A long time coming

[mjs1973]

I have had a shot like this in my head for over a year now. Last night the conditions were too good to pass up. There was more moon light than I wanted, but I will take what I can get. This is 12 shots merged together to get an exposure of a little over 1 hour and 12 minutes (4336 seconds).

[Loupey]

Very nice! I'm assuming you did this with a dSLR. I've not done any long time exposures with digital.

Any particular benefits merging photos verses one long one? And I assume that your individual exposure were about 6 minutes each. Any reason for that time length?

[mjs1973]

Thanks Loupey. You are correct, I used about 6 minute exposes for each image. The reason I did this was two fold. One, to try to keep the noise down. Not sure if that would make a huge difference since the exposures are already several minutes long. The second reason is to get longer start trails without blowing out the FG. I think everything but the sky would have eventually blown out if I had tried this as one long exposure.

I did a couple experimental exposures and at 6 minutes I was able to get detail in the FG without blowing out the snow. I'm sure I could have gone a little longer, but felt 6 minutes was pretty good.

There was about a half moon last night, and it reflected a lot of light so I couldn't get the shot I wanted in one long exposure. I wanted to do this a week or so ago when there was a new moon. The sky didn't cooperate with me tho. Hopefully the next new moon will give me clear skies so I can try this again.

[paulnj]

Very Nice!

[mjs1973]

Thanks Paul.

These are fun to shot, but it's kind of strange going out for a couple hours and coming home with basically one image. Still worth the effort when the work out.

[Loupey]

...The second reason is to get longer start trails without blowing out the FG. I think everything but the sky would have eventually blown out if I had tried this as one long exposure.

I did a couple experimental exposures and at 6 minutes I was able to get detail in the FG without blowing out the snow...

So does the image merge render exposed parts as cumulative effects? In other words, when you merge these multiple images with a properly exposed foreground, does the foreground get rendered as overexposed? Or did you merge only the star trails, leaving the foreground unmerged?

Perhaps I'm thinking of this effect too much like multiple exposures using film/paper when you would need to underexpose each individual exposure so that the whole becomes properly exposed.

[mjs1973]

So does the image merge render exposed parts as cumulative effects? In other words, when you merge these multiple images with a properly exposed foreground, does the foreground get rendered as overexposed? Or did you merge only the star trails, leaving the foreground unmerged?

Perhaps I'm thinking of this effect too much like multiple exposures using film/paper when you would need to underexpose each individual exposure so that the whole becomes properly exposed.

I did only merge the sky for this image, but the way I merged them didn't have an over exposing effect on the FG. I started with my first image, then dragged my second image on top, and changed the blending mode to lighten. That made the dark areas dissapear, and the star trails stayed. I did this for all the layers. This method did make the ground areas appear a little "muddy" so I masked out the ground all of the images except my base layer.

I think the "muddy" look was the result of the shadows moving across the image as the position of the moon changed thoughout the exposure.

[Bigcity]

I like this project, one of the better ones of it I have seen.

[mjs1973]

Thanks Bigcity. Always nice to see another member from WI on the boards.

[WsW-WYATT-EARP]

Looks very cool Mike ! I am not one that really cares for star trails but when they look like this - they are cool - I guess the ones I usually see aren't very long.

We are going to Upper Michigan in August for a week. Going to give it a try I guess up there since I am sure the light contamination is very little up there. Maybe I will get lucky and get something cool like you got here!

[mn shutterbug]

It's definitely a cool shot, but way too deep for me.

[mjs1973]

Thanks Ben. These are fun to play around with, but not something I want to do all the time. I have been wanting to try it with this rock formation for a long time now, and I'm glad I finally did it.

Where are you going in the UP? I hope you check out the "Porkies" while you're up there. One of my favorite places to visit in the fall!

[mjs1973]

It's definitely a cool shot, but way too deep for me.

You should give it a try Mike. It just takes a little experimenting.

[WsW-WYATT-EARP]

Thanks Ben. These are fun to play around with, but not something I want to do all the time. I have been wanting to try it with this rock formation for a long time now, and I'm glad I finally did it.

Where are you going in the UP? I hope you check out the "Porkies" while you're up there. One of my favorite places to visit in the fall!

We went to the sports show this past weekend and booked a week at http://www.ninepinesresort.com

The guy asked what kind of fishing I do .... I said I don't fish - he wasn't sure what to say Then I told him what my intentions were. Yes I will visit the porkies - lake of the clouds - multiple waterfalls - whatever else we are able to find. sunrise / sunset .... you know how it is on a photo vacation ....

[AmberC]

Thats really pretty!

Amber

[mjs1973]

Thanks Amber.

[Kajuah]

These are excellent, I often encounter problems for exposing the foreground properly when shooting northern lights and have never heard of this lighten blend mode. I have to try it in future, thank you for this MJS - I love the star trail images, they are infinitely heavenly. Sometimes when I get off work on the late nights I lay down in the parking lot and watch the northern lights and the stars spinning above for at least 20 minutes. Solar photography (and sky) is a passion of mine, as with sky watching.

[scott-devon]

That is a beautiful shot, thanks for explaning the multiple exposures. I would never have guessed how you did it.