AC FILTER DOWNLOAD

So I was goin' a bit stircrazy being in the house.
Needed to get out, lose some of this Christmas weight.

So I packed the camera, some filters and a couple of lenses into one of my smaller camera bags, donned my Arctic grade Parka, my hiking boots, my trusty hat, and headed off for the beach.

I arrived shortly after sunset as the twilight was getting under way. Shot a couple of timelapses but then the last remaining light faded, and the shutter speeds became impractical.

So I thought I'd have an experiment with startrails...

I shot one using loads of 30sec exposures and a long exposure, and combined them in the free startrail software available from startrails.de.
That came out alright, but the trail seems a bit jumpy.

I also shot a few with single, long exposures.

Foolishly, I had Long Exposure Noise Reduction off, as it doesn't really do anything for my 30sec - 2min exposures, except double the time.

Turns out it would have come in handy on these 8-10min exposures, as the corners have terrible blooming [where the sensor heats up and introduces noise. You get purple corners basically].

This image has been cropped to hide it on the bottom, but a bit can be seen in the top corners.

This is 10 minutes/598sec @ f/5.6. A few cars passed by whilst shooting it, which has painted the foreground and wall quite nicely. Big thanks to them.

I did a bit of level and curves to tighten up the tones, and darkened the sky down a bit.

I then applied a high-pass filter onto a duplicate of the background, set to the softlight blending mode in Photoshop, and then masked out the foreground, to bring out the stars more. I feel it gives them a bit more depth.

For a first attempt, I'm pretty happy. As my best friend said, it'd look better with a ruined castle for foreground, but I was a bit limited as to composition where I was.

I hope you all like it.

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Nikon D200 w/ Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 @ 10mm.

598 seconds @ f/5.6.

ISO200.
White Balance adjusted in Adobe Camera RAW. Near Flourescent and Tungsten.

Triggered and timed with a Phottix Nikos [TC-501] timer release.
Anything else you'd like to know, leave a comment.

All packed up and ready to go!

Took a half day off today to shoot, got a rainy and gloomy day in return. Oh well.

What's not in the picture;
Panasonic LX3
Lenspen
Umbrella
Insect Repellent

Disclaimer: Tripod and dog does not go into bag.

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