Star Trail Photography for Beginners!

[@MorsidAKadir-td4uj]

This is really what I need. From gear to post processing. Gonna try it today. Thank you!

[@Vantage-o2d]

You are stunning. Thank you for the video. I'm just getting started in this.

[@realsteelreggae7880]

Super gorgeous

[@hlpvinod]

Wow. What a great presentation. You answerd all the questions I had in my mind. Keep making great content like this, particularly on Astro. Cheers.

[@kainuisocean]

Thanks for the presentation/advice, Mallory. I mostly shoot timelapse-panos, and really never considered star trails, but since its New Years, and the Milky Way is not happening for a few months, you may have saved my life, LOL! : ) In my work I have done many presentations and lectures, and I want to say, you do an excellent job. Quite professional, and helpful!

[@burnhamny]

Great video, super useful, thanks you!!

[@udoschneider8009]

Awesome video. Love the Start-To-Finish approach. Just what I needed!

[@carlenslin2995]

Thank you very much for this tutorial

[@gdan8259]

Great video, impressive delivery. I needed a refresher since I have not shot star trails in a while. Thanks.

[@markledingham4942]

Thank you so much for showing this, Mallory! Your images are just spectacular. 🤗

[@jlynpphotography]

Awesome video, so informative. Thank you so much! This is a goal of mine for 2025 and you've given me a lot of confidence!

[@varadthalnerkar3040]

Thanks for the detailed tutorial. Loads of great points. Also stunning work!!

[@brianliau2124]

Seen SO many astrophotography videos. You explain it the clearest and most straight forward. Thank you so much. You've got a new fan and follower.

[@robinmay-davis3209]

Thank you so much!! Very informative and I feel ready to give it a try! Excellent teaching

[@ponymoore6140]

Best demo I have ever seen on You Tube.

[@himanshuarora6449]

you just hit the nail on the head! to the point video!! thanks very much!! 🙌

[@johnhurlbut]

I'm headed to Mount Rainier tonight to try my first Star Trail images! Thanks for the tutorial!

[@ashleymartin7644]

Great video and excellent presentation style. Thank you.

[@janolopez7436]

Top tips thanks

[@ukuleila]

This is so helpful, thank you! I can't wait to try my first star trail photo :)

[@lindseysutherland7779]

great video. Will have a try!

[@berniestang2616]

Awesome video . Thank you Im new to this Excited to try this in MN !

[@alensley1368]

Great video. Now to try it out.

[@azza9304]

Thank you for such an informative presentation

[@michaelrice2993]

you are amazing!!! Thank you! !

[@anastasianoonkesser3251]

I’m so excited to try this!!!

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Yay!!!! They are so fun!! Lmk how it turns out!!!

[@theguyinthenorthwest2571]

Awesome video. Heading out tonight to shoot some trails!

[@britt5126]

Thank you Mallory!

[@phanofjohn]

Very helpful and easy to understand and follow!

[@mallorydavisphotography]

So glad you enjoyed it! Wishing you happy shooting!

[@parikshitgoel5073]

Thank You for the great informative video

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Glad it was helpful! Happy shooting!!

[@romanszymanski8514]

Thank you!

[@mallorydavisphotography]

You're welcome! Happy shooting!

[@jcaff6963]

Thank you, Mallory.

[@michaelgriswold4077]

Hey thanks for the video, how do you get the foreground lit and in focus in these shots?

[@laurelb8372]

Great instructions, thank you

[@f8bethere]

Good tutorial. Thanks

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Glad you found it helpful!! thanks for watching

[@ajomathew9]

Very inspiring video😊👍🥰

[@stephanerainsard2916]

Hello from China, fantastic tutorial that allowed me to take my first star trails picture ever. All the information are to the point and very well organized. I would add a tip, test the features you need (like manual focus with digital zoom, interval settings…) before going on location :P … and I did catch a satellite (or a plane?) that I post processed in that single plane.

[@Hrushidandasena]

Thank you mam, mam what software are you using & what accessories are also using?

[@Curiouscosmosman]

Finally video that I need :) Thanks Mallory

[@mallorydavisphotography]

ahhh! Glad you liked it!! Happy shooting, and LMK when you shoot some trails!

[@Andreas-eu6xe]

Awesome video!!

[@archaja]

Fine explanation! there are several ways to do Star Trails, I think. I do less pictures with more time (about 3 min) and I like to put it together with GIMP, which is similar to Photoshop (but free). But I shurely will give your method a try.

[@zygmuntziokowski7877]

Thanks for the tips. It been to cloudy on the east coast of NC to try anything right now, but I will be trying software out when I get a chance, Thanks!

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Wishing you clear skies!! Hope it helps :)

[@septembertwenty-nine9989]

I captured several star trails on my October 14 annular solar eclipse trip to New Mexico and Utah. I chose to do star trails rather than Milky Way landscapes because the Milky Way wasn't showing the galactic core in October. The star trail images went very well. Interesting, I am expecting to meet an astrophotographer friend from Germany in Big Bend National Park prior to the total solar eclipse in April. I'm hoping for clear skies at night so Milky Way and star trails will be good. If partly cloudy, then timelapse videos will be an option.

[@Scotphotoamateur]

Thanks. Fantastic video. I don't know if you have a background in education but you really give clarity. I was also surprised you said that star trails were possible in urban areas with a lot of light pollution. I live in a city Bortle class 7. I had previously set my camera up in the garden to test the intervalometer but had never thought of trying to make star trails. It worked! StarStaX is a great find as quite a few programmes appear to be for windows only. Keep making the videos.

[@berniestang2616]

Please keep creating content ., excellent ❤

[@joelkuenning9742]

This was great! Have you done star trail videos? I think one of my favorite things is when it's like a cumulative timelapse where it starts as a night sky and then plays out the stars creating the trails.

[@septembertwenty-nine9989]

I have some star trails with hundreds of images. Putting them into a video form would be a fun challenge. I will have to watch a few youtube videos to learn how to do that.

[@weast5912]

Very good stuff Mallory…I’m starting to get hooked on this Astro stuff…possibly the next frontier for me 🙂

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Thanks, Walt!!! We will get out and some some astro soon :) This summer has just been crazy!

[@sportkiteflyer]

Just did my first real star trails photo. A tad rough but this took me through all the steps so it's only up from here. ;)

[@Ljempausis]

Latest GoPro does everything for you. :)

[@sfsamateur]

So?

[@andrewfoster1768]

great video, thank you. How do you taper the ends of each star trail so they dont start and end so abrubtly?

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Great question! you can play with the "comet mode" in Star Stax to make the trails look more like comets with tapered tails. Hope that helps!

[@martinpeffers1953]

Awesome video , you made it look so easy .. 1 Question , My camera isn't compatible with an intervalometer but i have an ASI air which i can use with my cannon. would the saved images be ok for Starstax from the ASI air ?

[@user-zn1ur1jw7r]

This video seems to be an almost exact copy of the Alyn Wallace video on star trails from three years ago. Unfortunately he is now deceased.

[@jayrog868]

Wait he died?????

[@PafMedic]

@@jayrog868.Yes.Alyn Passed A Few Months Ago From An Infection

[@PingpongPoof-c3r]

Thx

[@davidarteaga7054]

Great tutorial! Question, let's say you want your foreground sharp, do you take a foreground image first then do your star trails and blend them in PS?

[@mallorydavisphotography]

Thank you! You are spot on! I try to do a blue hour blend with my foreground nice and sharp and noise free then blend them together!

[@rocketcityastro]

Great shot i hope your going to shoot the annular solar eclipse in October!!

[@mallorydavisphotography]

It will be right over central texas so going to do my damndest!!!

[@manga4400]

What was the first software you used? And did you take photos as raw file or jpeg?

[@tara32694]

How do you expose for the 600 images you took? looks like the first images were dark, but when you stacked all 600 images the final result was alot brighter?

[@jerryrichards8172]

I just recently picked up my first digital camera and haven't tried this. I also have many many star trails on film I started shooting them in the early 80s. Thanks for sharing. I do have a question I know nothing about. For the digital processing program do I get lightroom clasic ?

[@mallorydavisphotography]

welcome to digital!!! You definitely should process in Lightroom Classic! LRmobile is great... but classic gives you better features, in my opinion! I recently shot my first star trail (2hours) on film and I was blown away!! so so cool!

[@jerryrichards8172]

@@mallorydavisphotography gratz on your star trails it take a bit longer but it's something cool pluss all the different night scapes you can add below them. Thank you for the advice lightroom clasic. That's what I'm going with. Thank you.

[@silverpassion3588]

Tks foer the vid and tutorial. My camera has a time lapse and I forgot to set to 1 sec interval. Meaning it continuously shot for ard 320 images until my batt dies. i down loaded the images and I got exactly 320 images. What's the reason that you said set the interval for 1 sec?

[@jlynpphotography]

ps...are you shooting Raw?

[@Boysthehh666]

gak perlu alat tambahan, gak perlu edit laptop apakah bisa?

[@ObjectiveRealityIsKing]

Great vid, thanks. I have a query that no one can seem to answer: Why do we see ZERO parallax in star trail time lapse videos? This can only occur if the stars are roughly the same distance away. If the stars were different distances away there MUST be parallax.

[@pazvilla]

Camera on raw or jpg ?

[@DSOImager]

Pretty cool, I've never tried shooting star trails (intentionally 🙂 ). StarStaX looks very cool. So with this you don't have to make a composite with a separate foreground?

[@mallorydavisphotography]

too many images, right?! This particular image set I used, I shot into blue hour so it gave me a nice clean foreground. You typically should shoot a separate foreground, but totally personal preference!

[@repositorytutorial3d50]

very clear video thanks! but I think you got ISO part wrong, the ISO do not allow more light to come in, it's just a gain increase which do not allow more photons to enter the sensor, from my understanding of ISO, in astrophotography the best thing is to pump up iso as much as possible as far as the relevant highlights are not clipped, that's not only increase dynamic range, but also reduces relative noise after processing.

[@ogjstephens]

Do MP matter when shooting Astro?

[@mallorydavisphotography]

In my opinion, no! What matters is the cameras ability to handle noise. I shoot sony bc they have the best sensors for low light photography. I get great results from my A7iv (33mp) and my A7riv (64mp).

[@TheFramer_]

where are you from Mallory?

[@septembertwenty-nine9989]

I usually take 30 second images for star trails, but there is a third option... 3 minute exposures. If something goes wrong, the night isn't ruined and you have fewer images to stack. Post processing goes faster with fewer images to remove airplanes and satellites.

[@TheDoug625]

Doesn't even the black start to get too light in 3 minutes?

[@phanofjohn]

How do you avoid the "zipper" look on the star trails? I have tried shorter time between shots and it still has that look.

[@mallorydavisphotography]

be sure your interval between shots is 1 second! otherwise the stars will move and you will have those gaps

[@TheDoug625]

Ok, I must be doing something wrong. If I keep the shutter open for more than a minute even the blackness of space gets light. Am I missing something simple?

[@MarkJ1776]

Even at ISO 100 and one minute you are likely overexposing wide open. If you are doing 1 minute, maybe try raising your aperture until you like the results. I usually shoot 30 seconds at f2.8 and ISO 800-1000 depending how dark it is.

[@TheDoug625]

@@MarkJ1776 thanks. I think the moon was really bright that night so that wasn't helping things either.

[@blackhand805]

Stacking lol 😆

[@berniestang2616]

And - would one hour of shooting give me decent star trails?? Thank you !!!!!!

[@Dehancer]

Hey, we'd like to collaborate with you. Please let us know how we can get in touch with you 😊

[@techguyml]

I bet that guitar is decoration only lol 😂

[@mallorydavisphotography]

how much you want to bet?!

[@soulitis]

@@mallorydavisphotographythe only decoration is his comment.. fear based comments.

[@emanrovemanchan1527]

14 - 24, 50 - 70 and even 100! Why the hell did I have to buy a 35 one 🤣

[@techguyml]

OF??

[@tchomusic]

Well, I’d rather try in one single shot. AI did that photo pretty much.

[@Edward-bn2vw]

All of the background music in KZbin just makes me want to cancel the subscription, and buy a book instead. Drives me f_cking crazy!