Kelling Winterfest 2018

[davew]

Now in it's fourth year the Kelling Heath Winterfest has largely flown under the radar. It's late in the year and this may well put people off due to the assumption it MUST be cold ?

Organised by the Birmingham Astro Soc it ran from the 8th to 13th November. It really wasn't at all cold.

The event is really laid back and only 50 pitches are reserved for the event. This meant that with only a small number of people, there were no white lights that I noticed on any clear nights ! Imagine that ! The hard core big Dobs were left in darkness.

The showers were  available all day without queuing and as far as I could tell there was no need to book for an evening meal. 

The Thursday night was good as were the Sunday and Monday nights. Unfortunately Friday and Saturday were drinking nights ?

I went for a few night time walks in the woods with my DSLR and took this shot at Kelling Heath railway halt with just the Owls and Muntjacs for company.

Over all a very relaxing and worth while star party. Highly recommended,

Dave.

[djpaul]

Great picture.

I hope to get to kelling at some point.

What settings did you have for this picture?

What processing was done afterwards?

I recently bought a nikon 4300 and a Samyang fisheye lens and hope to get similar results.

[davew]

54 minutes ago, djpaul said:

What settings did you have for this picture?

What processing was done afterwards?

I recently bought a nikon 4300 and a Samyang fisheye lens and hope to get similar results.

Hi Paul,

I used a Nikon D750 and Sigma 14mm lens. I shot wide open for 15 seconds at ISO 1600 and took 15 shots. I converted the Raws in Lightroom and did a few tweaks like colour balance, contrast and brightness etc Then I took them all into Sequator and that produces a very smooth final image. If desired the image can then be stretched a whole lot more due to the stacking. I don't stretch much !

If I was shooting a single image I would probably have used 20 or less likely 25 seconds at ISO 800. I used the settings I did because I knew what I was going to do later and it did give very slightly tighter stars.

Did you mean the 5300 ? If so it's a great camera for this stuff. If you meant the 3300 then that too works as well but is slightly more fiddly to set up. Ok once you're used to it.

When using the fisheye try not to point up or down too much unless you like the distortion effects

Dave.

[djpaul]

Hi

Many thanks 

I meant my dslr is a Nikon 3400

I would be taking a single shot. so will try the settings you suggest

Paul

[davew]

53 minutes ago, djpaul said:

I meant my dslr is a Nikon 3400

I would be taking a single shot. so will try the settings you suggest

Paul

The 3400 will work just fine.

Is the lens the 8mm f3.5 ? If so, throw all caution to the wind and expose for 30 seconds. Different setup different settings. You may have to try ISO 1600 or 3200 if you don't post process much but at least that means the image will probably be less noisy.

Dave.

[djpaul]

Hi

Its the  samyang 14mm 2.8 lens

Paul