Ike's Grill House, Lake Michigan

Playing with star trail photography, eh? I really like this! How long was your exposure - more than six hours, judging from the length of the star trails? I'd love to see this with your Arca-Swiss!

Thanks Jen! About 4.5 hours, from 11:30 to 4:00AM. I like to keep 2 cameras going at once. My Arca was down on the beach facing North. Hopefully this summer will cool down so we can get some clear night skies!

This one is also very interesting... Btw. did you also try using a bit faster film and some ND grad to bring out more of the foreground? Was it useful, worth the added hassle?

 

Jiri

Thanks Jiri. No, I don't use grad ND's on star trails. The foreground is at least 5-10 stops darker than the sky. If I used a 5-10 stop grad on the top, then there would be no star trails. The only alternative is flash. Even a combination of faster film and an ND grad probably wouldn't work.

 

 

Quite honestly on these star trail shots I am happy with black bottoms. It's night time so things should be black. It also hides all kinds of things--jetski's, picnic tables, tree branches, even the railing and platform this was taken from :o)

David, what I meant is to use something like 2-3 stops of gradND on the sky, use 2-3 stops faster film to keep the same time for the trails. That should in theory provide 2-3 stops lighter ground. Or the grad used could be of more stops to lighten the ground more...

 

Jiri

Beautiful... there are several contrasting elements I like here:

 

Firstly, the soft, yet warm hues in the horizon, sky and landscape and the harsher black of the trees. And secondly, the right angles of the house and horizon vs. the star trails and complimentary diagonal of the land/shore/whatever to the right of the house.

Artfully composed shot, the silhouettes of tree and foreground are nice, indeed well suited for a star trails nightshot. Great colors. The horizon is a wee bit off, my only nit

Thanks Carsten and Andrew! I appreciate your analysis.

Very Nice!