Hello, dears!

Ahh, I’m so so excited for this post! I’m super proud of how these pictures turned out and can’t wait to share them with you guys. 😀 Remember last post, when my friends came and I said that we all had a bonfire and Fleet taught me astrophotography? Well, here are the pictures from that evening: stars, sparklers, and a big bonfire. EXCITEMENT.

So much for the words – I’m ready for the pictures!

Let’s start with the bonfire. We actually had bonfires two nights while Aria was here – this is the first one. I used a long exposure with my camera on the tripod to get this weird orange whoosh and some blurry people. 😛

I got more ordinary fire photos the second night. Doesn’t this little fire look so perfectly shaped?

Fires are much more interesting to photograph when they’re sparking. (That’s the proper term… definitely. *nods*)

I discovered while editing these that upping the clarity really brought out the shower of sparks. It’s an orange glitter tornado!

I kept Jeff’s face pretty dark in this one so his concerned expression wouldn’t be as distracting… But now I said that and it will be even more so. *facepalm* Heh heh. I think he was just concentrating hard since the sparklers weren’t easy to light.

Okay, NOW for the stars! 😀 Fleet’s an amazing astrophotographer and had taught Aria a while before, so I was super excited to learn after seeing both of their pictures. It was actually easier than I thought! In summary, you first of all shoot in RAW mode; then manually focus on the stars, fix up the settings (the key is a super long exposure, like 6+ seconds), and shoot with a self-timer on a tripod so your camera doesn’t shake. Editing is a lot of what really brings out the stars. See, this is an unedited one:

And this is an edited one! *grins happily* I AM SO PLEASED. Aren’t stars breathtakingly beautiful? I think these are my settings, using my Nikon D3400 and a 35mm lens:
Aperture: f 1.8
Shutter speed: 6 seconds
ISO: 800

Here’s a shot of the night sky at a different angle, not including the Milky Way. If you zoom in, you can see some different colored stars. O.o

Fleet also showed me how to use a stacking software called Deep Sky Stacker to bring out the stars even more. (And, apparently, an airplane – that’s what the red streak to the right is.) We live waaay out in the country and it was perfectly clear that night, so you could see the Milky Way just by looking up – though not as clear as this, obviously. 😛

Here’s a brighter one with our house under a “shooting star” that’s actually another airplane. 😉

And to end with, here’s a black and white version a couple of seconds later. 😀 I looove this one.

*happy sigh* Well that was fun! I hope you guys enjoyed these night light photos as much as I did. 😀 I’ll have to take some more star photos, maybe this winter when the sky is extra clear.

Which photo was your favorite? Have you ever done star photography? If you made a post about it, put a link in the comments and I’ll check it out!

Thanks so much for reading, dears, and have a lovely day!

***Allison***