Starry Night

Some of you may know I have been fascinated by landscape photographs that include star fields. The one attached for instance. If I were using film, I would simply make an exposure at dusk, to get the color in the sky, close the shutter (not moving the camera) and then add the star field when it was completely dark by using a second exposure (double exposure) to add the milky way, and use a small electronic flash or flash light, to add density to foreground objects. In a digital environment I haven't found a way to do a double exposure. The obvious solution would be to lock the shutter open, do an exposure for the sky color, put the lens cap on the lens, and then remove the lens cap when it was time to expose for the sky. Since that might entail a 30-40 minute, or more, gap I'm concerned that the extremely long time the sensor is being charged might over heat it and ruin the sensor, or worse, ruin the photograph. Does any of this make sense, and does anyone have any thoughts, besides the thought that I've lost my mind?

0 members like this

Attachments:

milky-way-arch-rock-night-stars-26848.jpg, 34 KB

▶ Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on April 10, 2012 at 1:09pm

This was at about 5,000 ft elevation. Less than ten miles from Las Cruces, N.M. and less than 50 miles from El Paso Texas.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ion Paciu on April 10, 2012 at 1:24pm

strange, I could swear it was a higher altitude, was this made in the summer?

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on April 11, 2012 at 7:33am

No. Actually I was there two weeks ago today. It is just below Baylor Pass and directly above White Sands Proving Grounds. The altitude my be some higher than that but not much. It certainly isn't high altitude like we think of here.

▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by nathan mccreery on April 11, 2012 at 8:06am

I began thinking about the elevation of Aguirre Springs so I checked Google Earth. It shows the elevation as 5289 ft. I knew that White Sands N.M. was about 3000 so it didn't seem that it should be very high.