First Light Canon 500d Star Trail

[rastis95]

Hi all,
A couple of days ago after much procrastination and homework, I finally decided to buy a 500d. So after having a couple of late nights reading manuals and pushing buttons i couldn't wait to have a shot of the night sky.

I thought a simple and bright object would be a good start so I tried a few shots of Crux but with only using a tripod i could only squeeze out 20 sec subs and then they weren't that great, still trying to process those ones.

So the next thing that came to mind was having a go at some star trails. For a first attempt Im very happy, my focus is a little off and the trees in the foreground are very bright (problem of having a factory in the distance).
The image is a single 5 min sub iso 800 f4 noise reduction off. No processing has been done yet.

All comments welcome and appreciated,

Cheers
Scott :D

[renormalised]

Pretty good shot there, Scott. The tree actually enhances the trails, plus you've got a pretty spicky satellite trail there too:D:D

[MrB]

Agreed!
Nice one Scott!

[rastis95]

Thanks for that guys, I think the satellite was the Melbourne to Sydney qantas run ;). When doing star trails is there a preferred time to use, I started with 5 min and it seems alright, not sure if longer is better or not ?

Cheers
Scott :D

[MrB]

LOL, I Wondered about that.

Longer will be better 'coz you'll get longer trails, but you'll also get more light pollution unless you stop the lens down some. Processing will reduce this some though so give it a go :)

Hope you don't mind, have attached a levels adjusted version of your shot.
Also adjusted hue/saturation slightly to bring out some more colour.
Don't look at it as what you should do, but what can be done..... I'm no guru!
Please ignore the compression artefacts form jpeging a jpeg.

[renormalised]

Here's another version of what you can do, with a bit of tweaking. Changed the black point, modified the curves and ran an unsharped mask over it...

And another....changed the red curve a little (less), moved in the black point not as much as the other example, and slightly sharpened it...

[MrB]

Hmmm yes, mine does look kinda red :scared: LOL!

[White Rabbit]

Nice shot. try lowering the iso next time so you can do a longer exposure and get longer trails.

I love the smell of a new gadget.

Have fun


Sandy

[TJD]

nice shot i like the tree it adds a ghostly affect to the image;)

[telecasterguru]

Great first star trail, love the trees that give it a spatial feel.

Frank