Star Trails: Episode 1 – The Misinterpreted Menace
Every shoot can have it’s unexpected mishaps, troubles, and nuisances. This is especially true when trying out a certain type of photography for the first time. It’s hard enough to react to situational issues without frantically trying to sort out all the things you need to do to get the shot you want. In the end, all you can do is to stay as focused on your task at hand, be willing to change course on the fly, and accept any dumb luck that comes your way.
This past weekend, I camped with friends at Mt. Rainier National Park and decided it would be a good opportunity to try my hand at long exposure photography and star trails. Of course, my only experience with either has been limited to looking at the amazing images of others.
My plan was to spend Saturday afternoon with some cryptic notes I jotted down from a Google search on the drive up, my copy of Nikon D600: From Snapshots to Great Shots by Ron Sylvan, and my camera’s user manual (it’s amazing what you can learn when you actually read that thing). I consumed as much information as I could, took notes, and then just had to wait for the night to come.
After dinner and a couple of roasted marshmallows, a group of us traveled up to Paradise for an unencumbered view of the sky. I was the only one with a camera so I knew my time would be limited to the time it would take for my friends to get their fill of stargazing.
When we got out of the car, the sky was amazing. It was a clear night and every star seemed to shine on us. The Milky Way floated overhead and even if I had seen it before, it seemed like it was the first time. I was only able to revel in it all for a short time as I needed to get my shot set up and started. I was a bit frantic as I felt the need to get it right the first time around.
It was so dark when I looked into my viewfinder. I had no idea if I was framing anything at all interesting. I flipped my ISO high to try a test shot and yet all I saw was black. I thought it was because it was just so dark and I didn’t keep the shutter open long enough for anything to register. Without feeling like I had the time to really figure it out, I just aimed where I thought I should and released the shutter. Then, I had to deal with car headlights! Cars kept driving by with their bright lights on, so I kept having to stop and restart my shot. Because of the stream of cars going by, my group was amazingly accommodating and moved with me to another spot. That allowed me to set up all over again and realize that my lens cap was on during the first shot, which would explain why EVERYTHING was pitch black (heavy embarrassing sigh).
So, now with the lens cap off…I was actually able to see through my viewfinder and frame my shot.
This time around, there definitely fewer cars coming by. However, about 20 minutes into my shot one did come straight our way. It was everything I could do to get back to my camera and close the shutter down. At this point, my group was cold, tired, and ready to go back so I had to be done for the evening. I was pretty disappointed because I thought there just wasn’t any way I captured anything worthwhile.
With my breath held back in the car, I checked the first and only shot I took without the lens cap on (another heavy embarrassing sigh) and lo and behold…I had some mini star trails. Yay! I was amazed at how bright the image was. It looked like day. There was a bright light flare from the car’s headlights that I tried to minimize in Lightroom but you can still definitely still see the blown out area in the final image.
So, there you have it. My first attempt at star trails was successful enough to make me happy and while I was cursing the headlights the entire time, I realized that they actually saved me twice. The first made us move, which got me to realize that I had my lens cap on. The second had me stop the shot before the moon was up for too long, which had just started to rise 15 minutes into my shot. I was too enthralled by it to think about what it’s light could do to my shot. Without the headlights, I could’ve probably pushed the exposure another 10 minutes and ended up with a more blown out shot. So, while I thought the headlights were my foes, they turned out to be my saviors. Lucky for me, some good old fashioned dumb luck was blessed upon me.
My Take Away Lessons
- Read your manual, if not the whole way through, at least for the type of shot you’re going to take.
- It’s worth studying and planning for your shot. Just “winging it” will likely squander away your rare opportunities
- Sometimes the things you think are your nuisances are actually your blessings. That’s why it’s important to just roll with it all.
TECHNICAL NOTES
While studying my material, I did become a bit confused between shooting with my mirror up, bulb mode, and shooting with a wireless remote. These are the things I gathered that helped me figure out what I needed to do.
On the D600, there is a mirror-up release mode which seemed to require the pressing of the shutter-release mode to raise the mirror and take the picture. Since I wanted to use my remote to minimize camera shake, that didn’t seem to be the feature I needed to use.
I had heard that you should shoot in Bulb mode which is a function of shutter speed. It keeps the shutter open for as long as the shutter-release button is held down but doing that for up to two hours was not an option, so that was out.
I was at a loss…until I found the Remote Control Mode – “remote mirror up” in the Shooting menu. It does as it says. It will raise the mirror with the click of the remote, release the shutter with another click, then not lower the mirror until you click the remote again.
The other things I noted were:
- Use a wide aperture
- Set ISO low to minimize noise
- Since it’s hard to focus in such a dark area, set your focus to infinity
- Take your lens cap off. Duh.
Processing:
Basic Lightroom adjustments mostly to diminish the brightness of the headlight flare, then used onOne Software’s Perfect Photo Suite — Perfect Effects for some simple detail enhancement and a touch of warmth (with the Golden Hour Enhancer effect), even though it was not warm at an altitude of 5400 ft and a temperature of 48 degrees. Then I used the Clone Brush tool in Perfect Layers to get rid of a dust spot I had smack dab in the middle of my trails.
Gear
- Nikon D600
- Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR AF-S Nikkor Lens
- Nikon ML-L3 Wireless Remote
- Manfrotto tripod
Things to try the next time around:
- Longer exposure time
- Take multiple shorter images and stack them in post processing
- Learn how to shoot the Milky Way
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