David's Images of the Day Photoblog
Night and early morning star and jet trails. Also, two very faint meteor trails. Composite of 193 images taken with a Nikon D810A camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E camera (ISO 200, 24 mm, f/5.6, 120 sec). Raw images processed with Lightroom (to convert the RAW image to TIF) and Photoshop CC.
Learning from mistakes. It took a while to figure out how to make star trail images with a digital camera. My first attempts to do long exposures ran into problems with digital sensor noise, the length of time the shutter could remain open, and camera battery life — especially on cold nights. The camera had an option for “long exposure noise reduction”, however this required taking a second exposure with the shutter closed and then subtracting the sensor closed image from the sensor open image. The result is missing every other exposure needed for a smooth composite star trail image.
Other than the Big Dipper, Orion was probably the second constellation I learned to recognize.
In Camera Moon Sequence. Image taken with a Nikon D3x camera and 600 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 100, 600 mm, f/8, 1/250 sec).
Star trails from my room at the Marriott Residence Inn in Boulder, Colorado. Composite of 180 images taken with a Nikon D3 camera and 24 mm f/3.5 PC-E lens (ISO 200, 24 mm, f/5.6, 30 sec exposures). Raw images processed with Capture One Pro 8, and combined using Photoshop CC 2014 (scripts, statistics, maximum). Note that these images were taken using the in-camera intervalometer and noise reduction so for every minute, only 30 seconds of exposure. I’ve learned how to do it better since then — using an external intervalometer and doing the noise reduction post processing.
Nearly Full Moon Sequence. In camera composite of moon images taken with a Nikon D4 camera and 600 mm f/4 VR lens (ISO 100, 600 mm, f/16, 1/60 sec). Images taken every 2 minutes. Raw image processed with Capture One Pro 8, Focus Magic, and Photoshop CC.
It is two nights before the July Full “Blue Moon” but I am not sure that the sky will be clear on that night so I took this sequence early this morning.
