First star trails attempt

[Via]

Had a clear night last night and new scope still not appeared so had a go shooting some star trails.

Very first attempt and more to test what I can actually do with camera in a fairly light poluted area (want to get to know what I can do with it before heading off to brecon again to get some decent photos).

I am quite pleased with the result, minus the last bit of the trails. They seem to start nice for a while and then become broken.

This was made from 30 x 30s exposures on D3200, 18mm @ f/3.5 ISO 400 shot in raw. Memory card is a Sony Expert (70MB/s write).

My theory is memory card began to cause delay between shots, would this fit? Although didn't hear any delay with camera (e.g. a consistant single mirror clunk at end of cycle, not a clunk <pause> clunk if that makes sense)

The final result was created using photoshop statistics (maximum stack mode) no adjustments were made to the shots prior to this, once exported this was then adjusted a bit for clarity/vibrance and a bit of vignetting to hide a bit of window frame in shot.

If anyone can offer any advice on why the trails become broken (or any other general feedback) would be appreciated.

[Cornelius Varley]

Does your camera have a NR (Noise Reduction) function ? On longer exposures the camera might automatically take a second exposure of the same length without firing the shutter, hence the long delay between exposures. The NR function can normally be switched off somewhere in the camera's menus to stop the second dark subtraction exposure. At the end of the imaging session you can then replace the lens cap and take a handful of darks to apply to the startrail images.

134 x 30s +9 darks stacked in StrarTrails

 

 

[happy-kat]

Have a try with StarStax it will create an image of star trails you add to it and you can add any dark frames taken.

[Via]

Not sure on noise reduction will have a look, but would that not then affect every photo so they would all be completely broken?

Will have a look at StarStax, did take a dark frame as well not that I know what to do with it yet lol but aware of concept so made sure I grabbed one for when I work it out.

Itching to give it another go with a longer attempt but clouds are back now for a while.

[happy-kat]

Your image looks fine as expected for 30"30 seconds I think. Strong vignetting but expected. Starstax use the default of lightening and add that dark. Good luck.

[Via]

Vignetting is deliberate (was just a trial run with camera on window sill so got a bit of window frame in top corners so looked better with vignetting and didn't get rid of much of star trails).

Got a faster lens (f1.8) coming but 35mm so not ideal with crop frame but much cheaper than a wider lens and better than nothing.

Camera does have noise reduction turned on so when I get a chance to have another try will turn that off and see if it makes a difference.

[Via]

I am a total idiot...

Obviously not had chance to take another test set but I'm confident now it is noise reduction that caused breaks in trails.

I was reading while camera was snapping away but it was being a bit distracting and remembered the d3200 has a "silent" shutter option, so half way through I went into the menu and turned on noise reduction ?? funnily enough it did actually change shutter noise to a more duller clunk so didn't give it a second thought.

I'm not normally this stupid honest!