Forbidden City in the Stars: Nikon D810 + 710 Frames
Written and Photographed by Wang Jia
Artist
My name is Wang Jia, and I am a photographer based in Beijing China. Most of my work focuses on Astrophotography, I am always looking up! To see more of my work, check out my Instagram and 500px!
About the Shot
This photo was taken at the Meridian Gate just outside the Forbidden City in Beijing. I shot the image using a Nikon D810 with the Irix 11mm wide-angle lens. I used my trusted Manfrotto 055Xpro3 to setup and frame the shot! This shot took out about 6 hours to execute as I took 710 images at 30 seconds each. I set my aperture to f/5.6 and kept myISO at 640.
I started shooting this the night of March 16th and was out until the next morning. The Meridian Gate is the front gate of the Imperial Palace. In Chinese, it’s called 午门.
Position + Advice
When shooting star trails, I first check my direction. Facing north we can get a circle around Polaris. If you face other directions you can achieve different angles in the star lines. The Meridian Gate opens towards the South, so when I shoot it I point the lens North towards Polaris, achieving the star circle directly above!
Setting the camera just right can be difficult. The star trail and the ground both need to be clear without overexposing the image. When shooting the stars in the city it is hard to get the full colors with light pollution, so nailing your exposure is super important. I first set the shutter speed, aperture, and interval. Then check the iso to make sure it isn’t too high. When I plan a long term star-trail photo I usually underexpose a little bit because when I stack the images in photoshop the resulting image won’t be too bright.
I used Lightroom to color correct the 710 frames and stacked them all in Photoshop. Sometimes I’ll expose for the foreground and blend it with the star-stack to achieve the best possible result.
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