Rodney Campbell's Blog

The main event for the evening was to take the frames for a star trails composite image. Standing here feeling alone in the universe is a humbling experience.

Out here alone in the absolute darkness with the universe of stars above filling the heavens with sparkling diamonds oh too many to count or fathom.

Three Slices of Heaven

NIKON D750 + 14.0 mm f/2.8 @ 14 mm, 30 sec at f/2.8, ISO 6400

The first task was to select a suitable composition. I wanted to include these three fantastic Boab specimens (perhaps the rule of odds at play :)). I aligned my location and composition so that the boabs would be reaching up into the heavens with the centre of the rotation of the stars being aligned with the right hand tree. At the time I possibly would have preferred to align with the centre tree but it wasn’t possible to do that and include the three trees cleanly – in then end having it on around the third probably works better anyway.

First some test shots with some light painting of the foreground to potentially later use to blend in as the foreground image.

Note: These photographs (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Then it was time to let the intervalometer run. I was taking frames at 14mm, 61 seconds @ f/2.8 and a staggering ISO 1600 (it was so amazingly dark skied out here and still the background was dark!).

The sequence started at 8:30PM and I let it run for 89 frames. By 10PM I’d had enough of sitting alone in the dark with all manner of strange noises in the dark. All sorts of animals and birdlife out in the darkness moving about. Plus I was camped here in the absolute darkness right next to a potentially crocodile infested river. Strange thoughts do eventually creep into your mind :).

The end result was worth the wait however I’m saving this image for an exhibition I’ll be doing with the Parallaxis group next year so this teaser will have to do till then sorry :)…

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