What are the ways to shoot star trails in time-lapse photography

The bright starry sky always makes people think of such a beautiful scenery. How to record it with a camera? Well, let me introduce you to the methods of time-lapse photography to shoot star trails, I hope to help you.

Time-lapse photography method of shooting star trails

1, location selection: you need to find a place away from the city, to avoid light pollution. Find a suitable foreground, it is best to shoot slightly upward, so that you can avoid the stronger light pollution near the horizon, and shoot the zenith more obvious stars.

2, time to choose: to avoid daylight, almost two hours after sunset to start shooting, shooting to two hours before sunrise. Also avoid moonlight, lunar calendar 15, full moon near those days is unable to shoot, the first 1 near those days almost all night can shoot, other times you can go online to check the specific moonrise and moonset time, to avoid the moon can be. Under the moonlight, the stars are sparse, the star trails will be very sparse, but the ground scenery will be illuminated, but also unique. The traditional single long exposure method to face the sky under the moonlight is basically nothing, at most only a few minutes of exposure, while the superimposed method is not subject to exposure time limitations, you can shoot for a long time, presenting a different view.

3, weather selection: must be very transparent, cloudless good day. Note that the weather in the countryside at night is very cold, do a good job to prevent cold measures.

4, equipment selection: it is best to have a super wide-angle, it is best to have a larger aperture, the machine's high sensitivity is not too bad. There is a very important point, timed shutter line, used to set the interval shooting. It is best to be wired, with a remote control should also use the wired line, because of the long exposure, with a remote control is easy to signal interruption.

Tips for shooting star trails in time-lapse photography

a. Focus: It's not easy to get accurate focus on the stars in the dark night sky. And the simple manual twist to infinity may not work. The center focus point of the middle and high end body is more powerful, can be Venus, Sirius and other brightest stars to complete the autofocus. This is something I've tried successfully with both the D7000 and D700. Once it's in focus, memorize the position on the focusing scale and manually screw it here next time. For lower end bodies that can't finish focusing on the stars, finish focusing on the moon when it's there and then memorize the position. Or finish focusing once on a very distant light, then take a picture of the starry sky to see if the focus is accurate. If you can't, you have to manually screw it to infinity, then back up a little, and then try to correct the focus.

b, metering, composition: you can first use the maximum aperture maximum sensitivity short exposure (10 seconds) to take a test shot, according to the playback histogram to determine the amount of exposure needed, and then according to the reciprocal rate of the actual need to calculate the exposure parameters. This also allows you to experiment with composition on a dark night. And it works for both the single long exposure method and the stacking method.

c. Dew: humid nights are prone to dew, take off the uv, An on the hood can effectively prevent the lens dew, different lenses, dew dew degree of difficulty is different, you can choose appropriate. If the weather is humid, be careful to regularly check whether the lens dew. If it is really too humid, do not shoot, so as not to damage the camera and lens.

Tips for shooting star trails in time-lapse photography

1. Clear night sky with more stars.

2. Tripod and use a shutter release cable, because the exposure time needs to be at least 20 minutes or more, and the hand press will be shaky and not last long. The DSLR battery must be kept fully charged.

3. Aim at the starry sky, the aperture can be larger, such as F2-F4; in the composition, it is best to put some scenery under the starry sky, such as mountains or lakes. But these scenes can not glow, otherwise it will be overexposed. Clear focus. Wide angle lens is better.

4. Use a timed shutter release line to expose for more than 20 minutes. 20 minutes of exposure basically allows the star trails to drag out about 1/5th of the length of the picture, or if you want a longer one, you can shoot for 30~50 minutes.

5. If you want the star trails in the frame to rotate around a circle, then get the North Star in the shot, and all the stars will rotate around the North Star. Remember, not the Big Dipper.