A 3 hour star trail, taken as about 600 images, with different settings for the foreground and rocks, the girl with the backlight, and the torch in her hand. It's lined up precisely with the North Star to make sure her hand is in the centre of the circle, formed by the stars moving as a result of the rotation of the Earth.
Critique the Community
Night Photography
Win one of two free Fstoppers' tutorials with your best image taken in the night.
Submission Deadline: Tue, 19 Jun 18 03:45:00 +0000
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This is madness, one of the coolest shot I've ever seen and I usually don't like star trails at all. The only thing I have to say it's the rock formation it's not the best ever, it's nice but not mind-blowing. If this would have been shot somewhere like The Wave in Utah this would totally be world class,
You're absolutely right with the rocks, these are literally 2 minutes walk away from my house, so like you say - this is almost a test shot for when I can find some really stunning (and climbable) rocks!
If you don’t vote 5 stars on this then I will break your favorite nickelback cd.
Congrats on a great photo! Only feedback would be to use a lower ISO to now blow out the stars and get more star colors instead of white. But ppl seem to prioritize foreground / compositon over sky quality in their ratings anyhow ; )
Cheers, in this case I was trying to capture the gradient of light pollution to darker skies (theres a village behind the rock), but I do appreciate what you're saying. Something I'll bear in mind when shooting darker skies. Probably doesn't help that some of the colour/contrast work I did on the sky lost some of the more subtle differences in colour of the stars too. Cheers, definitely something I'll try in the future
Sweet idea and image! The only tiny thing I find strange in the post production is that the rocks are lit very well but the person is almost completely silhouetted. Maybe if the rocks were darkened to match or the person was brought out, it will gain one more star rating. But again, stunning image!
I think snow or frost is causing the bright reflection on the rocks?
I went to his profile and read the description on how it was done. Apparently the rocks are 2 min exposure and the girl is a 5 sec exposure since it's impossible to stay still for that long. Makes sense I suppose.
Yeah, that's exactly it. There is some snow on the rocks as well, and it's the snow surrounding them that lit them so well in the first place, but yeah - the rocks would have had a pretty anonymous shape if they weren't brighter, and the model would have lost some of the 'mystery' had I lit her any better so that's why I left her so dark and only lit the fringes of her dress and hair.