Away from Sun - The Star trails

This is one of my old post which was carried during October month of 2013

The extended monsoon season seems to be finally over :-). It has been raining almost everyday since the onset of monsoon in June. It did rain till 3rd week of October and now  almost clear sky to enjoy. However the hot and humid still remains which indicates  winter is still not here. Nevertheless, clear sky provided me to shoot some night sky.  Consequently I tried some star trail timelapse at night.

Star shoot requires utter darkness :D. It means no external light noise at all. Otherwise  your photo would be full of light pollution ;-). In my case, the village environment  provided perfect studio for star shoot. Initially the light at pump house and  front light of house infused severe light pollution in photo. I had to switch off  both the lights. My father was astonished to see me switching off lights :D.  He was making fun of me as what would I capture at night and I may require Kaup beach  light house to have sufficient flash to expose sky :-). I asked him to wait till experiment ends ;-).

The initial setup created out of focus pictures with stars looking stretched out. After few more experiments, I realized that my focusing distance was not enough. Next  I found a place at distance and shot again. Aha yes! there are those stars in the  frame ;-). It was irritating to focus at night with so many failed attempts but fun eventually when focus was right ;-).

What was the lens used. The cheap nifty-fifty (50mm f/1.8) lens. This was the only  fast lens I had. The effective 80mm focal length made it tough to focus under darkness. Also the lens does not have much sweep angle on focus ring to focus properly. The initial settings were f/1.8, 10s and ISO 800 with tungsten WB. Actually sensor  evaluated this as over exposed image but it was bit dark. This made me to  increase shutter to 15s which increased the brightness in image. The stars in  sky looked like stickers :D but could see some more stars which could not be seen by  eye ;-). I just scrolled the images and excited after seeing the rotating earth ;-). Even my father was  excited too ;-). It was already 10PM and thought of carrying out some trials next day too with bit more  long exposure! As of now enjoy this small trial of star trail timelapse carried out for first time.

After brief pause, I have uploaded a timelapse video. But there are lot pending too. Since this was of different  kind, I uploaded to YT to receive some feedback. The editing was done in KDENLIVE as always. Did some white balance, contrast, saturation and RGB corrections! The brightness is not so much since more longer shutter was required (may be around 25s). Overall I am happy with first trial ;-). They say before you can make someone happy, you should be happy first :-). Hope you also enjoy this first experiment.




Music:
Excerpt from Med and Phil Metcalfe "January". Amazing winter music. Hear the full song here:  http://soundcloud.com/philmetcalfedj/med-phil-metcalfe-january-original-mix

Speaking of "Away From Sun" do hear beautiful preview of Andy Blueman's Away From Sun  which was composed 2 years back but unfinished:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn5yj7cdctc

Hope he finishes this work soon!

Also don’t miss the sensational preview of new work "Beyond the stars" by Kelly Andrew. On similar lines as Soundlift and Andy blueman enjoy his brilliance in orchestral and synthesizer blend!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf8zqnu-Xfg

Last Note:

The next two days were flop shows :-(. The crystal clear day was overridden by clouds with heavy thunderous rain  in subsequent days :-(. Despite fogged morning weather, it rained at night. It is difficult to predict nature. Deepavali fireworks was replaced by fireworks in sky :D. Consequently no more star trial was possible.  But there are still few more days for winter to pass by ;-). Hence I may carry out trials in coming days :-).  Also may be an elevated place is required to capture our milky way. I wanted to grab some lightening shots but was chased inside by mother :-(.

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