Rodney Campbell's Blog

Another night under the super dark skies of outback north west Australia and our last night here in Keep River National Park. My daughter was enjoying another night in front of a campfire with the flickering warm firelight illuminating her happy face.

I know it was sacrilege to waste the photographic opportunity of such awesome dark skies with no clouds. The warm glow of the fire and the flickering firelight was just so inviting and to be honest I was just too tired to go out again and find some foreground interest and shoot the stars.

Star Fire

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 61.00 sec at f/2.8, ISO 1250 x 75 Frames

Still literally 20 feet from our caravan and the fire was this lovely bare tree with it’s beautiful arms reaching up to the heavens.

So I setup the camera on the tripod with the 24-70/2.8 this time at 24mm just half a dozen feet from my chair around the fire :). Luckily I could setup facing south (and the centre of celestial rotation) with ease. Time enough for some frames for a star trails of the sky above – if they would work :).

No lightpainting was required either, for my shots – the flickering firelight was plenty to add and interesting golden red glow to the silvery branches.

Below – one of the test frames for some star trails. Looking reasonably decent even setup in the middle of our campsite – this might actually work after all…

Firelight Starlight

NIKON D750 + 24.0-70.0 mm f/2.8 @ 24 mm, 61.00 sec at f/2.8, ISO 1250

So I setup the intervalometer and let it rip just past 8PM – 61 second frames wide open at f/2.8 and ISO 1250. Seventy Five (75) frames later it’s just on 9:20PM and we’re heading to bed.

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