills with the camera, or a technique such as star trails, I try to become a better photographer. I have seen some amazing star trail shots on Flickr and elsewhere and always wanted to do it, but never wanted to devote the time for it. It seemed like a good goal, knowing I had wanted to do this.

How I did it: I first worked on researching the technique. Anybody who knows me knows that I probably research things too much. There are different ways to do star trails. I opted for the one single long exposure. The plan will eventually be to try and do the stacking process, where I take many shorter exposures and combine them. The super-long exposure left things a bit grainy, obviously, which is OK, but I’d like to figure out all the ways of doing it! I took about four shots the night I went and did it. I used Fitch’s Covered Bridge as a backdrop. Even late at night, however, cars came through. I actually like that there is light movement in the photo as I think it add to it.

The above photo is a 20-minute exposure.

You can get quite bored in 20 minutes when it’s pitch-black out. Thankfully, a friend came along and we just chatted the time away. It’s the best way to do it, I think, because you can let the time fly and not even realize it if you are talking with people. I have some other places I’d like to try with this technique and if I do it, I’ll be sure to get one or two people to come along.

Since I took this shot — and the other that I somewhat liked that night — I know there are a lot of things I can work on to get better shots. Now to find the places and get all I need to do to do this!

About P.J.’s Day Zero Project: Day Zero is a project where people come up with 101 things to do over 1001 days. I started the project on Oct. 10, 2010 with an anticipated finish date of July 8, 2013. Goals will not be revealed until they are completed. A private list is at the Day Zero website and the list will be made public upon completion of the project. It’s my thoughts that if things are kept private, should I not do them, change or find a way around it, I’d only be cheating myself.

Filed Under: Day Zero Project, My world, Photography Tagged With: day zero, day zero project, photo techniques, photography, photos, project, star trails, stars

2 Comments

Learning star trails

August 5, 2011

Star trails above Fitch's Bridge in Delhi.

I’ve wanted to learn star trails for a long time.

Some of the ones I’ve seen on Flickr are simply amazing. With this week’s theme in The HooHaa 52 being stars, I thought it was the perfect time to challenge myself and go for it.

Earlier this week when coming home from a softball game, the skies were clear, dark and amazing. So I stopped at the top of Meridale Mountain and set up the tripod, hoping to see if I could figure something out. I stayed for a while, took a few shots and realized I vastly underrated how hard star trails are.

So, back to the drawing board.

Knowing the weather going into the weekend wasn’t being looked at as perfect for star trails, I aimed for Wednesday or Thursday, which would follow another softball game.

Wednesday got washed out.

Alas, despite clouds throughout the day Thursday, things cleared up to allow me a second go at these things Thursday.

I was more prepared this time as I went and researched star trails a bit more online and had an idea of what I did wrong the first time (exposure, lens setting, exposure time etc.)

Earlier in the week, my attempt was awful. With not setting my camera to “infinity,” I got nothing but a blur. And with only going for a short amount of tiI didn’t even get any blurred star trails!

Awful!

Back to figuring things out, I guess!

After looking at many star trails photos on Flickr and reading about techniques in other places, I realized a few things:

  • I needed something in the foreground to attempt to focus on.
  • I needed to set the camera at infinity.
  • For a single exposure, I was looking at a 20- to 30-minute exposure, at least.

Enter Fitch’s Bridge.

I’m a nut when it comes to photographing covered bridges. But I’ve wanted to come up with other ways of shooting them, so this was the perfect example. Fitch’s Bridge is outside the village of Delhi, so it would be dark, for the most part. I just needed to hope against cars and houses with flood lights (which killed my final of three shots of the bridge).

This was my first attempt:

First attempt

I like this, but I wanted to get more of the bridge. My second attempt is the one at the top of this post.I like that one because of the streaking car lights coming through the bridge.

I still need to get better focus on the foreground object, I think. And I need to find a place where I think I can get a good foreground object and a solid, dark backdrop for the stars. I have a few ideas that I plan on trying out.

Too, I need to be better prepared to light up the foreground object so I can focus. A large flashlight or floodlight so my camera can see the object would be best. Maybe even setting my car up to point at the object, get everything set, turn all the lights out and then let the image go.

I’ve seen some things about taking 100 or so images of 30-second exposures and stacking them. It sounds like a cool way to do this, but I wonder how it works considering if I tried a 30-second exposure, I get nothing but darkness. If anyone has any thoughts on this, I would appreciate it.

Star trails are wild, that’s for sure. It’s actually one of my Day Zero goals. But until I get an image that really wows me, I won’t check it off yet.

It’s a challenging image, that’s for sure. But I think, when done right, it’s totally worth the wait.

Feel free to leave a comment, or e-mail P.J. at hoohaablog [at] gmail.com.

Filed Under: My world, Photography Tagged With: covered bridge, covered bridge photography, delaware county, delaware county ny, delhi, delhi ny, fitch's bridge, long exposure, long exposure photography, night photography, photography, photos, star trails, stars

5 Comments

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For those who like to be outside … give a read!

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Tick season is coming!! If you are bitten by a tick, here's how to remove the tick properly & clean the bite; where to send the tick for testing; signs of tick borne illness; and how to find a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor if you get sick!
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