Update

Blogger isn't letting me upload photos for some reason which is annoying.

In our Outside the Box lecture, we watched a film called Baraka by Ron Fricke. This film was 104 minutes and was all done using the photographing time lapse technique I am using for my film. I for one could not keep full concentration throughout this film (as it was far too long) dispite the fact the cinematography and the use of the technique was masterful. 

The final sequence in the film is of the stars. I did some research and found out that Ron Fricke had specially designed equipment for this shoot enabling him to move the camera whilst it was timelapsing. The result is AMAZING and would be far out of my budget to achieve a similar effect. The shoot around 1:10 is really inspiring.

As good as this is in terms of cinematography, I don't believe it is necessary to have so much movement from the camera.

At the moment, I am looking into creating moving star trails and have had a bit of help from this guy.



I hope to have a test shoot tomorrow in which I can try creating a video with a smooth star time lapse and also enough photos to create a star trail time lapse.

At the moment I am developing shot ideas and structure to my documentary, as well as finding music influences.

Test Shoot on the D3!

This weekend, I got a chance to go back home and try out taking photos of the stars with my dad's nikon d3. I tried using the 6400 ISO but there was too much grain in the photos. The best look I managed to achieve were by using 400-500 ISO, f2.8 and a 13 second shutter speed. The only problem with this is that when I put it into a movie, the video will look jerky. I may have to sacrifice a little bit of grain so that I can put the shutter speed at around 3-6 seconds.

Images will come later, problems with upload :(

Useful Link

http://photojojo.com/content/tutorials/ultimate-guide-to-time-lapse-photography/

Testing 1..2..3

On the night of 12.02.09 I went out to near cheadle to do a test shoot. I first tested out using different settings to see if I could even capture the stars on my D70. The night was really clear and there was little cloud cover. The only main issue was that the moon was full and was shining very bright. I could only see and capture stars that were covering abot 1/5th of the sky. There were lights from nearbye villages and towns creating light pollution around the horizons so I was forced to angle my camera high. I also had to block the moonlight going into my camera lense.

I used ISO 400 f4.5/f3.5 and a 30 second shutter speed.

I decided to put something in the foreground and try out a timelapse. I stood there for about 30 minutes taking photos and ending up with a 7 second clip. I believe I had my shutter speed too slow as there are slight jumps in the video when the stars are moving. 

Next time I will use a faster shutter speed and stay there for longer. I will also try and do a test with a D3 in a more secluded environment. Ultimatly, I need to do more research into the technical aspects of this type of filming.

Technical notes

This guy did a few tests and said "All was shot on a Canon 20D SLR (ISO 400, F-Stop 5.6 and 25 second exposures)."

I have read that ISO 400 the common ISO for night sky photography to avoid any grain in the pictures. Anything lower than 400 would be even better, this will have to be something for me to test out.

He also mentions his editing together of the photos for a smoother look " I just took approximately 300 photos
and brought them into Final Cut Pro at 2 frames each."

In terms of the exposure, I think I will use a variety of different exposures. In this next video, the guy does a star timelapse with a long exposure which makes the stars look as if they are falling bombs from the sky. A great idea (though possibly ruined by his choice of "colour changing" edit) which gives a great effect.

Stars in my eyes

Stars in my eyes

Having a look over the internet and speaking with a few people has taught me that I will need to "film" my star shots with an SLR camera.
Mockmoon2000, my youtube inspiration, released a new video! I have been trying to look into what techniques he uses to create these time lapses and because he writes everything in Japanese, things aren't going too well. Google translation can only take you so far.
All I know is that he is using a Nikon D3, a camera my dad uses, and he takes a photo roughly once every 6 seconds. Watch this in HD to do it justice.



I have also come across a few websites with tips on "Astrophotography". The first website is by a girl in california who uses a Nikon D70, which is the camera I have! There is hope! The second link goes into a lot more detail about the technical aspects of photography of the stars.

http://digitalphotographyblogs.com/2008/07/30/capturing-the-night-sky-the-milky-way/

http://www.popphoto.com/popularphotographyfeatures/4064/how-to-astrophotography-101.html