Alabama Star Trails

Aaron Macomber

Aaron Macomber

Well-Known Member
This is my keeper from my visit to the Alabama hills, had a fun time, though it was jaw-dropping to see just how many people are packed in there these days! Very different than the last time I was there three years ago.

This is 28 30-second exposures stacked for the star trails and then two more focus brackets to blend for focus. This is using my new Rokinon SP 10mm f3.5 lens, it’s been very fun to play with so far. Its so incredibly wide and very very sharp and well-corrected. I have toyed around with it and have said to myself several times, “Well that is just TOO wide...” something I thought I’d never say. Its amazing for low-angle and very close shooting however. The foreground in this photo is roughly 10-12 inches from the objective and my camera was tilted downward and I was still able to capture a lot of sky.

Cheers!
Aaron

 
AlanLichty

AlanLichty

Moderator
I like the result and the inclusion of the boulders in the frame.

I made the mistake of wandering into the Alabama Hills once during what turned out to be the last weekend of Spring Break for CA schools. The place looked like a giant tailgate party with people sitting on top of almost every rock in the place and camping along the roadways. I had trouble turning around to flee the place.
 
Aaron Macomber

Aaron Macomber

Well-Known Member
Ben Egbert said:
Nice alignment of the center of your star circle with the top rock. Good job on the processing.
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Thanks Ben, I was happy that that turned out as well. Sometimes a little hard to keep track of polaris when the moon is super bright like that.

AlanLichty said:
I like the result and the inclusion of the boulders in the frame.

I made the mistake of wandering into the Alabama Hills once during what turned out to be the last weekend of Spring Break for CA schools. The place looked like a giant tailgate party with people sitting on top of almost every rock in the place and camping along the roadways. I had trouble turning around to flee the place.
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Thanks Alan, Yes, the place is a melee for sure. I had SO many people drive right through my camp as if I wasnt even there, and to beat that someone decided to drive in at 1:30 in the morning and actually setup camp! inside my camp! unreal. I departed the following morning..
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Wow Aaron! Love it! Star Trails don't always work, but this one sure does! Perfect positioning with an awesome foreground.

One of the bad side effects of the pandemic is the huge amount of people who found out ways to live without working and are outdoors to live out their Instagram dreams. A huge portion have no backcountry etiquette or just plain common sense respect for other people. And of course that's a result of the all of the Social Media platforms promoting the new "Me" Generation. It is sad, but appears to be the way of life today.

I early retired about 8 years ago and so have been on the road a lot, and the floodgates of people pouring out into the outdoors when the Pandemic hit is a tide that just has never abated. The normal cycles and flows of people in the wilderness that was built around holidays and Summertime have vanished. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be going away as it seems people have found a way to live without working.

In my travels, Utah is a great place for getting away from people as long as you stay away from all of the National Parks. I was also surprised in the Upper Midwest that in general it's not packed with people like you might see in California. But in general, I think we all need to come to terms with the new norm, which is people spread out like ants running around everywhere. :rolleyes:
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Oh man, totally forgot to ask. I have seen that lens you are using. I have the 12mm f2.0 and I love it and shoot it at f2.0 at night all the time. I wanted the wider view of the 10mm, but the f3.5 kind of put me off. How is your real world experience at shooting it at f3.5? Or did you? This image looks awesome, the IQ looks really great but at what aperture did you shoot the frames for this?
 
Aaron Macomber

Aaron Macomber

Well-Known Member
JimFox said:
Wow Aaron! Love it! Star Trails don't always work, but this one sure does! Perfect positioning with an awesome foreground.

One of the bad side effects of the pandemic is the huge amount of people who found out ways to live without working and are outdoors to live out their Instagram dreams. A huge portion have no backcountry etiquette or just plain common sense respect for other people. And of course that's a result of the all of the Social Media platforms promoting the new "Me" Generation. It is sad, but appears to be the way of life today.

I early retired about 8 years ago and so have been on the road a lot, and the floodgates of people pouring out into the outdoors when the Pandemic hit is a tide that just has never abated. The normal cycles and flows of people in the wilderness that was built around holidays and Summertime have vanished. Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be going away as it seems people have found a way to live without working.

In my travels, Utah is a great place for getting away from people as long as you stay away from all of the National Parks. I was also surprised in the Upper Midwest that in general it's not packed with people like you might see in California. But in general, I think we all need to come to terms with the new norm, which is people spread out like ants running around everywhere. :rolleyes:
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Thank you! This was a fun image to make. Yeah its pretty off-putting for sure. I would NEVER disturb someone’s camp for any reason much less just drive/walk/bike right through it like I owned it. I guess I’m outdated.. Hopefully peoples savings/unemployment/remote work will wane a bit and the world will return to closer to what we view as normal. Hard to blame them as I am doing something similar I guess, but the lack of etiquette is appalling.

I was considering heading towards all of the souther utah destinations next, but its getting pretty chilly at those higher elevations so I’m headed to Prescott/Sedona country on Thursday. I am finding that the Red Canyon country around Sedona is now all closed to disbursed camping, reference above conversation :(

JimFox said:
Oh man, totally forgot to ask. I have seen that lens you are using. I have the 12mm f2.0 and I love it and shoot it at f2.0 at night all the time. I wanted the wider view of the 10mm, but the f3.5 kind of put me off. How is your real world experience at shooting it at f3.5? Or did you? This image looks awesome, the IQ looks really great but at what aperture did you shoot the frames for this?
Click to expand...
I did shoot this wide open @f.3.5 iso1600. It would definintely not be the light vacuum that the 12mm f2.0 is (i did not know this existed) but it seems totally workable and is tack sharp. I still havent broken in the 5DSr to the point that I know exactly how it will perform in certain scenarios, as I do my 6D body. I am surprised at how low noise it is at iso1600. I expected it to be a bit of a mess.What noise it does produce is tiny due to the small pixels I surmise. I think the next investment is to have the 6D cream machine full-spectrum astro-converted and just keep it for that purpose alone. I shoot deep space images with my 400mm f5.6 with good success on a tracker, so I guess I am used to lenses that arent that fast, of course I’d love a fast 4-600mm lens, but am unwilling to sell all of my internal organs to fund it. If you’d just get someone to build a 10-12mm f1.2 lens, that would be great ;)
 
JimFox

JimFox

Moderator
Staff member
Aaron Macomber said:
Thank you! This was a fun image to make. Yeah its pretty off-putting for sure. I would NEVER disturb someone’s camp for any reason much less just drive/walk/bike right through it like I owned it. I guess I’m outdated.. Hopefully peoples savings/unemployment/remote work will wane a bit and the world will return to closer to what we view as normal. Hard to blame them as I am doing something similar I guess, but the lack of etiquette is appalling.

I was considering heading towards all of the souther utah destinations next, but its getting pretty chilly at those higher elevations so I’m headed to Prescott/Sedona country on Thursday. I am finding that the Red Canyon country around Sedona is now all closed to disbursed camping, reference above conversation :(



I did shoot this wide open @f.3.5 iso1600. It would definintely not be the light vacuum that the 12mm f2.0 is (i did not know this existed) but it seems totally workable and is tack sharp. I still havent broken in the 5DSr to the point that I know exactly how it will perform in certain scenarios, as I do my 6D body. I am surprised at how low noise it is at iso1600. I expected it to be a bit of a mess.What noise it does produce is tiny due to the small pixels I surmise. I think the next investment is to have the 6D cream machine full-spectrum astro-converted and just keep it for that purpose alone. I shoot deep space images with my 400mm f5.6 with good success on a tracker, so I guess I am used to lenses that arent that fast, of course I’d love a fast 4-600mm lens, but am unwilling to sell all of my internal organs to fund it. If you’d just get someone to build a 10-12mm f1.2 lens, that would be great ;)
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That's why I love my Sigma 14mm f1.8 so much... at night doing stars and the Milky Way, being fast is king! It's not only that you can shoot faster or at a lower ISO (my choice), but somehow being more open it just seems to allow more light to actually soak into the image. It's hard to describe, but the faster lenses just seem to have more detail compared to a less fast lens even if the exposures are set to be equal.

I can not recommend the 12mm f2.0 enough. It's a really awesome lens. My first copy was decentered, but the 2nd copy was great and I have been using it for about 3 years now. It's permanently sitting on my Sony A6400 now. It's super sharp, I can focus the lens to one marked spot on the barrel and everything is in focus from 6 feet on out. Since I am all Nikon but the Sony A6400, I am a bit odd. I would prefer to be all Nikon, but the Sony A6400 with the Samyang 12mm is my little Milky Way machine. When I set up at night, I just turn the lens to be in focus (I don't even have to look at the screen to check it), and if it's already dark I just set it to 25 secs, ISO 3200 and f2 and lock in the remote release and let it fire away. My Nikon D810 or D850 will have the Sigma 14mm f1.8 on it for my main composition, but the Sony with that 12mm is a great little bundle for an alternative composition setup.

All that said, I would love the 10mm for being a bit wider, but the 12mm is pretty close and I sure love the f2.0.
 
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