stars timelapse

[riky]

I,m working on a documentary using timelapse with digital photo cameras.
How can I get a good photo of stars in the night, in terms of velocity and exposure? I use a canon 10D with an external intervalometer. I dont wont only a photo with the lines of the stars in the sky. I need lots of photos maked in an long interval time to make a video animation.

I can combine long exposures with interval time. I used very lon exposures, a minute and more, but the sky becomes red and with lot of luminosity.

In other shots, I proved with 30 seconds and iris open, with better results.

Some suggestions?

Thanks

Luis García
Tenerife

[egproductions]

A really big flash!
OK seriously, your best option is to shoot with a really fast lens at a few second exposure (anything longer will cause the star radial trail effect) and a high ISO. Try to shoot in an area were ambient light is very minimal so that the sky doesn't get lit up more than the stars. Also shoot on a clear night. You can get an adapter to hook your camera up to a telescope if you don't mind shoot a few stars and not the whole sky.

[riky]

Thanks for your reply, and for your good humor sense
I,m going to do what you say, but I want to try with long exposures too, cause I like the trail effect in the animation.

I have to shot in places ideals for the astronomic observation, in Tenerife and La Palma, two islands of Canary islands. I hope the atmosferic contamination will not be a problem.

I will post the results here
Thanks

[rslv]

The 24L is supposed to be the best lens for this type of work, the f/1.4 aperture is unique among UWAs. Not sure if 24mm on a cropsensor will be wide enough though. Also, rather hefty pricetag, but maybe you can rent?

[riky]

I have a sigma 10-20mm 1:4-5:6 on a Canon 10D. I want to shot the stars with references of the astronomic observatory. It,s a good idea to use a graduated ND filter to mask the buildings in the bottom of the image?

Thanks

[Tom Lowe]

Luis, I basically shoot nothing but star timelapses. There is a whole discussion forum dedicated to this subject:

timescapes.org (http://www.timescapes.org/phpBB3/index.php)

Basically, with a Canon, you get a TC80-N3 intervalometer, then shoot 30-second+ exposures with about 5 second intervals.

Sign up at timescapes and we can give you more details.