How to Photograph Star Trails | Night Photography Tips

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How to Shoot Star Trails

Randy McKown

Oct 20 |11:57

Last Updated on Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:39

Most of us, at some point, have looked at star trail photography and thought about giving it a shot. A lot of photographers think it is beyond their skill level. It honestly isn’t that hard but it does take a certain level of dedication. You can’t expect to step out into your backyard and get some awesome star trails. If you want to learn how to photograph star trails, the first thing you need to do is pack a lunch.

Photo by _Massimo_

To shoot star trails you need to be away from as many sources of light pollution as possible. Star trail exposures can last as long as 6 hours. A nearby street light would destroy an image with this long an exposure. On the other hand you can get some great shots in as little as 30 minutes. This means you have plenty of room for experimentation.

You will need a tripod, a camera with a bulb setting and a lockable shutter release cable. Condensation on your lens can sometimes become an issue. If this might be a problem for you, get a small battery operated fan that can be rigged up to blow air across the front of your lens. This constant flow of air will prevent moisture from building up on the lens. Don’t attach it directly to your tripod or else vibrations might ruin the image. You also want to make sure that the fan is not visible in your frame. You do not want to use a high ISO .. we are not shooting for speed and ISO 1600 is going to create noise. Shoot as normal with a low ISO. When it comes to aperture you want to be fairly open. An aperture range of f/1.4 – f/5.6 is a good standard.

Now that you know how to capture star trails take a moment to think about composition. If all you shoot are stars, your image will be pretty boring. You need something interesting to spice up the image. You need something that emphasizes that the streaks of light are in fact stars. This means a compelling foreground. Here are some of the best star trails I have seen on flickr. You will notice that all of these images use the foreground to create a sucessful star trail scene.

Photo by Fishtail@Taipei

Photo by Adam

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Comments (3)

im too lazy for this

As cool as this technique is, I'd much rather do this in 5 mins with Photoshops radial blur filter. Then you can layer it into another night sky shot with a few clicks

Beats freezing your nuts off setting up your camera outside on a cold night. Radial blur has the option to to spin or zoom, spin would probably be closer to actual star trails photography.

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