If you love stargazing and can spend countless hours looking at the stars on a clear dark night, then you’ll probably love to capture star trails in your camera. Photographing star trails will refresh you, enable you to spend some quality time with yourself in mesmerizing natural settings, and will give you some precious memories.
You may be an amateur photographer, but holding onto your passion can give you some beautiful and rare photographs that will fetch you a generous amount of money from some leading publications and magazines.
Photography classes in Abu Dhabi are teaching amateur shutterbugs to polish up their photography skills and shoot high-quality star trail photos.
The lessons imparted in the photography classes in Abu Dhabi are very useful as many aspiring photographers can easily learn to shoot beautiful star trail photos.
However, it is not very easy to shoot stars and auroras because to get a good star trail shot you’ll require a numerous things to remain in sync. With proper planning and just a bit of luck you can shoot the perfect star trail photo.
To create a great star trail photo, you’ll need to follow these simple steps:
1. Ensure you have the right gear
You’ll require a camera with a bulb mode, a high-quality fast lens, one tripod, a remote/remote switch, an intervalvometer, compass, and a flashlight.
2. Find a good location and mind the moonrise
You’ll need to find a good location that is free from pollution and is located far away from cities as smoky environment and artificial lights can blank out some fainter stars. National parks and countryside farmlands are great location for star trail pictures. When juxtaposed with star trails, famous landmarks and monuments create imposing images. You’ll also have to watch over the moonrise and set because fainter stars may be blocked out by moonlight. No moon day is best for shooting star trails images.
3. Get your camera ready and aim high
The next thing you’ll need to do is to get your camera ready and switch your lens from automatic focus to manual. You may have some difficulty in obtaining the suitable focal distance as the light from stars is really dim. You can get the right focal distance just prior to the infinity symbol on the lens. You may need to check your settings using a flashlight when you’re getting your camera ready.
4. Mind your surroundings
You’ll need to mind your surroundings and settings and place your equipment accordingly. If you find your location is windy, you’ll need to set up your tripod firmly so that it stays stable and doesn’t get affected by wind. You can use sand bags for better firmness for the tripod.
5. Decide on your style
You can decide on the style of star trail photography – abstract or symbolic. You can shoot abstract photography with blank foregrounds, whereas you can shoot symbolic images by including features and silhouettes in the foreground. Mountains, trees, and buildings can add a great impact to the photography.
6. Use remote or delay timer
After you have decided on your style, you’ll need to make an exposure. To avoid camera from shaking, you’ll be required to use a delay timer or a remote switch. Using delay timer is a simple way to prevent your camera from shaking.
7. Use manual mode and open the shutter
To avoid variations in exposure between images with a 30-second exposure, you’ll need to use the manual mode. The aperture and ISO speed will vary determined by the type of lens you’re using. The exposure length will decide the extent of a star trail captured by camera. A 30-second exposure is not sufficient to record the star trail and keeping the shutter open for some time will produce far longer trails.
8. Set the focus right
Next you’ll need to set focus and ensure that you have the right composition. You may have to take different shots and rely on trial and error methods to find out the right composition.
Although you have to take care of a few things and apply a few steps to create some great star trail photos, it will be totally worth your effort and time.
Contributed By:http://gulfphotoplus.com/
