First Published April 24th 2018
Hough Windmill Star Trail Shoot
This weekend i decided to go over to Hough Windmill in Swannington, Leicestershire. This was a location proposed by a friend, and had been on the list for some time, so thought it needed doing on one of the first good weekends of the year. Due to the light pollution starscapes and star trails were the order of the evening.
Big thanks goes to Gary Hawthorne for sorting out great access to the location. His Instagram link at the bottom of this blog. Thanks to the Swannington Heritage Trust gave us great access to the site after hours. There is so much work i want to do here in Gorse Field as well, i think we are going to have to revisit at some point.
Anyway a quick rundown of what we accomplished at the site.
Getting there at about 9:20 i started surveying the site and checking out where would be best to photography from. There were a couple of options, but i had made a decision quite quickly.
First of all, a couple of early doors shots to incorporate the moon and a few different angles.
f2.8 ISO200 30 Seconds.
Early Evening so very bright still with the Moonlight as well.
You can still keep your ISO quite low to get a really clean image.
With the moon still high in the sky the details of the windmill were extremely apparent. An amazing job with the restoration.
After a couple of shots to line up exactly how i wanted the star trail to work, the camera was left to it’s own devices for 106 photos. Each photo was 30 seconds with an extremely minimal interval so the end result is of around 53 minutes of exposure. Not the biggest star trail I’ve done by a very long way, but pretty impressive.
The positioning was absolutely vital for the photo. I made sure the north star was right behind the fantail at the top to make the stars circle around as perfectly as possible.
Hough Windmill Star Trail
Nikon D750, Samyang 14mm f2.8 AE lens. all images f2.8, 30 Seconds, ISO640.
The use of flash on a few exposures helped to bring the detail of the mill out.
You may notice the extremely bright trail at the extreme bottom left is actually the planet Venus rather than a star.
I kept the ISO quite low with this, as i wanted the cleanest trail possible. Lowering the ISO brings out less detail in the sky on a single exposure, but built up, gives you very clean lines.
After finishing up with this i wanted to do a quick trail with the stars going across the sky rather than circumpolar.
Hough Windmill Star Trails Easterly
Just over 28 Minutes of Exposure. D750, 14mm Samyang f2.8 AE lens. f2.8, 30 seconds, ISO800
Shooting more easterly gives a great view of the transition to the noncircumpolar stars.
These stars seem to move faster in the sky, than the circumpolar stars (relatively). This means only 57, 30 Second Shots were required to obtain a good star trail photograph.
To round off the evening at this location i took a few single starscape shots.
Hough Windmill Starscape
11:20 in the evening and the moon getting lower in the sky. You won’t notice with the naked eye, the great shadows that are apparent on the longer exposures. 30 Seconds, ISO1000, f2.8.
Hough Windmill Starscape
30 Seconds, ISO1000, f2.8. Just showing some of the building texture. Added bonus, a shooting star in shot. It could also be an iridium flare. I may check in more depth later.
Straight up Hough Mill
Different Angles of interest. 30 Seconds, ISO1000, f2.8.
On the way back out we saw some industrial bits and bobs and decided to aim the camera at them as well.
Gorse Field Industrial Items
30 Seconds, ISO1250, f2.8. I do like a good digger shot.
I think my favourite shot of the evening. f2.8, 30 Seconds, ISO1600 A fantastic Landscape of the Mill ponds and Mill itself.
This type of photography is outstandingly relaxing for me, from capture, edit, to finished shot.
I also love access to locations like this. They are absolutely great parts of our history, and i love showing them in this way.
To find out more about the mill and the work of the Swannington Heritage Trust, the links are below for their webpage, twitter and facebook pages.
Give them a follow and a like to keep up with what they do , and what events they put on.
Swannington Heritage Trust Webpage
Gary Hawthorne is a good friend, who is a great photographer. Always a pleasure to go out on trips like this with him. Check out his Instagram here.
Give him a follow to see some of his wonderful work.
And of course my own accounts to check out more of my work and follow what i’m doing.
Gareth Norman Landscapes Instagram
Gareth Norman Landscapes Facebook
Gareth Norman Portraits Instagram
Gareth Norman Portraits Facebook
Check out my store for Prints and anything else. Look at the top of the page and click on Shop. If you want to email me for a custom order, or something not in the shop drop me an email.
As always, have fun, stay safe, and enjoy shooting.
Any suggestions for future blog posts, drop me an email. I will at some point be going into more detail on future posts.