[Kendigitize]

Trying out the 18-135mm for some nightime astro photography and car light trails. The light at the top of the mountain is the Palm Springs Tramway. This was 30sec at F8, iso800

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Last edited by Kendigitize; 06-19-2014 at 09:56 AM.

[ausmoose]

Interesting photos. I too like trying out these sort of neat effects. I probably would have had a slightly shorter shutter speed, as it looks as if the bottom of the photo is a little overexposed. But otherwise, really nice shot!

[Na Horuk]

Great idea and composition! Too bad its nearly impossible to properly expose the city lights and the stars as well with a digital camera. Is this a single exposure or did you try one of the in-camera functions (like SCN, night HDR)?

[Kendigitize]

It's just a single 30 sec exp. I'm going to try again in a few nights. The trick is to get cars only going away from you so the headlights don't over expose the bottom half of the photo. The full moon helped with illuminating the mountain too. Now if I could just get a meteor streaking across the sky, I'd be set!

[Kendigitize]

Here's one I tried with the da35mm 2.4 lens. I like the star effects on the light points, just wish I had more field of view.

[Na Horuk]

Maybe you can try using a graduated ND filter to make the street less bright (or rather, the stars brighter by comparison, balance it out)? Or some makeshift ND, with 30 sec exposure you might even get away with holding something in front of it (semi-transparent cloth?)

[jimr-pdx]

Yes, you could use a card and do some 'real-time', old-fashioned dodging and burning! Of course the risk of star trails goes up with a longer exposure...