Dru Dodd
Navigating the stars.
Hurrah, the cloud has lifted and I could see the stars last night for the first time in weeks! I headed to Holy Island (I do go to other places!) and arrived on the island at midnight, then set off walking in the dark headed for the Emanuel Head navigation marker. The walk alone took an hour and fortuneately my passion for astronomy has allowed me to be able to use various stars as bearings whilst walking in the dark. I arrived and my first photo on my list was a star trail of this place which would take an hour, which would kill some time whilst I waited for the Milky Way to rise at around 2:30am.
So I set up the shot and programmed my camera then sat down in the dunes for an hour and watched Rory Stewart's 'Border Country' on iPlayer on my iPad (other tablets available :P). If you haven't seen it - it's in two parts - and you live in the UK then I highly recommend it. It's all about my local area and he aptly travelled to Holy Island on it too, which made me laugh. Here's the link to the first episode www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0404r3t/Border_Country_The...
I've always wanted to visit Emanuel Head at night ever since I saw Mike Ridley Photography's wonderful sunrise photo from here. I was with Mike that day but I hung around the harbour for sunrise. If you like my photography then I can't recommend following Mike enough (www.facebook.com/mikeridleyphotography) he's a great photographer but more importantly he's a great friend and he's taught me so much over the years! Here's his wonderful sunrise photo from Emanuel Head (www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=237129099785859&set=p...).
If this is the first time you've seen a star trail then it's a one hour exposure, comprised of 120 30 second photographs. As the earth rotates the stars track across the sky and leave the trails of light on the photograph. To do this you need to put your camera in sequential shooting mode (burst mode) then set the shutter speed to 30 seconds, and with a cable release you need to lock the shutter so that as soon as the first 30 second photo has been taken the next one follows immediately after. Then search for a programe called StarStax and download it and it will blend all the photos together for you.
14mm, f2.8, 30 seconds, ISO3200
Facebook has changed how pages are run, basically to create revenue for themselves so even though you may have liked my page you wont always get my updates. If you would like to see all my new photos all you need to do is click the 'Liked' section at the top then click 'Get Notifications' that way you'll always be notified of my new posts. I'll never spam you, I only post photographs.
f you'd like to share this with you're friends and help my photography spread that would be thoroughly nice of you!
You can follow me at Dru Dodd Photography (www.facebook.com/drudoddphotography) and visit my website at www.drudodd.com
Oh and I almost forgot to mention, I picked up the aurora in the photograph! you can see it on the horizon on the left! Jammy I know! I got off the island before the tide cut it off and made it home just in time for sunrise.
Navigating the stars.
Hurrah, the cloud has lifted and I could see the stars last night for the first time in weeks! I headed to Holy Island (I do go to other places!) and arrived on the island at midnight, then set off walking in the dark headed for the Emanuel Head navigation marker. The walk alone took an hour and fortuneately my passion for astronomy has allowed me to be able to use various stars as bearings whilst walking in the dark. I arrived and my first photo on my list was a star trail of this place which would take an hour, which would kill some time whilst I waited for the Milky Way to rise at around 2:30am.
So I set up the shot and programmed my camera then sat down in the dunes for an hour and watched Rory Stewart's 'Border Country' on iPlayer on my iPad (other tablets available :P). If you haven't seen it - it's in two parts - and you live in the UK then I highly recommend it. It's all about my local area and he aptly travelled to Holy Island on it too, which made me laugh. Here's the link to the first episode www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0404r3t/Border_Country_The...
I've always wanted to visit Emanuel Head at night ever since I saw Mike Ridley Photography's wonderful sunrise photo from here. I was with Mike that day but I hung around the harbour for sunrise. If you like my photography then I can't recommend following Mike enough (www.facebook.com/mikeridleyphotography) he's a great photographer but more importantly he's a great friend and he's taught me so much over the years! Here's his wonderful sunrise photo from Emanuel Head (www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=237129099785859&set=p...).
If this is the first time you've seen a star trail then it's a one hour exposure, comprised of 120 30 second photographs. As the earth rotates the stars track across the sky and leave the trails of light on the photograph. To do this you need to put your camera in sequential shooting mode (burst mode) then set the shutter speed to 30 seconds, and with a cable release you need to lock the shutter so that as soon as the first 30 second photo has been taken the next one follows immediately after. Then search for a programe called StarStax and download it and it will blend all the photos together for you.
14mm, f2.8, 30 seconds, ISO3200
Facebook has changed how pages are run, basically to create revenue for themselves so even though you may have liked my page you wont always get my updates. If you would like to see all my new photos all you need to do is click the 'Liked' section at the top then click 'Get Notifications' that way you'll always be notified of my new posts. I'll never spam you, I only post photographs.
f you'd like to share this with you're friends and help my photography spread that would be thoroughly nice of you!
You can follow me at Dru Dodd Photography (www.facebook.com/drudoddphotography) and visit my website at www.drudodd.com
Oh and I almost forgot to mention, I picked up the aurora in the photograph! you can see it on the horizon on the left! Jammy I know! I got off the island before the tide cut it off and made it home just in time for sunrise.