Hello 1x,

I've recently been considering a foray into star trail photography. The attraction here for me is the effort that goes into making the image; compose carefully because if you don't it's going to be a long night with fruitless results (I've seen so many poorly composed star trail images that it's almost discouraging, the ones here on 1x are encouraging, though). I was hoping to hear your thoughts on the genre as a whole (there are those who consider it cliché and overdone; others think it is beautiful) as well as what my potential set up is (unforunately, it's a rather technical area). I plan to be using my bare bones D40 with pretty basic lenses (either the 18-55mm kit lens, Sigma 10-20mm or the Nikon 55-200mm) none of which are especially fast to make a number of roughly 4 minute long exposures at low ISOs and the combine them later. My problem is however that I cannot find an intervalometer remote with a bulb time/cable release built in (and the D40 has limited compatability) if anyone had any suggestions for this or tips on star trail photography in general I would be very grateful!

Thanks!

Oh, I forgot to mention but I found which seems to be a D40 intervalometer but not a locking cable release. Anyone have one that they can suggest and is duct-tape compatible?

I tried with a D70 once and had awful "amp glow", not sure about the D40, but read up on it for sure!! Something to do with the iso amplifiers on the circuit board being close the the part of the sensor that captures the upper left of the frame. You get 2 very noticeable purple glows in the UL corner of the frame. And on most if not all digital cameras you will want the long exposure noise reduction turned on which doubles your exposure time. If you do a 5 minute exposure, the camera then spends another 5 minutes doing the NR. Without it the images are almost useless. It helps with the amp glow but will not eliminate it.

Film might be a better way to go, but I haven't tried any with my film cameras yet.

That was my primary concern too, Clyde. From what I have seen from the exposure I've made on the inside of my lens cap is that 2.5-3 minute exposures at ISO 400 are almost entirely glow free (if I really look I can see a tiny bit, but I'm not sure if I'm deceiving myself or not) and around 5 minutes is okay at about 5 minutes. I'm not sure if this would change if I were to make dozens of these exposures time after time of real subjects though.

Rob,

I think you'll find this helpful:

http://www.startrails.de/html/software.html

With the benefit from digital cameras to take successive 30 s exposures comes a lot of extra control. Here's one example where I've used multiple 30 s exposures:


You'll find lots of useful info if you google around.

Good luck!
/johan

Thanks Johan, it looks like a useful program and I've seen it referenced in some of what I've read. One of my concerns is that at ISO 1600 the D40 doesn't have great performance, though I can't be sure if it performs better with long exposures at lower ISOs. I still need to find a suitable cable release, or some stronger elastic bands to hold the shutter button down.

The D40 does not accept a cable release only the infrared wireless remote ML-L3. You can do up 30 second exposures. Or you can figure out a way to hold the button on the ML-L3 down with the camera in Bulb shutter. Less likely to have camera shake putting a rubber band on the remote than on the camera. If you are able to get by with 30 seconds or less, you can also just use the built in self timer.

The amp glow problem becomes much less of an issue with low iso btw.

A much simpler method side from purchasing an external cable release:

Often exposures of 45 minutes to an hour is needed to create an image with stars trailing a few inches. I have a personal trick, though.

If you will look to my blog and then scroll down to the image "Tumbling Diamonds."
http://www.synergystudiosphotography.com/blog/2009/12/21/slipping-meteors-shifting-skies-and-sleepless-nights.html
This shot was done with a 30 second exposure, at 2.8 aperture and 2500 ISO. That much trailing should only be visible with a 45-50 minute exposure; however, if you time the exposure on your watch to just half a second before the exposure is about to end (29-29.5 seconds) and give the camera a slight press downwards you can "cheat" a star trails shot.

Night photography is very beautiful, but it is difficult to make and process it in PS. You need a camera that allows long exposure times. You can see some of my photos on my Flickr galleries.

greetings!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinzalba/sets/72157610279569569/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinzalba/sets/72157606142877437/

Thanks for all the feedback; I enjoyed your galleries Martin =).

I think the best solution for me will be using a tethered system. I'll try out Nikon's camera control and hook it up to my D40 and let it run 30 second exposures, 1 second break between each. I'll try and combine them in PS or with the program Johan suggested.

Any other alternatives?

Here's a great astrophotographer BBS to post your work in
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=136

in fact you can use bulb as well with the wireless remote. ;)
got a D40 as well and it definitely works.

Cheers, Matthias

Matthias,

Do you have any suggestions as to which remote is good? Which do you use?

Thanks

I use the same remote that Clyde Beamer mentioned, (wireless remote ML-L3)

In my opinion the only real possibility to use Bulb with the D40. Keeping the Shutter pressed is not that recommandable. ;)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-B00007EDZG-ML-L3-Remote-Control/dp/B00007EDZG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1266184390&sr=8-1

That's the link to it for Amazon UK.
Hope I could help you with that,

Cheers, Matthias