night scape close to home

[schmikko]

Hi all,
after seeing some wonderful nightscapes in this forum, I decided to give it a go. As my camera doesn't have very high iso, I made a simple barn door tracker to extend the exposure time a bit. I took one photo for the foreground untracked then tracked for the next pic, combined in photoshop and adjusted with curves and levels.
I haven't been able to get out to a good darkish site yet so I've been practicing close to home when I get the time & weather is ok.
The attached photo was taken 1 minute stroll up the road from where I live (Western Sydney) to see what I could get. A car happened to be driving past when I was exposing for the foreground.
Canon 400d, Sigma 10-20mm @ 10mm, ISO 800, F5 for 1.5 minutes. Image has been slightly cropped.

thanks for looking, any feed back & tips are welcome

[Larryp]

Very nice, Michael :thumbsup:

[niko]

Western Sydney?

you've done well to get as much detail as you have.

try taking multiple shots and stacking them - though you'll either need to exclude the foreground or take a separate exposure for it

[schmikko]

Thanks Larry

Thanks Niko, I'll have to try a few images with stacks. It would help out with the noise I suppose, could get a little complicated but with the right image it would work great.

[AstralTraveller]

That's actually pretty inspiring. I've only got a 400D and a relatively slow lens too so it's nice to see what can be achieved. Of course it's hard to compete with 6Ds and f/2.8 but thats a good effort.

[ourkind]

Well done Michael excellent start!! :thumbsup:

[schmikko]

thanks David.

Thanks Carlos

[Ross G]

Great looking photo Michael.

The tracking device worked well....who needs a Polarie!

I like the way you've lit up the tree.

Ross.