Star Trails - Which film

[samdj1210]

I'm off to South Africa next month, I was thinking of trying my hand out star trails on film for the 1st time. I've done star trails on my DSLR before and it was easy to do the colour correction in PS.

I was wondering which film would be the best to use. Would you use any filters as well?

Thanks Sam

 

[jano]

I've done star trails and other night photography only with fuji acros b&w.. not sure on which color film. Check the nocturn's website, they may have some good info for you.

 

[Tin]

Any film will do. The choice depends on the length of the trails, and how dark a location you can find. If you want longer trails (i.e., longer exposure), you should use ASA100 or slower, as longer exposure on high speed film would fog up your film faster. With high base fog, the supposedly dark sky will appear as brown or even light grey, or even white, thus obliterating the star trails. In essence, what the base fog does is to reduce the contrast of your film.

Also, all colour films will suffer from reciprical failure that will result in colour shifts. If you scan the film, you can try correction in the digital domain.

There are filters that you may use to cut down on light pollution, but those are specialty astronomical filter, none of the regular photographic filters can do that. If you are interested in those, check out the advertisements in astronomy magazines (such as Astronomy Magazine or Sky and Telescope). But the better solution is to find a dark site that is far away from light pollution from cities.

You can find some quick information by using a search for "star trails". It will give you sites such as this:

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/I06/I0601/I0601.HTM


Good luck with your photography and have a good trip.


Tin

 

[samdj1210]

Cool, thanks for the advice. I have some Velvia 50 coming to me this week so i'll give it a test run next week in Wales.... thats if I can see the Stars.

 

[samdj1210]

I've just read that velvia 50 can't be exposed for more than 4 sec without getting a green cast on the picture. Is this true? Should I stick with 100 speed?

Sorry i'm a bit of a newbie at slide film.

 

[adayoncedawned]

To be completely stubborn, do it in black and white, I say.

 

[RdEoSg]

Velvia 50, but I am colorblind so you tell me if there is a color shift! Exposure was about 1 hour give or take 😛 I wasn't that perticular!😉

 

[pvdhaar]

It of course depends on your motivation to do star trails, but if you want to make out the constellations, there's a trick..

Expose the star trail normally for any time, then just before the end, cover the lens. Wait for 1000/focal length seconds, and remove the lens cover again. Expose for another 1000/focal length seconds and terminate the exposure.

The constellations will now be separately visible from their trails.

Looks aesthetically pleasing too..

 

[venchka]

Here's a link to some good star trail photos. 4 hours on Kodak E100.

Star Trails

Thanks for the constellation tip.

 

[samdj1210]

Velvia 50, but I am colorblind so you tell me if there is a color shift! Exposure was about 1 hour give or take 😛 I wasn't that perticular!😉

Looks good to me 🙂


Thanks for all the tips

 

[matt fury]

I took a night photography course, and my prof. suggested Provia 100F. I've used it for 20 minute exposures with good results.