Star Trails Photography Tutorial: Take Pictures at Night Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

Hi, I'm Tony Northrup and for my book
Stunning
Digital Photography, I'd like to show you
how to take
photos of star trails. now if you
happen to be in the northern hemisphere
you'll be able to spot the North star
which resides right up here about the
planet well quite a ways in the distance
and it seems to remain stationary the
trip to the North Star is that
every other star guy in the northern
hemisphere
were involved around and then why should
create these circular
star trails anytime you're pointed North
star trails
start and and right here at your
computer
per step is to identify a good night
to go out and take a picture out star
trails the things you look for our
really cold and dry night now
you want to be cold because the air
tends to be a little bit drier
and clear and they will cause class
diffraction
the incoming light basically wields the
Sea The Stars much sharper
you also want a night with no moon what
so
ever any sort of Moon if it's going to
be in that part this guy is going to
cast light in the sky it's going to
factory thing you just won't be able to
see the stars as sharply
so what I do is I open up my there right
after this kind of thing that
photographers
a members its free for a Windows and Mac
I put in their location then I'm going
to be at
and it tells me the moon rise and set
time so
you can see that the moon is rising at
643
and its setting at our 455 p
am so I should be able to take pictures
in the middle of the night
and not have them unlike interfere with
it now we also need to find a location
the location should be as far from any
sort of street lights or city lights as
possible
even if the streetlight isn't in the
frame what you find is that the life
ministry they still gets to practice in
the air and mixing little bit less clear
doesn't mean you can't go in your
backyard and neighborhood and take some
star trails but it's going to turn out
better
but farther away you get from your
street lights now
the next up is going to be to set up
your camera and I'm still going to do
this inside
for one it's gonna be much easier for
you to see if it's not in the middle of
the night
and to you're gonna need to do this by
hand
in the day like to make sure you know
how when you get out there under the
right conditions for star trails it's
going to be
hitch pitch black you might be in the
seat then you're going to see the
buttons on your camera
you won't know what you doing you
probably also be cold in your fingers
will start to go numb
star trails can be really physically
demanding so it's really important you
know exactly how to set up your camera
and do it in the daylight first and then
when you get out there is going to be
much
easier for you just because it is going
to be talking or bring a
flashlight or better get a head lamp
that you can easily turn
on up so here's what you need for your
camera
need yourself a good steady tripod the
bigger and heavier the
better it doesn't hurt if you have
either above a level that you can put on
top of your camera
or electronic level in your camera and
the reason for that is that
at night it's really hard to get your
camera level because it's going to be
some dark
you're looking to the viewfinder and
China Sea The Horizon
and you're just not going to be able to
tell now
they have your camera on a released a
tripod and you have a
level you're going to set up your camera
first thing I like to do is attach a
really wide angle lens the more wide
angle the better because it's good to
capture as much in the sky as you
possibly can
set that lands to manual focus
and then adjusts the focus to be
near infinity now as you look at the
focus ring
on it you're going to see a little
infinity symbol and a line
you want to focus at the wine that mark
since then the and not just
all the way to one end up your camera
because most lenders focus
past infinity so focus your lands to the
Infinity
marking now but you camera into manual
mode
you want is what the shutter speed have
38 seconds
and an aperture up act for or whatever
the lowest ebb that number your lawn
supports is
now such a I so too 1600
and take a test shot now when you take
this shot is going to take 30 seconds so
start it and then just wait around
don't also your camera don't mess with
the one can be completely
still at that thirty seconds elapse is
you want to zoom into your picture
preview and then zoom
all the way in so you can see individual
pixels
make sure that the stars are nice and
sharp if they're not sharp then you need
to go back and adjust the focus a little
bit
and retested until they are sharp
now that you have your camera setup and
the pixels are nice and sharp
we're going to take a dark frame shot so
what you can do is put a lens cap on
your lens or keep all my advice and get
your lens caps
I just put a hat or coat or something
over
your lens cap so it's completely dark
and then again take that
same thirty second shot it's going to be
mostly black frame but what happens is
cameras going to record some noise this
is just Mb in no way is it will be
bright pixels that don't work properly
industry stuff going on with the sensor
every camera has nothing to be worried
about but
when we won the pictures too soft for
later
Williams attract out that dark frame
what all do is to create
Norway's free images on the rest out the
pictures
in the series we set up our camera for
30 second exposure earlier now so the
shutter for continuous
shooting it's the same mode you'd use
for sports
where you hold the shutter down and just
click click click click click click
click
just keeps taking pictures so I do that
with a 30 second exposure but it works
great
so now they have your shutters that too
continuous you're going to hook up a
remote shutter release just
anything that will lock the shutter open
so I have one such device here
this is a fifteen dollar remote shutter
timer and a I came to a brand is because
it generic and their lease under a bunch
of different names that's in it
under their young own brand and such
petty
and a handful Peter um
anyway it'll look like this it'll cost
you like 15-20 bucks American
and you don't even need the timer
features for right now all you need is
the slider
that allows you to cold the shutter open
this is exactly like holding the shutter
button down
on your camera and just keeping your
finger there for hours but
if you did that you be shaken a camera
around and you probably get pretty bored
sup
you plug this into the camera makes you
get one that matches your camera model
because they're different connectors
and then lot the shower open and your on
your way
you can was going to be taking new shot
every 30 seconds
so go do some light painting or read a
book
with flashlight and keep yourself busy
while your camera works is going to take
hours does is that your camera though
because
as the temperature changes condensation
can form an alliance up
depends how humid as and how much
doctors changing
but I like to check my camera every 10
or 15 minutes or so special concern the
summer and maybe a little more humid
you have to get up there and just wipe
the lands claimed
so bring yourself in absorbent went free
cough and just like that Lansdowne every
now and then
otherwise you'll get all this
condensation on the lands at war
absolutely run the pictures
get going it may be 10-15 minutes usable
pictures
where can we shouldn't keep an eye on
the sky to if
a cloud rolls past will happen is it
will ruin
all your star trail that has happened
time and time again I got text our jail
pictures
as nice and clear when I started than 20
minutes and clouds roll past
and they might come and go in just a
couple minutes
but they'll be locked into your long
exposure
annual to see the streak a white along
be attractive or anything
and a pretty much bail on it if any sort
of clouds roll and
that's why I want to pick a nice clear
night we're not predicting any
sort of clouds what so ever up
how to stay out too as long as you can I
took my exposure at about two and a half
hours that was
over 300 different thirty second
exposures and stack them so you will see
what those look like
but the long you stay out the better now
that you have your
exposures it's time to go back to the
computer
and copied those pictures to your
computer
now I like to use Lightroom and process
the
raw files my room allows me to easily
apply
the same setup settings to the entire
group photo so
which is even get these pictures on
there is the same thing that you'll see
on any night photography picture your
policy is it'll be really orange
and the colors will look at it also you
need to play with the white balance some
and probably need to adjust the exposure
you want the stars to be nice and bright
in the sky to be nice and dark so just
the black levels and the white levels
but apply the exact same settings to
all those pictures now we're going to
export those pictures as Jay pag
files into a single folder
with those pictures exported we can now
open up the application they like to use
and it's called
star stacks so let's do that now
you gonna quit that first toolbar button
to open up the
images been an easy with a slight all
the pictures in a folder is to
press Control day
now you can see all your input images in
here that's what that's second to our
button to subtract that your dark
frame it happen captured are crammed
that's okay it just helps reduce your
noise a little bit
now before you process the images you
need to go over into the
Preferences tab you can open it by
clicking the
gear icon here and the blending mode I'm
going to ask you to pick
gap filling this works the best is not
selected by default though
and if you had dark images be sure to
select the subtract dark
images checkbox as we all you need to do
so up next you hit that last button
which is start processing and their
computers going to run for a while
once it's done you're ready to finish up
and save your final photo the gap
filling no doubt stars tax will fill in
some gaps and gaps are pretty common
and they have been for a couple reasons
one maybe you had to stop a camper
secondly clean the
condensation of the lands or if you ran
outta batteries and yes walked in a nice
warm battery to keep the camera going
sometimes a
somebody walks in front of your camera
and runs a particular exposure
or maybe a light shine then anyone into
any had totally different if you're
really not picky about it might take out
the frames that have airplanes flying
through them because you don't like that
dotted
line can running your star trails and
any of those missing frames gonna cause
a slight gap
in your star trails so the gap billing
mode here can actually
those in for you it's pretty smart it
just looks for the star trails
and then fills in any gaps in them so
what you gonna do
is click this wrench icon over on the
right
and it's like the show threshold overlay
checkbox they can adjust this threshold
here
until it shows gesture star trails and
green the causing your shot is to the
horizon
the more interference gonna get and the
less
useful the gap filling tool is going to
be but I still find it helpful so
when a justice until pretty much just
the stars are green and you don't have
anything else in green and then just
week the amount to fill in the gaps as
efficiently as possible
basically with the amount you need
actually save the file
file and if the salsa gaps in their
crate the amount of some
save the file again and continue that
into you happy with the process
so the gap filling to war tweet
you can finally save your final taping
file it's a little tricky party the user
interface here but
the Save As button is actually the third
button on the toolbar
don't click this button accidentally it
looks a lot like the disc button here
click this button start processing and
then you're gonna be waiting an hour
again like computer processor pictures
up
be sure to click that third Save As
button and
save that Jay pag file I think any
picture you share with friends
you should take the time to at so here
is my
final edited star trails picture I had
to go in
and tweak the levels a little bit make
the stars little clear
and they've been brushed and a separate
foreground up the building just taken
from one the single shots and the reason
for that is is
you're having a outing with somebody
standing digital photography
readers and they were doing light
painting so that light painting showed
up into my pictures
not a big deal because I was stacking
pictures anyway so I just act the
foreground from
one image and kept the combine star
trails to produce this
final result now night photography is
challenging especially in role
areas so make sure you work through the
practices in chapter 10 before
even attempting this and read through
the night retiree chapter
in its entirety or another this is going
to make sense to you
if you like this video please check out
my book
stunning digital photography which is
more than three
hours and videos just like this when you
buy the book you also get free updates
for life
and you get access to that stunning
digital photography readers group
where you can have your photos critiqued
and you can even join us on our
reader outings now and then the any
questions
contact me on Facebook look at the
northern retiree page and get that alike
and you can write me directly on their
thanks so much