Through The Lens

The last time I decided to leave the camera outside the house underneath the starry sky was last year. It didn’t last for long as I kept thinking that anyone could hop on the gate and take the bloody camera away. So I set the camera to bulb and opened the aperture to the widest. The next thing I did was popped a Coke, watched some silly sitcoms and keep my eyes transitioning from the TV to the camera outside. Yes, I rearranged the sofa so I can get the best view of both.

So I set the timer to two hours.

Little did I know that I took the star trail at the wrong time and the wrong place. First, the sky was dark, yes, but that is what actually cause the noisy to appear more dominant than the star trails. Secondly, I live next to the main road where the street lamp stretches from one end of this island to the other end of this island. That contributes to some reddish vignettes and some unwanted flare from cars passing by.

A year passed by. This time my friend, Syed Nasir provided more valuable information on the correct way to take star trail picture. We set a date and time and there were about 9 peoples showed up after midnight, and we headed to three potential locations.

Though I mentioned three location, the first one was cancelled due to massive amount of lights from ships sailed on Labuan shore. The above picture was taken from a location at Tanjung Taras. The next location took us about few hundred metres away from the above location but I wouldn’t share the terrible picture here.

In conclusion, among things I need to consider the next time shooting star trails is; light pollution level (the red cloud in the picture is haze and lit up by the lights-pollution),  full moon is the best time to take star trails picture as it “light” up the sky and reduce the possibility of terrible noise on the picture and lastly, bring some good foods and nice chat companion e.g. other photographer.

I will try shooting another star trails from another location sometimes soon.