I think all of us has more or less idea about star trail photography. Its a technique in the field of photography to capture the movement of stars due to rotation of earth.
Today I will share my very first experience on star trail photography. Specially I will focus on shooting and post processing techniques.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/crysisrubel/15163683042/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/crysisrubel/14954302749/in/photostream/
“Star Trail with Famous Minara Mosque”
Location: Begumpur, Matlab North, Chandpur
Time: 1 AM to 1:30 AM
Exif – 30 Secs, f/4, ISO 4000, 17mm (50 Shots)
Tips for Star Trail Photography –
-Find a location as far as possible from city lights.
-Get a sturdy tripod.
-Always keep the focusing mode in manual.
-To get a bluer tone of sky keep white balance in Tungsten Mode or set Kelvin Value (Light Temperature) around 3000.
-Keep ISO level as low as possible to get rid of from noise.
-50 Photos of each 30 Seconds Exposure are enough to get a nice trail if stars are clearly visible.
-For a concentric or cyclic star trail consider the north star while framing (I kept the North Star in left).
-North Star is the brightest star in the northern horizon which doesn’t move.
-Keep a subject in foreground for better framing (I kept the Minara Mosque in right side).
-If there is not enough light in the foreground subject, lighten up the subject with a torch or external flash in the final image. And change the white balance to Daylight for the final image.
Post Processing Techniques –
-Open all the images in Adobe Bridge
-Select them all, then go to Tools>Photoshop>Load files in Photoshop Layers
-Select all the layers in Photoshop Layers Palette
-Then Select the blending mode for “Lighten”
-Remove air plane trails from specific layer/image by “Masking”
-Merge all the visible layers (Shift+Ctrl+E) in Photoshop.
-As long exposures with a higher ISO tends to generate noise, use noise reduction plug-ins (I used noise-ninja)
-Stars are the Brightest Pixel in the image and sky contains dark pixels. To select only dark pixels use the “Channels” Palette in Photoshop. Then apply noise reduction plug-ins in to that area only. It will keep your trail unaffected.
-To increase sharpness in the final image I used “High-Pass” filter in Photosho