squiver

@Govind:

-Take one shot just before or just after sunset. Make sure that the exposure is on the dark side; this is going to be a night shot after all. This image is going to be your master image that is the basis of your final shot. I usually try to take my master image just before the stars start appearing so that I have a completely empty sky.

-After you have taken your master image, wait until the sky is completely black and full of stars.

-Use a programmable cable release to set the camera to take 4 or 5 minute exposures for as long as the battery will last.

-The master image should preferably be shot in raw, the star shots can be taken in jpeg.

-Process your master image in your raw converter and make sure it doesn't look too bright.

-Open your processed master image in Photoshop.

-Open all the star shots in Photoshop and stack them all on top of your master image. You'll get a huge file with many layers.

-Set the blending mode of the star layers to Lighten. Only the brightness information of the star shots is being used now. When you have set the blending mode of the final star layer to Lighten, your image will appear with the star trails.

 

This is the short version of how this was done, which should work. Make sure you don't change the camera position after you have taken your master image, and don't change the aperture.

 

Hope this helps.

Thanks for your comments - much appreciated!

 

Yannik - I use a Nikon MC-36.

Francesco - this is a digital composite, but no different from taking a double exposure - the way this was done in the film era; one shot for the whole scene with still some light in it, and one for the star trails. I would love to shoot the star trails in one single exposure, but the limitations of digital sensors make this impossible - the sensor overheats and you get an incredible amount of noise. Shooting many shorter exposures currently is the only way to prevent noise in these situations. I'm sure that in the near future digital sensors will become totally noise-free and I can shoot this just like an old fashioned double exposure.

John - what exactly don't you believe?

There is only one photograph that I know of that features Deadvleiwith star trails, and it was shot by Art Wolfe many years ago. I'm inNamibia every year, so on this year's Namibia workshop, I thought I'dgive it a try myself.

Wolfe's shot is a double exposure on slide film; one for the overallscene when there was still sunlight (polarizer and grads to darken thesky), the second for the star trails.For my shot I did something similar, but there are also somedifferences. For my first exposure I waited until the sun had set andthe sky was already quite dark, so no need of any filters - theforeground was lighter than the sky anyway. The 30 second exposure wasenough to pick up some glow on the dunes in the background. I then setthe timer to start taking 4 minute exposures when the moon had set aswell.

The next morning the battery of the D3 had managed to last 47 4-minuteexposures, a total of 188 minutes and more than enough for some decenttrails. Back home I stacked the star trail shots on top of the baselayer and got this result.

This is the second shot from my brown bear series in NationalGeographic (Dutch edition). Just like the previous image, it was shotfrom a hide in a large swamp area, deep in the taiga forests ofeastern Finland.

It was late in the evening and I was staring out of the window of ourhide, looking for any activity. When I saw the trees moving in thedistance, I knew there had to be a moose or a bear walking in ourdirection. I liked the distant forest habitat, so I decided to choosethe 200-400 over the 600 and include some of the trees. It turned outto be a light colored brown bear that emerged from the darkness, whichstood out nicely from the green tones surrounding it.

If you would like to join me to photograph wild brown bears inFinland, please have a look at my website.

Nikon D3, AF-S VR 200-400/4.0, 1/320 @ f/4.0, ISO 800, beanbag

Thanks for your comments.

 

"PS. I couldn't help but notice that this image has received a 3/3, and a 3/4. It really makes me wonder..."

 

Yeah, there are some jealous pricks around that rate any picture that they think is good as 3/3 or 4/4 to get the average rating down. This is the downside of anonymous rating. If you rate something 3/3 then you should at least have the balls and the courtesy of explaining why you think it's so bad. But hey, that's life, some people are nice, some people are assholes. :-)

Nikon has chosen this image to feature in their ad in the decemberissue of National Geographic (Dutch Edition). The ad is about beingable to trust your equipment in even the harshest conditions.

The shot was taken on Hokkaido, Japan. This river is where some of thelocal cranes spend the night. I visited the place a couple of times,hoping for optimal conditions, and on one morning I saw this. It wasterribly cold and the relatively warm water caused this wonderful mistthat immidiately froze the moment it came into contact with thesurrounding trees.

Nikon D2Xs, AF-S VR 200-400/4.0, 1.4x TC, 1/500 @ f/13, ISO 400,tripod, lots of warm clothes

Nice one Marina, they are very elegant animals. It's a shame we couldn't meet - maybe next year!

Mark - what happened here? Are the colors intentional? I think they probably are - in that case I'm afraid I prefer your more 'normal' work... :-)

The December issue of National Geographic (Dutch edition) featuresthree pages of the brown bear images I shot in Finland. This is one ofthe shots that they selected, showing two playing brown bear siblings,just after the rain had stopped. The one on the left hit the one onthe right on the head, causing a spray of drops from the wet fur.

The image was shot from a hide in an open swamp area, close to theRussian border.

Nikon D3, AF-S 600/4.0, 1/400 @ f/4.0, ISO 1600, Wimberley II

Thank you very much for your comments and kind words - much appreciated. :-)

Nice leading line. A bit more shadow detail/exposure would improve this in my opinion.

It's a wonderful location, that's for sure. I've been here many times, so I know this place very well. I think you did well to focus on just one of the trees and place it away from the center. However, I do have a few nits. :-) First, I think you should level the horizon, it looks a bit awkward now. Also, I think you should have gone a little lower so that that one branch on the right didn't touch the edge of the dune. A few steps to the right would have kept the branches in the background left from not cutting through the dunes. Hope that makes sense.

Thank you - glad you like it!

This was shot during the day, under overcast conditions. I dramatically underexposed the ambient light and set the flashlight manually.

In an effort to try something that had not been done with snow monkeys

before, I shot a series of images using remote flash on last year's

photo workshop to Japan. Hope you like it!

Nice shot Pamela. I like the straight line of water and the wonderful color above it. My only nit concerns the rocks/clutter in the foreground - I'd prefer to see either much more of it or nothing at all. Hope that makes sense.

These actually look quite cute. :-)

 

I think a polarizer would have worked miracles here as it would have reduced the glare off the aligators and deepened the color. A lower perspective in combination with a longer lens would have caused the background to be more blurred and less cluttered. Hope that makes sense.

Very cool shot Dan, I particularly like the minimalistic background. Usually in this kind of shot there is some kind of super spectacular sunset sky above the horizon, and I find it refreshing to see a more graphic solution. Interesting foreground detail as well, a good choice for bw.

This is a studio shot (it says so in the title)? I assume that's a mistake, as this looks real to me. Nice colors and light here. The foreground doesn't look as sharp as the background, which is unfortunate. The sky looks a bit unnatural to me, but from an artistic point of view I guess there's nothing wrong with that.

This was shot in a diamond mining ghost town near the Namibian coastduring this year's Namibia workshop. The town was abandoned in 1956and the desert has been reclaiming its territory ever since.

Nikon D2X, AF-S 24-70/2.8, 1/4 @ f/16, ISO 100, tripod

I've been wanting to get a shot like this for a long time, and I'vebeen trying for just as long, but it's not easy. The main problemobviously is that you have to first find an elephant with lashes thisincredibly long - not all elephants are the same and some even haverather short lashes. And when you find one, then the sun needs to bevery low, close to the horizon. These long lashes are the perfectnatural sunshades and keep any sunlight from directly hitting the eye,making the eyes either invisible or very dark - the low angle of thesun is necessary to illuminate the eye. And if those criteria are met,then you have to be able to get fairly close in order to actuallyphotograph the eye, and be fast enough to take the shot...

Most of the times the elephants I encountered were either too far awayto even try, the sun was too high, the lashes were short, or theelephant simply didn't want to get into the right position. Luckily,this one time everything came together. I had spotted the elephant inthe distance and I quickly moved into the same direction, trying tofind any elephant paths ahead of it. Elephants are creatures of habitand often use the same tracks to move from one place to the other.When I found one, I looked into the distance to see if the elephantwas more or less moving in my direction, and when it did, I positionedmy vehicle such that the light was coming from over my shoulder andthat there was enough room for the elephant to pass - you don't wantto be in the way of an elephant!

After a couple of minutes the elephant walked straight into mydirection, and when it walked passed my vehicle, it briefly stopped,and looked at me to check me out. I had just enough time to get the shot.

Hope you like it!

Nikon D2Xs, AF-S VR 70-200/2.8, 1/320 @ f/5.6, ISO 200, handheld,cropped to appr. 75%

Lots of noise and jpeg compression here, but I like the idea. The sunrays look a bit artificial though - Photoshop?

The noise is caused by the sensor overheating. Next time, try taking a series of shorter exposures (for instance 4 or 5 minutes with a 1 second interval) and stack them afterwards in Photoshop. You'll get totally noise-free images and you have much more control over the final look. Good effort though.