Since I was at my parents’ house in the middle of nowhere Kansas this weekend, I thought it prudent to try a star trails shot with the new camera. Star trails by themselves are pretty cool, but it’s the foreground that usually makes such shots really cool. The best thing I could find nearby were some hay bales.
Though I was really pretty far out in the country, the house has a big street light in the yard and there’s a church about 300 yards from the house with its own big street light. In addition, the small town of Parsons is about five miles away. It was actually hard to find a suitably dark piece of sky without a big street light in the way. Straight up was nice with a ton of stars, but I couldn’t get anything in the foreground with the camera pointed straight up.
What I ended up with was the hay bales with the lights of town behind them and the big light from the church shining on their fronts. That’s why they are that green color. I guess the light was florescent or sodium vapor or something. I shot on daylight white balance in raw and I tweaked it a little in CS3. Exposure was f/10 for about 30 minutes.
Comments
Nice shot.
I’d love to do some star trails shots but my camera doesn’t have a B setting and the longest exposure I can make is 30 seconds.