How to Make a Star Trail (Beginning to End)

[debbiecrowe]

I looked everywhere for your video and finally found it! I saved it a few years ago and it was hands down, the most user friendly directions I have ever seen! Saved it this time!

[qantas]

Thank you Mr Canon.  That was really great!  I'm going to try this tonight.

[MrCtroutslayer]

I've been working on trying to do one of these and you make this very easy to understand, so I'll give it a go now. Thanks

[zecarrapichano]

Many thanks for the help you gave me. I shall try tonight to create my first star trails.

[TupaSerban]

Thank you for help! Its working so easy and so amazing...thanks again

[Nw]

You make it look easy, thank you so much!

[sdjstme]

great detailed tutorial &very informative Thanks

[speedball]

Yea, I actually was able to figure it out based on your video. I too have the 7D. I shot it at 45 seconds on bulb. I've done a couple at 30 and 45 secs and was using a basic 18-55 mm kit lens at 3.5 with my iso at about 800 and 1600.

[propaintballer]

I have the same shutter release button and I love it :tup:

Thanks for the great information!

[whatsittoyah]

I have a bright flash light that I usually shine on a object out there that will allow me to see and focus on. You can also go set a light out aways from the camera that you can focus on, and then remove the light, but always use manual focus. Take a few practice shots to check that the focus is good.

[whatsittoyah]

@Jgilbert232 The timer won't work but the nikon d3100 does have a continuous shooting mode you can set it to. You'll need one of those simple shutter releases to lock the shutter release down. Unless you want to just push and hold the button down yourself for around 15 mins. or more which probably wouldn't be much fun but you can buy those for around 5 - 10 dollars.

[debbiecrowe]

Have watched this several times, cant wait to try it. Are you still using the same Star Trails application to combine the images? Your original post on this is a few years old so I thought I would check.

[MrCtroutslayer]

@19Bokeh84 You're absolutely right. However if you want to create a star trail as described in the video then you would need a high ISO

[whatsittoyah]

@MyAndZ That could work too, but this way produces less noise, extends battery life, allows you to remove light pollution (a plane or headlights) from the stack of images, and you don't have to wait till the end to find that your image is too dark or bright or it wasn't right.

[AtiqueRahmanatik]

thanks to share such a tutorial . How many long exposure shot i need to take to make star trail .

[MrCtroutslayer]

@Aussie The T3i isn't the best camera to use because the ISO doesn't go extremely high however it is still a good camera to use and should work fine. You can use anything from the flash on the camera to a flashlight or you may not even need artificial light on the building at all. Basically with how the tutorial shows you would set the camera to 30sec. exposures and shooting in continuous mode and then the shutter lock you would slide to lock and it would allow the camera to continue shooting

[milouvr]

You can also use an eraser and a elastic rubber for pressing the shutter. It's cheap and it should work fine too (:
Great tutorial!

[barrybuttery]

Alot of people don't have the functionality on their DSLRs to shoot for more than 5-10 minutes in bulb mode, due to this overheating your sensor.

When i shoot star trails, i take two tripods. One for my DSLR in which i shoot 30sec exposures and stack the images on my mac. I also take my old canon ftb film camera and shoot a long exposure on that.

To be honest, its all about preference, you can make stunning images either way, and i'd prefer to not damage my DSLR.

[whatsittoyah]

...Once you're ready to begin shooting, lock the shutter so it will continue to shoot at 30 seconds until you release the lock. If you keep it locked for 30 min or more it should produce a good looking star trail after they are stacked. The stars will appear to rotate around the North Star. Try locating this star, the stars will arch more the closer they are to the north star. In the photo I shot, the North Star would be just out of the frame in the top left of the Image. Hope this helps.

[MrCtroutslayer]

This is the same way people make timelapse videos. New technology allows people to combine single pictures to form star trails which usually look better than a single long exposure. so I think you should definately make star trails like this. That is how the video shows, stacking multiple (shorter) exposures.