Night Trails

On a whim I decided to go up to Hyalite and try for some star trials tonight. It was kinda cloudy, but there were enough stars when you got up high to get some good trails.

My initial test shot was about 5 minutes, and that was much to short, and not focused, and with the wrong lens. So I set up again with a 10mm lens, f2.8, and ISO800. I worked out that about 10-13 minutes gave a pretty good exposure. Just got lucky with the first test.

I didn't have much time, so I quickly framed a shot and hoped for the best. Near the end on my exposure, a car started to drive around the parking lot which splashed a lot of light on the trees. At first I was a little mad because I thought it might ruin the picture, but it actually didn't turn out that bad.

In Lr, I ended up brightening the tree area a bit, so the light from the headlights probably helped that quite a bit. I did have to darken the snow and parking lot because the car made so much light that it drew the eye away from the stars. For the stars, I put on a graduated filter that upped the contrast a ton and dimmed everything a bit.

There you have it, a night exposure of some starts. It's not my best image, but it still is pretty cool. I wish the snow wasn't so over powering, but I'd really have to redo the composition to change that.

That's it, see you tomorrow!