Canon Digital SLR Photography Tips

Tutorials

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Canon EOS 40D
Shooting at night

Once you've mastered the basics of shooting at night, you might like to try creating pictures of star trails. It involves using very long exposures, which means you must use a digital SLR camera that can be triggered via a remote control ? and you need a steady tripod and still conditions. Otherwise, it's easy to do, and the results can be spectacular.

What you need to get started:
1. A digital camera
2. A wide-angle lens
3. A tripod
4. A remote trigger for the shutter release
5. A small torch so you can check the camera settings and find a point in the subject to focus on.
6. A still, dark moonless night, with clear skies and no nearby light sources.


A rising moon in the east lit up the landscape in this 20-minute exposure. Because the camera was pointed due south, the only effect the moonlight had on the shot was to require a shorter exposure time. This reduced the length of the star trails. If you don't have a remote trigger for the shutter, you will be restricted to exposure times of 30 or, at the most, 60 seconds. Although this can capture the pattern of the stars in the sky, the earth's movement is too small to create star trails.

How to shoot:
Point your camera due south if you want to record circular trails. A torch was used to light up the foreground tree in this 27-minute exposure.
  1. Mount your camera on the tripod with the remote control attached and point it at a clear patch of sky. You can include a little foreground ? or a silhouetted tree ? to improve the composition but the main subject should be the sky. Point your camera southwards if you want circular trails; other directions will produce arcs. Composing shots can be extremely difficult when it's dark and you can't see much. Use a torch to light up some items in the foreground so you can decide where to focus the camera. If in doubt, set the focus to infinity.
  2. Set the camera's exposure mode to Manual and the shutter speed to B. The camera's ISO sensitivity should be set to any value below 400. Higher ISO settings will collect more light but can produce very grainy-looking ('noisy') pictures. Adjust the lens aperture to one or two stops down from its widest position.
  3. Use the remote control to open the shutter and start the exposure, making sure the shutter is locked open. (If you don't hear a double-click, you can be pretty sure the shutter is open.) Note the time on your watch. Walk away and leave your set-up alone for at least 20 minutes then use the remote control to close the shutter. The longer the exposure time, the longer and more dramatic your star trails will be so if your shot is too bright, stop the lens down several notches. Exposures of less than 10 minutes barely record enough motion to make a trail.
  4. Check the picture you've taken on the camera's LCD monitor. (You will probably need to wait for at least as long as the exposure time while the camera's noise-reduction processing is being applied.) If your photograph is too dark and you can't see star trails, try a longer exposure; say 40 minutes ? or even an hour! Half the fun in this type of photography is finding out just what you can get with different exposure times!
  5. Two jagged trails of light mark the passage of a walker with an LED headlamp and hand-held torch during this 25-minute exposure. The star trails are arcs because the camera was pointed towards the north.
    You can use a torch to 'paint in' foreground objects so they show up with more detail, instead of being silhouetted against a dark sky. The torch light will usually be 'warm' in hue so areas you have 'painted' will look more orange than normal. A fairly powerful torch is required for this task. Torches can also be used to add light patterns to the subject. Simply walk about in the scene, waving the torch around, taking care not to point it at the camera. The size of the torch will determine the width of the light trails.


Watch out for:
  1. Moonlight ? or even nearby city or town lights ? can brighten the sky so much that star trails will be difficult to see in your shots. Star trails are best photographed on moonless nights, far from the 'light pollution' caused by human activities.
  2. Direct light entering the camera's lens will ruin a long exposure ? so take care where you point your torch.
  3. Movement of either the camera or tripod will cause blurring so avoid windy nights and make sure nobody bumps into your set-up while the exposure is in progress.
  4. Digital camera sensors work best in cool conditions. Warm temperatures will increase image noise, making shots very grainy-looking. This noise may not show up much in small prints but, if you want big enlargements or plan to display your shots on a TV or computer screen, winter time is best for star trail photography.
    A rising moon in the east lit up the landscape in this 20-minute exposure. Because the camera was pointed due south, the only effect the moonlight had on the shot was to require a shorter exposure time. This reduced the length of the star trails. If you don't have a remote trigger for the shutter, you will be restricted to exposure times of 30 or, at the most, 60 seconds. Although this can capture the pattern of the stars in the sky, the earth's movement is too small to create star trails.
  5. Long exposures place a heavy drain on camera batteries so it?s wise to start with a freshly-charged battery and have a spare battery pack as back-up.
EOS 400D