So I finally got a chance to do some Star trails last evening out in the Kuwait desert, thanks to Q8 Expats Photography Club - Q8EPC that organised the event.
The specifics on how to go about doing it are all mentioned below. I made sure I tried to cover everything in this article but in case you have a question do leave a message and I will reply back.
Pick a night with no moon or at least one when the moon won't appear until you are done with your shooting. Note, you will need a good 2 to 3 hrs approx. to shoot the star trails.
Equipment required.
1. DSLR camera or a any camera which you can adjust the settings Manually.
2. Extra Battery (you will be clicking around 250 - 300 shots on long shutter so definitely need an extra battery)
3. A sturdy Tripod stand.
4. Shutter release cable
5. Minimum 8 GB memory card if you are shooting in RAW format, 4 GB card is enough if shooting in jpeg.
6. Preferable lens to be used is Wide angles / ultra wide angles / Fisheye. (You will want as much as sky in your frame so the wider the better) I shot mine with the Sigma 10mm 2.8F Fisheye.
Pick up spot with a good foreground (Building / Tree / Boulder etc)
Set up tripod with your camera facing the North Star (use Google sky map App or any other app to locate the North Star)
Make sure the tripod is in a spot that will not move or shake for the next 2 - 3 hours.
Camera Settings:
1. Click in Manual Mode setting
2. Change Focus to Manual on your lens.
3. Adjust focus Manually to Infinity, its the sleeping 8 sign on most lenses. if you don't have it, look through the view finder and adjust the focus until the stars in the sky appears sharp.
4. Shutter Speed - Keep at 30 seconds or lower. More than then that, stars won't be sharp in the pics due to the earth continuous rotations.
5. Aperture - Keep at lowest aperture your lens will allow so as to allow as much light into the sensor as possible.
6. ISO - Once Shutter and Aperture is set, tweek you ISO setting to what you feel gives you the best image. Keep it lower to avoid grains in the image ISO400 or lower will do, take test shots at various ISO levels between ISO100 - 400 (unless your camera can go lower than 100) and adjust accordingly.
7. White Balance - Set White balance to your choice - I set mine at Tungsten if you are clicking in RAW -WB is not an issue as you can easily adjust it in Photoshop or other software
8. No need to change any other setting on the camera.
Connect your shutter release cable to the camera.
2 main reason on using the shutter release cable is to avoid touching the camera and chances of shifting the camera / tripod is low &
If you lock the shuter release button it will take the pics for you after every 30 secs on it's own, so you can leave it and do what ever you want in the meantime and come back 2-3 hrs later.
However to do this u need to adjust a setting in your camera in the shutter release options.
Press & lock the shutter release button and let the camera do its job. The camera should keep taking the images automatically every 30 secs, if it does not adjust the settings on your camera or you will need to press the shutter button on the shutter release every 30 seconds. (which is what i ended up doing as I didn't find the option on my camera).
There are even apps available that can do this, connect your phone / Tab / iPad / laptop to the camera and use the app or any software to trigger the release automatically after you set the timings.
Don't forget to take some munchies / water etc's as you will be out for a long time.
Note if your shutter speed is at 30 secs, then your camera is taking 2 images approx a minute. i.e is 120 images an hour or 240 after 2 hours and 360 after 3 hours. The more snaps you click the longer the star trails will appear. I used about 160 images only to make my star trails as we were running out of time and needed to leave soon.
Once you are done the next job starts on your PC / Laptop. You will require a software that will get allow you to stack the images together, I used Photoshop to do mine. A lot of free to use software's are available online to choose from like - StarStax Free Download
There are also plenty of videos online on youtube that will show you how to use software's like Photoshop or Starstax to get the effects. Here are a couple of video links if you are using Photoshop or StarStax
1. How to Make a Star Trails Photoshop using stacked images. - Photoshop
2. Star trails Demo - StarStax
You can further crop / tweek the color balance if you like, that's up to you. I was satisfied with this once.
So here you go, get out there and get some pics taken and do your star trails, upload the pics and tag us #SnapThat on Facebook or Instagram.
See you guys soon
SnapThat - Facebook
The Idea behind getting Star trails is pretty simple. Take multiple shots of a stary night sky with the Pole star in your frame, stack them all together in a software system and Voila! you are done. simple eh!
Why Pole Star you ask? Coz it is approximately aligned with
the Earth's axis of rotation.
While other stars' apparent positions in the sky
change throughout the night, as they appear to rotate around the celestial
poles, pole stars' apparent positions remain virtually fixed. (Read on
Pole_star for more info)The specifics on how to go about doing it are all mentioned below. I made sure I tried to cover everything in this article but in case you have a question do leave a message and I will reply back.
Pick a night with no moon or at least one when the moon won't appear until you are done with your shooting. Note, you will need a good 2 to 3 hrs approx. to shoot the star trails.
Equipment required.
1. DSLR camera or a any camera which you can adjust the settings Manually.
2. Extra Battery (you will be clicking around 250 - 300 shots on long shutter so definitely need an extra battery)
3. A sturdy Tripod stand.
4. Shutter release cable
5. Minimum 8 GB memory card if you are shooting in RAW format, 4 GB card is enough if shooting in jpeg.
6. Preferable lens to be used is Wide angles / ultra wide angles / Fisheye. (You will want as much as sky in your frame so the wider the better) I shot mine with the Sigma 10mm 2.8F Fisheye.
Pick up spot with a good foreground (Building / Tree / Boulder etc)
Set up tripod with your camera facing the North Star (use Google sky map App or any other app to locate the North Star)
Make sure the tripod is in a spot that will not move or shake for the next 2 - 3 hours.
Camera Settings:
1. Click in Manual Mode setting
2. Change Focus to Manual on your lens.
3. Adjust focus Manually to Infinity, its the sleeping 8 sign on most lenses. if you don't have it, look through the view finder and adjust the focus until the stars in the sky appears sharp.
4. Shutter Speed - Keep at 30 seconds or lower. More than then that, stars won't be sharp in the pics due to the earth continuous rotations.
5. Aperture - Keep at lowest aperture your lens will allow so as to allow as much light into the sensor as possible.
6. ISO - Once Shutter and Aperture is set, tweek you ISO setting to what you feel gives you the best image. Keep it lower to avoid grains in the image ISO400 or lower will do, take test shots at various ISO levels between ISO100 - 400 (unless your camera can go lower than 100) and adjust accordingly.
7. White Balance - Set White balance to your choice - I set mine at Tungsten if you are clicking in RAW -WB is not an issue as you can easily adjust it in Photoshop or other software
8. No need to change any other setting on the camera.
Connect your shutter release cable to the camera.
2 main reason on using the shutter release cable is to avoid touching the camera and chances of shifting the camera / tripod is low &
If you lock the shuter release button it will take the pics for you after every 30 secs on it's own, so you can leave it and do what ever you want in the meantime and come back 2-3 hrs later.
However to do this u need to adjust a setting in your camera in the shutter release options.
Press & lock the shutter release button and let the camera do its job. The camera should keep taking the images automatically every 30 secs, if it does not adjust the settings on your camera or you will need to press the shutter button on the shutter release every 30 seconds. (which is what i ended up doing as I didn't find the option on my camera).
There are even apps available that can do this, connect your phone / Tab / iPad / laptop to the camera and use the app or any software to trigger the release automatically after you set the timings.
Don't forget to take some munchies / water etc's as you will be out for a long time.
Below is a example of one of images
Note if your shutter speed is at 30 secs, then your camera is taking 2 images approx a minute. i.e is 120 images an hour or 240 after 2 hours and 360 after 3 hours. The more snaps you click the longer the star trails will appear. I used about 160 images only to make my star trails as we were running out of time and needed to leave soon.
Once you are done the next job starts on your PC / Laptop. You will require a software that will get allow you to stack the images together, I used Photoshop to do mine. A lot of free to use software's are available online to choose from like - StarStax Free Download
There are also plenty of videos online on youtube that will show you how to use software's like Photoshop or Starstax to get the effects. Here are a couple of video links if you are using Photoshop or StarStax
1. How to Make a Star Trails Photoshop using stacked images. - Photoshop
2. Star trails Demo - StarStax
Below is the end result.
You can further crop / tweek the color balance if you like, that's up to you. I was satisfied with this once.
So here you go, get out there and get some pics taken and do your star trails, upload the pics and tag us #SnapThat on Facebook or Instagram.
See you guys soon
SnapThat - Facebook
