First attempt at a star trail....

On my camping trip with the missus at the moment, really lucky to have a perfectly clear sky. Got my D5100 on the tripod set on shutter priority, 30 second exposure at F3.5, ISO 100, with interval timer set at 10 second intervals for 100 shots... This feel like the longest hour of my life!


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Picture? Not seeing one.

I'm actually photographing it right now... Will upload when I get back home in Wednesday... Something weird seems to be happening... After about 10 shots the camera stops taking pictures... It's done it twice now.,. And I've set it for 100 shots... Not the battery coz Its fully charged... Any ideas?


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Samsonite said:

... After about 10 shots the camera stops taking pictures... It's done it twice now... Any ideas?

Click to expand...

Wondering if it's a buffering issue.

Someone else was commenting on their camera doing exactly that in another thread... Not sure if it got resolved or not. I'll see if I can't dig up the thread.

Found the thread... Seems like it could be a buffering issue. Are you using a Class 10 SD card?

Relevent Thread is Here

Ok thanks mate... Maybe it's also a D5100 and its a common fault?


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Yes a brand new Sandisk 16Gb Class 10 memory card....


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Found a thread under the D5100 section, apparently the issue is due to a misinterpretation of the term "interval" (or nikon having a different understanding of it). Apparently Nikons definition is that the interval is from beginning of one shot to the beginning of the next, when I was interpreting it as the time between photos... The example given is if you want a 2 second delay between 15 second exposures, you need to set the interval to be 15+2=17 seconds... With this in mind I have changed my settings to 36 second interval, on a 30 second exposure, this should give ample time (6 seconds) between shots for the camera to write to the card....

Will let you know how it turns out!



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​I had this same issue on the D5100 but I solved it with a class 10 card and about a one second period in-between each photo. This was sufficient time to get photos out of the cameras buffer and into the card.

Is your Card a real Sandisk? If you bought it online from a non reputable dealer (Ebay, Amazon, Ect) then it could be a fake.

Do you have the interval set right? If your doing a 30 second exposure with 10 seconds in between, then the interval should be set at 40 seconds. If you simply put 10 in for the interval, the computer will try to tell the sensor to take a photo every 10 seconds. Since you manually set the time to a 30 second exposure, you over ride the computer. What will then happen is the computer will still request a picture every 10 seconds even thou it's not possible. These requests will then queue up in the computer and eventually there are so many queues, the camera freezes and then resets the whole interval shooting session.

That's probably what was happening to you.

-Wahugg

Ye I found that out in another thread... I thought I would leave 6 second intervals just to be safe tonight... So will set interval timer to 36 seconds.... 100 shots with 36 seconds is equivalent to an hour.... Is an hour enough?


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Some Good news and some Bad news..... Good news is the interval timer works a treat with now that I've set it up correctly... Bad news is tonight's sky is cloudy and there aren't many stars showing.... I'm doing a 1 hour shoot anyway, just to check how well the interval timer works and also see if I manage to get any half decent trails..: I get home from my camping trip tomorrow so I will upload the results....


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I've learned some new things in your thread and appreciate it. Looking forward to your photos hope the skies clear for you

I've set my interval to twice the exposure time, to be safe. That's just me. I don't think the stars move fast enough to matter.

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Well other people on here say 1 - 2 seconds is plenty of time for the camera to write to the card, I just set it at 6 to be safe...


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Finally a picture to upload... Here goes....

100 Photos shot at 30 second exposures, ISO 100 and F3.5.

​As mentioned earlier, unfortunately there was quite a bit of cloud cover, so the trails have gaps / arent very clear. Theres definitely a lot to improve on, but i suppose the fact that I now have a better understanding of to do to shoot a startrail means that next time I can make sure its better! Comments and Criticisms Welcome!

No planes | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

These are two examples ive dug up from the first night of the trip, when the sky was lovely and clear. Since I had the issues with the interval timer, I shot the below two long exposures.

They were both shot at F3.5 and ISO 100.

This is a 13 minute exposure...

DSC_1648 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

This is a 30 minute Exposure...

DSC_1659 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

I presume that all the dots that can be seen in the picture are 'Hot Pixels' due to one continuous exposure of 30 minutes, is that correct?

Pics look great! Maybe up the ISO to 150 or 200, but other wise good job!!

Also the photos look great! I can't find an examples of hot pixels, just stars!

-Wahugg

Im referring to the 30 minute exposure, there are loads of coloured dots, I thought that in a star trail there shouldnt be any 'still' stars (The coloured dots), and that all of them would be moving...

Samsonite said:

Im referring to the 30 minute exposure, there are loads of coloured dots, I thought that in a star trail there shouldnt be any 'still' stars (The coloured dots), and that all of them would be moving...

Click to expand...

Now that I'm looking at the picture on a computer screen I see the spots. Sorry about that! I originally viewed it on my iPhone, and yes those dots are indeed 'hot' spots. I think 10-14 minutes is a healthy max exposure before hot pixles begin to show themselves.

Good Job non the less!
​-Wahugg

Cheers buddy!


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