Star trails technique?

What would be the best way to get star trails with a digital camera? I have

heard that very long exposures in digital are a lot more noisier than with film?

Thanks.

If you have a good lens, then f4 and 20-30 minutes at ISO 200 will give you good results.

 

I have a number of star-trails in my March and February folders with exposure details if you are interested.

Some digital camera have more noise than others in exposures that are measured in minutes or hours instead of seconds. You have nothing to lose by trying. Go out and experiment.

 

Dark skys are usually more important than the kind of camera you are using. Get as far away as you can from the lights of big cities or you will pick up a lot of sky fog. The moon will hinder really long exposures (hours versus minutes).

 

You can shoot at f/4 at ISO 100 from 15 minutes to several hours IF the sky is dark enough. Or f/5.6 at ISO 200 or f/8 at ISO 400 and so on.

 

You will get better image quality with an f/2 or f/2.8 lens stopped down to f/4 than a zoom lens that is wide open at f/4.

 

More here:

 

http://jimdoty.com/Tips/Night_Photography/night_photography.html

 

and a lot more at this thread:

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=000rIx

 

 

Jim

My first try with night photography was with ISO 100 film. I shot a 4 hour exposure at I believe f/5.6 and it came out great. I have yet to try it with digital but I wouldn't be too concerned about noise necessarily, some cameras supposedly do quite well with long exposures. My 1D MK II is supposedly very good for this but I have yet to try (unfortunately).