Starry Night, Second Try

in #justbecause5 years ago

12-5-2019

A Bitterly Cold Starry Night Shot Try

It was cold last night, (Tuesday), 5 degrees Fahrenheit, (about -15 C). I did learn one very important thing last night, and that is camera batteries do not last very long at that cold of a temperature. From fully charged to less than a half charge in about an hour. Fortunately I do have a spare.

I tried to use the "Hyperfocal" technique, I think I still need more practice with it, but the stars are not as blobby as the previous try, a bit more in focus. So here is one of the edited photo results.

DSC_8839 - Copy 8 sec 2000 iso edited cropped.jpg This is the after results of some editing. The image was taken at 2000 ISO, with an 8 second exposure, and a 4.5 f-stop.

This is the view from outside my window, and the yellow glow at the bottom is the down stairs lights being on. Not ideal night time photography location, but at those cold temperature this will be the place to try and experiment.

Here is the same image not edited except for resizing for upload:
DSC_8839_02 8 sec 2000 iso resized only.jpg Pretty dark, and not many stars visible unless you zoom in. I am pretty happy with how the edit did come out.

The above were my second attempt of the evening.The first attempts I had much to low of ISO set. I forgot to look at the ISO, and it was only set at 320 ISO. So here below we have a 67.1 second exposure at 320 ISO and F-stop 4.5. Of course the first image is the edited one followed by the original unedited image.

DSC_8834 - Copy cropped edited resized.jpg

And here is the unedited just resized image:
DSC_8834 original resized only 1 minute 320 iso.jpg

I actually kind of like the long exposure shot. It did not take a lot of post processing, and I think it looks pretty good. I do still need to work on getting the correct focusing down. and when I can manage that I may go out and brave some dark and cold and lonely place in the frozen land of Alaska to get some high quality shots, for now though I'll continue to opt for the comfort of the house, light pollution and all. Perhaps we will have enough clear nights to get in some practice, and by March of next year enough practice under my belt to go to a really dark spot.



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Night shots are a challenge and you did great and ohh yeah camera batteries don't like the cold for sure

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The uppermost photo is actually very cool! Good work. I suggest you go to the yard next time in order to eliminate the distractions. That's actually very, very good.

I'm happy for you because you have such a low amount of light pollution. It totally sucks here because I'd have to drive tens of kilometers to a dark enough spot to take similar pics. Maybe some day when the skies are clear I will.

I would have preferred the yard, but 5 degrees is to cold. I hope to get enough practice in before full-on spring gets here, so I can try for some shots down at the local beach before the tourist get here and the nights are not so cold as to eat through my fingers and camera battery.

It would be fantastic if you could get a long-exposure image at night of a landscape with trees, the sea, mountains and the starry sky.

I am hoping, the trees might be a bit hard for where I plan or would like to get a shot from, but the day will come to try in the spring I hope. So far we have had only these two clear nights, more snow and rain on the way for the weekend, but the skies will clear again, they always do.

Nice photography.

We live smack dab in the middle between NYC, Philly, and Baltimore. We only get to see the major stars due to so much light pollution. If we are way out in the country with no street or house lights, then maybe you see a few more than normal. I think when shooting long exposure night shots, its very difficult not to get star blur; editing is a wise option and worked in your favor. Nice edit on the first picture! I like star blur and it always amazes me how quickly the earth is rotating as we wait for the shutter to close :-)

I also keep a nice think plastic bag in my camera case. When out in the extreme cold, its never a good thing to just run inside with the camera fully exposed. Condensation could build up where you don't want it. So..I put the camera into the tightly sealed bag and it helps just enough to ease the transition from cold to warm. 20 to 30 minutes and it's good to go. I've seen people tape a half used (not to hot) hand warmer to the bottom of a camera in those extreme temps, in order to keep the battery at a more functional temperature.

Best wishes in March!

I was not really aware of the condensation issue to much. I should keep a freezer bag in my camera kit for those just in case it's needed times. I don't think I would be able to take the cold of two battery drains, so I'm not to worried about the battery issue. 5 degrees is way to cold to try and out last two batteries.

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Beautiful photos! Your temps are similar to ours. My photos will need to be through the window shots, too!

It was only 5 degrees that night and day, today we had rain, not just a little bit of rain, but rain rain, a lot of rain. Our driveway is like an ice skating rink right now. main roads are fine, or so we were told, but the side roads that had a lot of compacted snow, are all just ice. It got up to 40 degrees today when I looked. Did I mention the rain? LoL ;-}

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