With staycations being the order of the day in the summer of 2021, my wife Liz managed to book us a couple of days holiday in a pod on a farm in Ceredigion, near the welsh coast just a bit inland from the seaside resort of Newquay.
I was quite excited at the prospect, as the skies over this part of Wales are reknowed for their lack of light pollution and thus their brilliant, starry nights.
So I was looking forward to some astrophotography that didn't involve freezing my backside off halfway up a mountain - that would be a nice change!
On the first night of our stay I set my camera up in astrphotography mode (tripod, Canon EOS6DMK2, 14mm prime lens, interval timer and battery powered lens warmer) and let it running over night, looking out over the campsite.
This resulted in an interesting time lapse video which was, unfortunately, sadly lacking in stars.
So on the second night, with clear skies forecast, I made another attempt at astrophotography using the same equipment set up as the night before, but this time pointing my lens directly at the sky, avoiding any ground lighting effects from the campsite.
In terms of astrophotography this was much more sucessful, and resulted in this time lapse of the heavens, right trhough from dusk till dawn.
And all accomplished with one battery and memory card - great performance from my trusty Canon!
If you look carefully you can find the north star, Polaris, in roughly the horizontal middle and vertical bottom third of the frame - it's the only star not moving throughout the video as the milky way traverses the heavens and satellites whizz by overhead.
Filename - ceredigion night timelapse 02
Camera - Canon EOS 6DMK2
Lens - 14mm prime
Exposure (start of sequence) - 10 secs @ f/2.8, ISO6400
Exposure (end of sequence) - 10 secs @ f/2.8, ISO6400
Filters - None.
Shooting interval - 10 seconds
Software - Adobe Lightroom and Premiere Pro
Location - Somewhere in Ceredigion, mid-Wales
This clip - HD 720p, 30fps (4k and 1080p HD formats also available)
Clip duration - 52 seconds
All content copyright © Howard Litherland 2009-2024 unless otherwise stated.