Ocean Sky Time-lapse Photography at Night

Photography Tips  •  Time-lapse Photography

Inspired by taking a long exposure night sky shot at a star gazing party in 2009, photographer Alex Cherney set himself a project. To combine two of his photographic passions namely ocean and night sky into one stunning time lapse sequence. Alex is a hobbyist astronomer whose first foray into the heavens began in 2007. From there he bought ever-larger telescopes and joined a local astronomy club. It was here, at the 2009 star gazing party, that he borrowed a tripod and first pointed his DSLR towards the heavens realizing the full potential of digital photography in the field of astronomy:

Taking in over one and half years of work and thirty one hours of photography, Alex used a Nikon D700 combined with a 14-24 lens to capture and combine incredible starscapes with beautiful dawn, dusk and nightime landscapes. To convey a cinematic feel to the work, he used an Orion Teletrack Alt-Azimuth for panning the camera during the time-lapse exposures. Alex’s knowledge of the subject and large amounts of pre-planning were instrumental in bringing his vision to life, although he readily admits to also having a little luck.

The final result, called Ocean Sky is a masterpiece in time-lapse photography and was awarded the overall prize at the STARMUS astrophotography competition, a five-day celebration of astronomy in the Canary Islands.

For Further Training on Time-lapse Photography:

Check out this new COMPLETE guide (146 pages) to shooting, processing and rendering time-lapses using a dslr camera. It can be found here: Time-lapse Photography Guide