It's only about a ten minute walk from the car so we were there in no time, I went about setting up my camera for the photo shoot at about 10:20pm which was literally just as the sky become completely dark and revealed all the amazing stars up there in space.
The following photographs show the camera setup on location with Bowerman's Nose just in front of the camera although not fully visible in the photos due to the weak flash on the compact camera:
The the photograph below, it shows my camera setup on the tripod with the legs spread slightly to allow for a more stable support of the camera, while I also had the camera angled at a portrait composition so I could easily fit the Nose and the star trails into the single composition:
The next photo shows how I angled the camera, looking at the setup itself the camera does look like it is at a bit of an awkward angle, but the photographs below show how the composition did work as it is set up in these photographs:
The photo below shows a close up of my camera and setup, you can see the cable release connected to the camera which allows me to start and stop an exposure without jogging the camera and losing sharpness within the photograph:
The Photographs
The photograph below is the sample photo, which i now take without fail, to measure the conditions at the location; basically to tell me what settings I should use, what ISO number.. How long the exposure should take and overall, what the photo will look like after I have made changes.
I can use the sample photograph to check:
- Composition and positioning of the foreground subject
- Focusing and sharpness for the foreground subject
- exposure of the image as a whole (as I mentioned under a previous shoot, the shutter speed relates directly to the ISO setting which I use: so say 5 minutes at ISO 1600 relates to 10 minutes at ISO 800 etc)
- Check for any ambient light which could be cropped by a small movement of the camera
Shutter Speed: 5 minutes
Aperture: f4
ISO: 1600
Anyway here is the sample image below:
In my personal opinion I like the exposure of the image, the star trails are short as it is only a 5 minute exposure, however the lighting is about right, it matches the amount I require to show the depth of the stars behind, while also giving some outline to Bowerman's Nose in the foreground.I also like how Bowerman's Nose points the viewer's eye straight into the sky towards the stars, as a result I decided to keep the composition like this and go for a longer exposure, details are shown below.
The next photo was taken over a much longer period of time as mentioned in the photo fact file below:
Photo Factfile
Shutter Speed: 19 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 400
I shot this image for a cautious 20 minutes which gave me considerably more star trails, although I still wanted to test the conditions with this photograph by using ISO 400 instead of 200 or lower, which resulted in an image which was relatively noisy and unsightly when viewed closely, but the exposure as a whole, does follow the test photograph perfectly, as the lighting is exactly the same.
I am impressed with the result and also how closely it follows my sample image, meaning that the sample photograph is definately worth doing for each photo shoot, to make sure I allow the correct time for exposure.
As for the star trails, they are a little bit short, but certainly do create an excellent vortex around the Nose, giving an amazing background to the ancient stone structure, while almost creating a 'timeless' photograph.
Now it's time to see the final photograph I took that evening:
Photo Factfile Shutter Speed: 40 minutes
Aperture: f 4.0
ISO: 200
For the final image of the evening, I went for a long exposure of 40 minutes, to maximise the length of the star trails above and make the most of this excellent evening of photography.
While I was there I produced the image above, which builds on the star trails produced in the 20 minutes exposure.
One small niggle with this photograph, is the plane which flew through during the capture, you can see it to the right of the Nose which has left a white vapour trail through the photograph. it may be possible to edit this away and produce a decent image to print for the final display.
Image Stacking
I'm going to have a go at stacking the 20 and 40 mintue exposures into one image to see if I can extend the length of the star trails at all, here is the result shown below:
The image stacking for the image went really well, as it has increased the length of the star trails and given some extra brightness to the moving star in front of the trail behind, giving that 'swirling, racing' effect I wanted in the vortex itself. A small amount of cloud has shown through the image which may affect it at larger sizes, but I will have to edit the image slightly to make sure this problem is resolved.
Evaluation of the Shoot
I had lots of fun trying to shoot these photographs, as it was one of the first shoots where I managed to get some decent results by using techniques which have improved dramatically from my first few outings. My ability to achieve a consistent result by controlling the ISO speed has helped a great deal by giving me a more reliable timescale to the photography.
I am very impress with the composition of this photo, as it fits exactly to the idea which I want to present, which is to show how there is a massive expanse of open space above us by using the foreground subject to point the viewer's eye up into the sky, the viewer will then notice the vortex and be pulled into the centre to see the North Star.
As for improvements, as far as the composition is concerned, i think I made the most of the location and got the best I could from it, although i would have liked to stay longer, the battery on my camera is only capable of around 2 - 2.5 hours of shooting time before it dies and also some clouds began to roll in after around an hour which tended to reduce the brightness of the stars above.
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