{"id":2257,"date":"2011-11-19T11:01:32","date_gmt":"2011-11-19T19:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/?p=2257"},"modified":"2018-09-10T06:34:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T14:34:51","slug":"exciting-nighttime-photography-10-easy-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/19\/exciting-nighttime-photography-10-easy-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"Exciting Nighttime Photography in 10 Easy Steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nighttime photography is a lot of fun, gaining greater popularity and attracting more and more photographers.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been exploring the various techniques and want to share with you the one I like the most.\u00a0 Now, I don\u2019t pretend to be a master at nighttime photography.\u00a0 I\u2019ll leave that up to the legends like Wally Pacholka<\/a>.\u00a0 But we can still have a lot of fun and come away with some very nice images.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0 must add this disclaimer through.\u00a0 Serious nighttime photographers use specially modified digital cameras that capture more of the infrared spectrum, that portion of the light spectrum that our cameras do not pick up.\u00a0 If you\u2019re interested in really pursuing nighttime photography you\u2019ll want to get your camera modified.\u00a0 But be forewarned, once modified it can only be used for nighttime photography and the modification is a one-way street.<\/p>\n

But even those of us who do nighttime photography along with daylight photography can still get some great photographs.<\/p>\n

Now, there are two basic types of nighttime shots \u2013 star trails and what I\u2019ll refer to as the nighttime sky.\u00a0 The latter tries to stop the stars\u2019 motions.\u00a0 There are a lot of different techniques for capturing star trails that range from a single very long exposure to multiple exposures of intermediate length (e.g., 1 or 2 minutes) to a series of relatively short exposures (e.g., 30 sec).\u00a0 Nighttime sky photographs are limited to relatively short exposures.<\/p>\n

The technique I want to share with you is the star trails technique that uses relatively short exposures. This has the advantage of being able to create star trails and nighttime sky photographs.\u00a0 The exposures are taken one after the other without any intervals between them.<\/p>\n

So here are the simple steps for doing nighttime photography using this technique.<\/p>\n

Step 1 \u2013 Before you Head Out<\/h3>\n

Before you head out for your nighttime shoot you want to make sure you have fully charged batteries, a memory card with enough storage (preferably empty) and a remote shutter release.\u00a0 You\u2019ll also need a flashlight and\/or headlamp.\u00a0 If you want to do light painting you\u2019ll need a flashlight that has an output of at least 125 lumens.\u00a0 Warm clothes and hand warmers are also somewhere between nice-to-have and essential.\u00a0 You also want to make sure you can operate your camera in total darkness.<\/p>\n

Step 2 \u2013 Configure Your Camera<\/h3>\n

You\u2019ll need to configure your camera for nighttime photography.\u00a0 You need to shoot in Manual exposure mode, manual focus and manual white balance.\u00a0 I\u00a0 normally set the white balance to Daylight and correct any white balance problems in Lightroom or Photoshop.\u00a0 That suggests that I\u2019m shooting in RAW and not JPEG which is the case.\u00a0 You also need to set your shutter drive on Continuous.\u00a0 The technique I\u2019m sharing with you here involves taking one 30 sec exposure after another by locking the shutter for the duration of the shoot.<\/p>\n

Lens selection is also important.\u00a0 Most nighttime photographs will require a wide angle lens.\u00a0 I like to use a lens in the 17mm to 24mm range on my full frame sensor DSLR.\u00a0 (Note: there are more reasons to use a wide angle lens as we\u2019ll discuss below.)<\/p>\n

Now, where are come camera settings that may appear counter intuitive but they are important.\u00a0 First, make sure High ISO Noise Reduction is turned OFF.\u00a0 Leaving it on will cause delays between exposures that will result in your star trails looking like dotted lines.\u00a0 Second, make sure Long Exposure Noise Reduction is also turned OFF \u2013 for the same reason.\u00a0 (You\u2019re probably cringing now because of the potential for noise.\u00a0 Yep, you may get noise.\u00a0 But the noise reduction adjustment in Lightroom is up to the challenge.\u00a0 Slam Luminance Noise Reduction to 100 and it\u2019s gone.)<\/p>\n

Step 3 \u2013 Compose<\/h3>\n

When you arrive on location you\u2019ll want to work out a composition.\u00a0 With this technique we\u2019re going to end up with star trails and nighttime sky images.\u00a0 Most star trails images are interesting if you include Polaris \u2013 the North Star.\u00a0 So you want to find a subject that has Polaris above and behind it.<\/p>\n

Also, if you plan to do light painting you\u2019ll want an interesting foreground object.\u00a0 You have lots of options when composing the foreground object and Polaris.\u00a0 Use your imagination.<\/p>\n

Select the focal length you want to use and take some test shots to dial\u00a0 in your composition.<\/p>\n

Step 4 \u2013 Determine Exposure<\/h3>\n

I find that I need a lot of test shots before I\u2019m ready to actually start.\u00a0 One of the first things to test is exposure.<\/p>\n

As a rule of thumb you\u00a0 will shoot wide open at a high ISO.\u00a0 But beyond that, the first thing to determine is your shutter speed.\u00a0 The stars are constantly in motion but if you use the correct shutter speed you can \u2018stop\u2019 their motion.\u00a0 By that I mean the motion is so slight that it\u2019s virtually unnoticeable \u2013 even though it\u2019s still there.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a simple formula for determining your shutter speed.\u00a0 It depends on the focal length of your lens.\u00a0 The formula is<\/p>\n

600 \/ focal length (mm) = exposure length (sec)<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re shooting with a 20mm lens the exposure length is 600\/20 mm = 30 sec.\u00a0 If you\u2019re shooting with a 100 mm lens the formula works out to be 600\/100mm = 6 sec.\u00a0 This is one of the reasons why you want to use wide angle lenses.\u00a0 Now here\u2019s an interesting point. This formula works with the actual focal length of the lens, not the apparent focal length.\u00a0 So it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re shooting full frame or crop sensor, the calculation is the same.<\/p>\n

The rule of thumb I follow when it comes to focal length, then, is 20mm or wider.\u00a0 Then I can use the camera\u2019s maximum exposure length of 30 sec.\u00a0 In fact, this technique relies on the exposures being no longer than 30 sec.<\/p>\n

So, for this technique my starting configuration is the maximum aperture of the lens, a 30 sec exposure and high ISO.\u00a0 I\u00a0 normally start with ISO 3200 on my f\/4 17-40mm lens.\u00a0 I take a test shot and then decrease the ISO by one stop to 1600 and take another test shot.\u00a0 After each shot I examine the image on the LCD screen.\u00a0 The histogram is going to be slammed all the way to the left.\u00a0 But this is one of the rare instances where I evaluate the exposure using the image instead of the histogram.\u00a0 I want to make sure\u00a0 the stars are clearly visible.\u00a0 Quite often I end up with an ISO of 800 for an f\/4 lens.<\/p>\n

Step 5 \u2013 Focus<\/h3>\n

As you can imagine, this is challenging to do in total darkness.\u00a0 Live View is useless because there\u2019s not enough light hitting the sensor.\u00a0 There are several techniques you can use, most of which involve looking through the viewfinder.\u00a0 However, all of these techniques are complicated by the fact that you can\u2019t zoom in on an object, focus and then zoom back out.\u00a0 Our zoom lenses do not hold the focus throughout the entire zoom range and we\u2019re shooting wide open so we can\u2019t rely on depth of field to correct for any shifts in the focal point.\u00a0 So objects are very small.<\/p>\n

With that in mind, if there\u2019s a bright moon you can try to focus on that.\u00a0 Or, if you have a foreground object and a bright flashlight, you can illuminate the object and focus on that.\u00a0 The foreground object needs to be 50 to 100 feet away through so that is at the effective infinity distance for a wide lens.<\/p>\n

Failing all of this just manually set the lens to a little shy of the infinity mark and take a test shot.\u00a0 View the magnified image on your LCD screen and make whatever adjustments you need to make.\u00a0 You want the stars to be little pinpoints at full magnification.<\/p>\n

Step 6 \u2013 Light Painting<\/h3>\n

If you plan to do light painting (as is possible with this technique) this is the time to practice.\u00a0 Light painting can be a tricky deal so it\u2019s best to rehearse so you know how much light to use and how to get the coverage you want.\u00a0 We\u2019re going to do the actual light painting at the end of the shoot but you want to dial it in now.<\/p>\n

Step 7 \u2013 Final Check<\/h3>\n

Before you begin make one final check because once you start you\u2019re committed.\u00a0 Double check focus, exposure, white balance and Continuous drive mode.\u00a0 Confirm that High\u00a0 ISO Noise Reduction and Long Exposure Noise Reduction are both turned off.<\/p>\n

Step 8 \u2013 Capture the Shots<\/h3>\n

When everything is ready, everyone turns out their headlamps and you start shooting.\u00a0 Press your remote shutter release and lock it into place.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s time to sit back, relax and enjoy the universe rotating majestically above your head.\u00a0 It is a time for quite conversation and perhaps some inspiring music to match the grandeur of what you\u2019re experiencing.\u00a0 I set the timer on my iPhone to alert me when the time is up.\u00a0 Don\u2019t turn on any lights to spoil the mood or the captures.<\/p>\n

Now, since we\u2019re shooting both star trails and nighttime sky photographs the length of the \u2018exposure\u2019 is really determined by how long we want the star trails to be.\u00a0 I find that 30 minutes is not really long enough.\u00a0 But between 45 and 90 minutes ill product very satisfying results.<\/p>\n

Step 9 \u2013 Time Up<\/h3>\n

When time is up, don\u2019t jump up, turn on your headlamps and turn off your cameras.\u00a0 Take this opportunity to do the light painting you practiced earlier.\u00a0 Do a couple of frames so you have some options later on.\u00a0 This gives you a fantastic opportunity to have a star trail photograph with a light painted foreground object.<\/p>\n

Once you get one or two light painting frames it\u2019s time to stop the captures.<\/p>\n

Step 10 \u2013 Post Processing<\/h3>\n

I won\u2019t go into post processing in any great detail here except to point out how we turn those scores of individual nighttime sky photographs into one star trail.\u00a0 The first step is to import the RAW files into Lightroom.\u00a0 You might be tempted to work on the RAW images at this point but, while that\u2019s OK, I\u2019d keep it to the bare minimum.\u00a0 For example, I\u2019d make sure Blacks was set to 0 and the contrast in Tone Curve was set to Linear.\u00a0 You may need to apply some noise reduction so do that now.\u00a0 Any adjustments you apply to one of the image needs to be Sync\u2019ed to all the images.<\/p>\n

Next, export all of the captures you want to include in the star trails image.\u00a0 I export them as TIFFs although you can export them as JPEGs if you prefer.\u00a0 Also, I like to put them in a subfolder called \u2018Star Trails\u2019.\u00a0 If you want to include a light paint image, select the one that works best and export just that one.<\/p>\n

The next step is to stack all of these images.\u00a0 There\u2019s the hard way and the easy way.\u00a0 The hard way\u00a0 is to manually stack them in Photoshop.\u00a0 The easy way is to use one of the free programs available for just this purpose.\u00a0 I\u00a0 like Markus Enzweiler\u2019s StarStaX<\/a>.\u00a0 It works on PCs, Macs and Linux machines, it\u2019s fast, it\u2019s flexible and it\u2019s free.\u00a0 Point the program to the folder that contains the exported files and watch it do it\u2019s magic.\u00a0 You can see the star trails image materialize right before your eyes.\u00a0 It\u2019s very cool.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another thing you can do with those exported TIFF files.\u00a0 With Apple\u2019;s QuickTime Pro<\/a> you can create movies of the stars moving across the sky.\u00a0 You can upgrade QuickTime to Pro for about $25.<\/p>\n

Benefits of This Approach<\/h3>\n

There are a number of benefits to this approach.\u00a0 First, you get the best of both worlds \u2013 star trail and nighttime sky photographs.<\/p>\n

Second, if something goes wrong all is not lost as it would be with a single star trails exposure.\u00a0 And things can go wrong.\u00a0 Your battery can die (cold kills the\u00a0 power and battery life), your memory card can fill up, your lens can fog over and so on.<\/p>\n

Third, if a remarkable event\u00a0 occurs during one of the 30 sec exposures you can create a cool nighttime sky photograph.\u00a0 That could be a shooting star, Northern Lights, a passing space station or perhaps even a supernova.<\/p>\n

By capturing a few light painting frames at the end of the exposure you can create a star trails and light painting photograph.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t seen very many of those, at least not yet.<\/p>\n

The disadvantage is that you\u2019ll have a lot more files to deal with.\u00a0 A 45 minute exposure will generate 90+ files.\u00a0 And if you\u2019re shooting one of the full frame sensors where the RAW files are anywhere from 20MB to 30MB each that\u2019s a lot of storage.\u00a0 But hey, isn\u2019t that why we have 16 GB memory cards and terabytes of external drives.<\/p>\n

So, give it a try.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to have fun with this one.<\/p>\n

\"spirit_tree_star_trails_2011\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spirit Tree Star Trails<\/p>\n

\"Star<\/a><\/p>\n

Spirit Tree Night<\/p>\n

Join me on an upcoming workshop.\u00a0 Click here for more details.<\/a><\/p>\n

To see more of my photographs click here.<\/a><\/p>\n

(23218)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a simple 10 step process to capture both star trails and nighttime sky photographs at the same time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[343,47,340,13,48,347,348],"class_list":["post-2257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-how-to-articles","tag-astrophotography","tag-lightroom","tag-night-photography","tag-photography","tag-photoshop","tag-star-trails","tag-workshps"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9Nl7-Ap","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2257"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4057,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2257\/revisions\/4057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ralphnordstromphotography.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}