Startrails

~70 30s exposures stacked using startrails.exe.

 

I have always wanted to try out the star trails. and the camping was just an excuse to get my friends out on a moonless night.

Here I had the perfect subject for the foreground.

I wasn't really concerned about the center of the stars' circle, which btw is the Polaris a.k.a the North star. The stars appear from earth to circle around the Polaris.

Getting started:

Mount the camera on the tripod. take a couple of sample shots to check the composition and exposure for 30s shots. Had to crank up ISO upto 640 as there was almost no other light than the stars themselves. In the middle of the desert no civilization for miles.

 

Put a carpet behind the camera with a couple of friends with the remote shutter release in my hand. Sat there for about 30-45 mins clicking the remote every 30s. Finally, we decided we had enough.

The last part is where I capture the vehicle.

1st exposure for the exterior.

Using my Quantary 900WA strobed the vehicle @ 1/8 power.

2nd exposure for interior.

Switched on the lights inside the vehicle to capture details inside the vehicle.

Stacked up all the images using the startrails.exe. A very easy to use tool.

 

And you can see the result after minor color/level adjustment in CS4.

You can download the software here ->http://www.startrails.de/Startrails.zip

 

thanks for looking.

Done