Once again it’s been a long time since I wrote anything
regarding photography.
But this time I am having some better pics of star trails
taken with my new Canon 550D.
I had specially gone to Raigad fort, the capital of Maratha
kingdom to get a clear sky. I chose 19th May 2012 to go to Raigad. Checked
the moon rise and moon set timings on http://timeanddate.com
and then decided to go. The situation was such that the moon was setting on 19th
evening and was going to rise on the 20th morning, so I was going to
get a starry sky. The site also helped me in checking the weather conditions on
the given day which were clear. So completely equipped with my camera and tripod
I went to Raigad. For the whole day of 19th I looked around the
fort, took some snaps. My guide provided me lunch. He also allowed me to take an
afternoon nap in his house. I also had dinner at his place. My plan was to stay
awake full night near the statue of Shivaji maharaj and get some nice star
trail photos.
I was ill prepared in two departments. Since it was the
month of May I thought I would not need any blanket. But I was totally wrong,
it was chilling cold. The second misjudgement was regarding the camera battery.
I should have carried an extra battery which I did not and I missed at least 2 photos
of star trails of my liking. Nevertheless I am happy with the photos I clicked
but not yet satisfied.
Following are the photos and some description regarding
them.
This photo does not come under star trail category. This
click was just to get idea whether the statue was in focus or not. I had kept
the shutter open for around 45 seconds with ISO of 800. Since the stars were
bright and clear I was able to get the stars as well in the snap. Even though
this was just a trial snap it turned out to be a nice one.
This is the real star trail photo I wanted to click. It is
not a single click. I had kept the camera in continuous shoot mode with the
release wire locked for around an hour and each click duration of 30 seconds
with ISO 800.There were total of around 120 photos. I compiled all the photos
together to get the final result (a drawback of normal digital SLR cameras is
that if the shutter is kept open for a longer duration with high ISO a lot of
noise is generated in the snap which results in a very bad photo). I used free
software called Startrails (http://www.startrails.de/),
nice and simple software, to get the final result.
One more star trail photo. The technique was the same as the
previous photo. It was taken during midnight. The glow at the bottom of the photo
is that of the artificial lights at the foot of the fort.
After the third photo, the camera battery drained out and I
had to sleep against my wish L.
This was a nice experience and a big step in learning the
star trail photography, which I am keen on improving.
Will post something as soon as I get a nice photo to write
about.
Till then keep on clicking and experimenting!!!
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