Night Sky Photography, Star Trails and Long Exposure Shots
The night sky is a wonderful thing to behold. The beauty of the great dark plane dotted with tiny points of light that would take one millions of years to reach at the speed of light is an attraction that few ever escape contemplating at least once during life. The night sky has held an attraction for photographers ever since the art of image capturing has been around. The ability to capture the movement of the stars across the celestial plane with long exposures can do in a single image what time lapse video does in minutes. Condensing hours of time and motion into a single moment has always struck a chord at the deepest parts of the human psyche.
For those who have never attempted long exposure shots, star trails, or night sky photography, venturing into such a realm can be fraught with trepidation and nervousness. The best thing to do is take it a step at a time and get on with it. Learn from your mistakes and move forward to make new ones, until you finally achieve your desired image.
Basic Setup
You will need some basics to begin your trek on long exposures, night sky, and/or star trail photography. Of course, you will need a camera capable of exposing for set periods. For star trails, you will need a programmable timer called an intervalometer to allow you to set a time length for each exposure. You will also need a good sturdy tripod and extra batteries for your camera.
If using a DSLR, then attach your fastest and widest lens for capturing the night sky, and make sure you know where all of your camera controls are located so you don’t have to resort to flashlights while you are out.
Dress appropriately for the weather. Even on warm summer days, the nights can get a bit nippy, so be prepared for chilly temps. Some people think that good star trails and night sky photography takes a few minutes, but those who are best at it say it takes hours to produce a passable image. Plan on being outside for three hours on the low end.
Exposing the Dark
As photographers, we tend to want light for properly exposed images. However, the one thing we can’t quite comprehend in our minds is that a low level of light over a long period will end up producing a good exposure. The difficulty in long exposures is to make the night sky look like a night sky, not broad daylight. Taking a couple of test shots around 10 seconds in length, and then looking at the histogram produced will help you determine the proper settings and length of shot you need. Keeping your ISO setting around the 400 range will help keep ‘noise’ out of the shot. Remember to turn off digital noise suppression if your camera has such a feature, it can actually get in the way.
Tons of information on determining proper long exposure settings is on the net and the math involved in most of it is beyond what the average photographer wants to get into. The best thing to do is find an exposure length with which you are comfortable, do some test shots to get the look you want, and then set up and shoot as many exposures with those settings as you can.
Image Stacking
The basic concept of this kind of photography is compositing. This is where you ‘stitch’ your images together to make one single image. When you lay them on top of each other in layers in the image editor, you can adjust each layer as necessary to make it stand out, and then remove the parts you don’t need for your final image. When you are done with the stitching process, you can have a unique and stunning image.
Don’t Forget the Foreground
One of the things that will make your images more striking is to include something besides the sky in the photo. Something in the foreground, even if it is in total shadow (silhouette), will provide enough of a dynamic to the image to create drama, depth, and perspective to the end product. Try to get a couple of exposures of the foreground while there is small amounts of light from dusk or dawn so you can add some texture and color to the image. It is also a great idea to include some of the pinks and purples of the sky at these times to include in your final composite when you stack your images.
Pulling Focus
If you have ever tried to take shots at night with auto focus, then you are already familiar with how difficult it can be. The camera needs enough light to find contrast and edges with which to focus on the subject. When that light is not there, you can play back and forth with auto focus for hours and never quite get a sharp image. When shooting at night in low light, the best thing you can do is try to focus on something bright. Fortunately, the moon is usually available and bright and we can use it as our focus point. Typically, when focused on the moon, your lens will be set for infinity, but there are small adjustments that can occur to make the image sharper. Use the auto focus feature to focus on the moon, and then TURN IT OFF. The last thing you want to do is forget to do this and then spend three hours taking blurry shots of shadows and light streaks. Focus first, turn off the auto focus, and you will be glad you did.
Play, Practice, and Persevere
Like anything else with photography, it will take some time. Make sure you have fun with what you do; try not to make the whole process drudgery, have some fun with it, but make sure you do your best each time. Keep records of what you did and why so you will be less likely to repeat mistakes on the next outing.
The more you do something, the better at it you will get. Practice, practice, practice, and then practice some more. You will have some unsuccessful attempts, so make sure you push through your failures and learn from them. Perseverance is necessary for you to be successful in anything you do, long exposure, star trail, and night photography are no exception.
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