This evening was very clear in North Nottinghamshire where I live. I've bought a new Sony A7iii mirrorless camera and was itching to get out and use it! The A7iii has much lower digital noise than my previous camera and tonight I was impressed by how well it performed!
My local remote windmill, North Leverton Mill, is perfect for a spot of star trailing. The process involves shooting a sequence of images then stacking them in Photoshop with a Lighten Blend mode to create the trails.
Despite the temperature outside being only 2 degrees Celcius with a bit of windchill, I drove like a mad man to get there!
The Windmill
For this shot I set the ISO to 1600 and did a few test shots for exposure. My new A7iii has a "bright monitor" mode which I had assigned to a custom button. One press and a scene that would normally be totally black is now visible allowing me to compose the frame. This feature is a massive time saver for me and will be useful going forward.
Once I determined the exposure time of 20 seconds at f2.8 on the lens I was using, I set the built in intervalometer to record 180 images with an interval of 21 seconds. This means there will be a gap of 1 second between each exposure and the whole process will take about an hour.
Once the sequence had finished, I drove home and jumped straight on my PC. I loaded the files in to a stack in Photoshop then used Lighten Blend mode to stack the images as a trail. There were a few plane trails in the final image so I cloned those out one layer at a time. This is the painstaking part of star trail photography. In non COVID times, there would have been way more than four planes to clone out!
Unfortunately after I finished stacking the images, it seems as though the sails on the windmill had moved ever so slightly. I ended up having to scrap the first 78 images so the final result consists of only 102 images:
Testing out the high ISO
After I finished shooting the sequence, I did a little experiment to see how well the camera handled higher ISO's. I set the camera to ISO3200 and bagged this image:
I have to say I am impressed. On the right I can definitely see what looks like a nebula. I think it might be Orion but I'm not that clued up on my galaxies. The names all wash over my brain!
It looks to me like I made the right decision buying the Sony A7iii. I can't wait to get back out with it tomorrow night, weather permitting!
Looking North
On a previous visit to North Leverton, I managed to bag this shot on a much warmer night!
This is 112 x 30 second exposures with a fisheye lens and no light source other than a passing car's headlights. I'm hoping to get back and re-shoot this point of view with the newer higher quality camera!
Lighting up the Sails
Another shot of the mill but this time I used my headtorch to light up the sails. I think I prefer this without the torch waving but it does show what the image would look like with the plane trails still visible.
About me:
I usually specialise in shooting lightpainting images but occasionally dabble in urbex and artistic model photography. I'm always on the lookout for someone to collaborate with; please don't hesitate to get in touch if you'd like to create art.
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