Forum: Photographic Technique
01-22-2023, 06:57 AM
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Hi All,
I've been working on getting it right for the past few days as there's been a shockingly long spell of good weather. I've really been enjoying myself and I think I managed to get a great result last night. A combination of clear skies and zero air traffic (the latter was an absolute shocker) resulted in what I think is a wonderful result.
I've outlined the steps I took below, as well as the result of each step. Note that the photos were taken from a 7th floor terrace in central London with considerable light pollution.
Once I have everything down to a T, I will create a new thread with a step-by-step guide to help anyone else keen on creating similar photos. Equipment- Pentax KP with a fully charged battery
- Pentax DA 50mm F1.8
- THIS wired shutter release cable
- Half decent tripod
- THIS lens cleaning kit - I suggest to clean your lens before and after, as the cold weather creates moisture on the lens, especially after you bring it indoors after spending more than an hour in zero degrees
- A smartphone with Google sky map or Stellarium installed
- A laptop or PC with an SD card reader (internal or external) and "Startrails" and "Darktable" software installed (both are free)
- Weather appropriate clothing
Camera Settings- Manual focus with focus set to infinity, or point to a distant object and use that to manually focus
- 30 second exposure
- F 5.6
- ISO 1600
- Drive mode set to high speed continuous
- Slow shutter noise reduction turned off
- Astro tracer turned off
- Shake reduction turned off
Steps - Taking the photos- Find the North star / Polaris (if you are in the Northern hemisphere) using Google sky map or stellarium
- Point the camera in the general direction of the North star / Polaris
- Activate and lock the wired release cable
- Set a timer for 1 hour 45 minutes and left the camera alone, although I think that the battery probably died at around 1.5 hours
- Retrieve camera once the timer finishes and put the SD card into laptop
- Question - I've attached one of the images from the sequence - See attachment 01 (resized and compressed). Do you reckon I should make any changes in the camera settings, or is this a suitable result?
Steps - Post Processing - Startrails software- Open all the images in Startrails
- Click the "startrails" button to process / stack them
- Question - There are two processing options - "Lighten" and "Lighten screen blend". I tried both of them and thought that the output with "Lighten" was better and produced a better result in post processing. Any insight in the two options or advice on which I should use?
- See attachment 02 for the output (resized and compressed)
Steps - Post Processing - Darktable software- I'm no expert at this, but a quick Google search took me to
You Tube |
src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ol0hpbSsNi8?controls=1" allowfullscreen> |
instructional video - I went through all the steps, making minor adjustments here and there based on the instructions, but I found that the biggest change in the photo was when I clicked on the colour picker at 0:37 of the video
- Final output - Attachment 03 (resized and compressed)
Questions- Any advice or tips on what I can change or do better at any stage of the process?
- What changes would I need to make in settings etc. if I wanted to include a foreground in the photo? For example, a city scape or mountain scape
- I was lucky to have no aircraft flying overhead last night, but that was not the case on previous attempts. Previously I excluded the photos with an aircraft, but that left noticeable gaps in the trails. Any quick and easy solutions to fill those gaps? I don't think the Startrails software has this option
Thank you so much to everyone who answered my questions. I'm finding this extremely enjoyable and can't wait to try it out somewhere with lesser light pollution.
Ducky
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Forum: Digital Processing, Software, and Printing
11-07-2021, 07:48 AM
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Hi All,
I've been into digital photography for almost two decades, but have never forayed into the world of post processing beyond making some minor adjustments in the Windows photo app. Off late I have realised that post processing is an important aspect of digital photography so I wanted to at least attempt to learn some basics.
Lightroom seems like the obvious choice as a step-up from the Windows photo app, but I'm not keen on having to subscribe and I don't need help organizing my photos. Hence I was hoping to get some suggestions for alternatives.
I don't mind paying, but nothing too crazy and I'm not keen on a subscription service. I don't need cloud space and would rather have the software installed on my laptop and be able to edit photos saved on my hard drive without uploading them to a cloud. Finally, I'm not looking to make any complex edits like the ones that Photoshop tends to offer.
Looking forward to seeing some suggestions :)
Thanks,
Ducky
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Forum: Photographic Technique
08-06-2018, 02:54 PM
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Hi All,
I finally made my way up to Wales & found a reasonably isolated spot on a somewhat cloudless night & tried astrophotography for the 1st time. I followed the amazing advice that was given to me in THIS THREAD (thank you :D) & the results are below. These were shot in RAW, using my Pentax KP & Pentax 15mm F4, no astrotracer. All of them were 30 second shutter, ISO 3200 (2nd one is 1600) F5. I have done zero post processing.
So what do you think? Any feedback? What could I have done better? Do you reckon that I should have used different settings? I played around with the ISO but felt that the 4 images below were the best ones. Also, how much better do you think I could make these images with post processing? Please note that I don't own Photoshop or Lightroom? I have no idea what the scale of improvement is with post processing or how to go about it so any basic advice would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
Ducky
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Forum: Photographic Technique
04-16-2018, 09:14 AM
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