Wall Street Mill startrails - Joshua Tree National Park

Here’s a shot of some startrails over another rusted car along the Wall Street Mill path. The details from the front of this one were really cool with the engine and the headlights so I got up close for a head on shot which put the North Star up towards the left of the frame. The foreground was shot at twilight to maximize depth of field and minimize noise at f/14, 2.5 sec, ISO-100, and the stars were shot once it got dark at f/2.8, 15 sec, ISO-6400 using the Nikon D750, Nikkor 14-24. The trees bleeding into the sky were a bit problematic as they moved a bit during the star lapse and also had lights from incoming people with their flashlights so had to clean that up a bit. An overhanging branch on the right side of the frame was completely removed as well. When I blend exposures from different times I try to find comps that have hard separations such as mountains to make things a lot easier, but this foreground car made the processing time worth it. Used about 100 shots for the stars stacked in starstax.

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