Startrails Looking South From My Backyard in New Jersey. Composite of 400 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 14 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro and Photoshop CC. In the past I used the startrails.exe program to process the images. This time I made the composite using Scripts/Statistics Stack Mode = Maximum within Photoshop CC 2015.
Startrails Looking South From My Backyard in New Jersey. Composite of 400 images taken with a Fuji X-T1 camera and 14 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 200, 14 mm, f/2.8, 30 sec). (David J Mathre)
Author: David Mathre
I am a scientist by training (Eckerd College, BSc; Caltech, Ph.D.). I worked for 27 years as a Chemist in the Pharmaceutical Industry developing processes to manufacture medicines for human and animal health. I now spend my time as a photographer and world traveler. My interests include the natural world, wildlife, landscapes, sky, and seascapes, travel, and astrophotography. I look for unique ways of viewing the world and presenting my images. I have traveled to over 55 countries in six continents, often on Semester at Sea voyages. While at home in New Jersey, I spend time on home renovation and expansion of a wildflower garden/meadow.
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5 thoughts on “One-Year Ago (24-May-2015) — New Jersey”
+Jetski Jones Actually, it is pretty easy to do. You need a camera that has an interval timer, or a remote itervalometer for the camera. Initially, I would try to do the startrail as a single exposure. Lots of trial and error to get the exposure right and not having the battery run out. The other problem with the long exposures was needing to use the in camera long exposure noise reduction (which would take an equivalently long exposure with the shutter closed and subtract that image to remove the sensor noise). Then I discovered the program startrails.exe (freeware, but the program is getting old) which would combine/stack a number of shorter images to create a startrail image. This allowed me to take 30 second images with the in camera interval timer, or 60 second images with the remote intervalormeter and not need to deal with the long exposure noise reduction. More recently I figured out that I can do the image combination directly within Photoshop CC by using file/scripts/statistics (maximum) and selecting the images. You just need a clear night, a full battery, and patience to collect the images. By combining a lot of shorter images you don’t lose everything if the camera battery runs out. Good luck.
this is just fantastic David.. 🙂
now this is something I'd love to learn how to do +Darion Jackman +Matthew Ciscart
+Jetski Jones Actually, it is pretty easy to do. You need a camera that has an interval timer, or a remote itervalometer for the camera. Initially, I would try to do the startrail as a single exposure. Lots of trial and error to get the exposure right and not having the battery run out. The other problem with the long exposures was needing to use the in camera long exposure noise reduction (which would take an equivalently long exposure with the shutter closed and subtract that image to remove the sensor noise). Then I discovered the program startrails.exe (freeware, but the program is getting old) which would combine/stack a number of shorter images to create a startrail image. This allowed me to take 30 second images with the in camera interval timer, or 60 second images with the remote intervalormeter and not need to deal with the long exposure noise reduction. More recently I figured out that I can do the image combination directly within Photoshop CC by using file/scripts/statistics (maximum) and selecting the images. You just need a clear night, a full battery, and patience to collect the images. By combining a lot of shorter images you don’t lose everything if the camera battery runs out. Good luck.
i will need it 🙂
thanks David!
"It's pretty easy to do" followed by a full book! I've tried this many times and not come up with such a good result 🙂
Great work David!!!