Many years ago, I found myself standing on a freezing mountainside in the dead of winter, trying to capture my first ever “startrail” photo. From my limited research on the subject, I knew that I had to try keep the shutter open for as long as possible in order to capture the stars streaking across the night sky - and that was it. ISO? F stop? No idea. Yep, I wasn’t too clued up on the whole process.

To keep the shutter open for what ended up being a 90 minute exposure, I tied an elastic band around my camera, with a pencil positioned over the shutter button. Laugh all you want, but it worked…somehow. MacGyver would have been proud.

Fast forward to 2018, and my photography equipment has progressed leaps and bounds. New camera, new lenses, new lighting, tripod etc. I’d shot the night skies on many different occasions since then, but never really explored the startrail aspect much further. I guess I just didn’t have the patience to stand outside for hours in the hopes that the photo would work out - shooting a much shorter exposure of the stars / milky way is far easier.

Until recently…

What you see above is an exposure coming in at an estimated 75 minutes, which was shot on a recent trip to the Drakensberg mountains. Instead of one really long exposure, I created this image by shooting a bunch of consecutive 30 second exposures, and merging them later using the great (and free) program Starstax. As much as some people may consider this cheating, the end result is still the same, and there’s much more room for experimentation. Imagine shooting a full two hour exposure, only to find out that your focus was ever so slightly off? Or perhaps underexposed? No thanks.

Note: I did pause the process for a bit about halfway through, as I was worried for my sensor / shutter. That explains the gap in trails.

Nowadays, to keep the camera shutter firing, I have a small piece of equipment called a Triggertrap, which connects my 6D to my Android phone and gives a massive range of shooting options. Sadly, Triggertrap is now out of business, making this handy cable and cellphone app combination a rare sight.

It really can't get any easier than this. No excuse for laziness anymore.

Fortunately, I’ve been gifted with the opportunity to head back to this exact location in just over a months time, so you can be sure that there will be more starscapes to follow, provided the weather is suitable. Let’s hope so - I need some nice new prints to decorate my lounge with.

Thanks to Black Sabbath for the title inspiration!

Bonus photo

This was taken much later on the same night from my balcony. I sat out here for hours, just watching the universe roll by. Needless to say, it was incredibly relaxing.

Equipment Setup: