Star trails

[nadz11.ns]

This is the result of last nights work.
100 images at 25 sec each. So around 42 minutes of exposure.
First one is the normal trails and second with comet style processing. It would have looked really nice it would have captured more shots.

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

This is what I thought.
When I opened the shutter button on the remote, the pics started to copy to the card after that (the green light kept blinking and image numbers went from 1 to 100).
I also have my cousins D5200 here, I will it again with the internal interval settings and see what happens.

Internal intervalometer is unlikely to cause this issue. See if you can get an external intervalometer to try this out.

 

[nadz11.ns]

Tried again last night.
It is fun to click these images. The result is quite amazing.

30-second exposure at f/4 and ISO 100.
100 images for 3 times. But the camera took 2-3 mins to clear those pics each time and this resulted in two big gaps in the trails.
Even with this limitation, on a sky with less light pollution and some Photoshop editing, these gaps could be filled.

Now that I know this isn't a problem with the camera per se, it took some stress off

This one is the comet style processing of the first 100 images.

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Great. Now try and compose the shot with something interesting in the foreground. If you can point to the true north and shoot, you will get a proper circular star trail.

 

[nadz11.ns]

Great. Now try and compose the shot with something interesting in the foreground. If you can point to the true north and shoot, you will get a proper circular star trail.

Thanks.

Yes, I am wanting to do this with the north star in the frame. But there are some big lights in that direction and too much light pollution. I will still try tonight if the sky remains clear.

Putting in the time to practice such shots as I have a few plans for this summer

 

[hensil]

Hi nadz,
Never shoot timelapse with a normal remote but use an intervalometer. Your camera stops because the camera buffer gets filled after 100 pictures. Faster card will not help although it will take few more pictures before the buffer is filled. With an intervalometer you can shoot endless frames till your battery runs out.
I'll give you some tips for star trails.
First open up your lens aperture to max, yours I guess is f/3.5. Use ISO 3200 and shutter speed 30 secs. In the intervalometer set your interval time to 37 secs. or for safer side 40 secs. And take about 500 frames. (Actually when you set 30 secs shutter in camera, it shoots 32 secs and adding 5 secs for for writing to the memory card.)
Very important, keep your lens to manual focus and take your time to focus properly. Use a bright star using the live view magnified or any distance artificial light. Switch off the D-lighting, High ISO noise reduction and Long Exposure Noise Reduction. Also disable if there is any Lens correction. And I am sure you are shooting in raw.
Then I guess you know how to merge them in post.
If you have any difficulty let me know.
Henry

 

[hensil]

Here is one shot recently. 600 pictures about 5 hours.

 

[hensil]

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Hi nadz,
Never shoot timelapse with a normal remote but use an intervalometer. Your camera stops because the camera buffer gets filled after 100 pictures. Faster card will not help although it will take few more pictures before the buffer is filled. With an intervalometer you can shoot endless frames till your battery runs out.

This does not happen in Canon. I guess Canon keeps writing the files to the card and does not wait for the buffer to get full.

 

[hensil]

Hi Yogesh,
Nadeem is shooting continuous locking down the shutter on his remote. This way even the best of the camera barring selected top levels like D5 and 1DX will fill the buffer. D3200 is the lowest in Nikon DSLR range and with low buffer and processor.
Henry