Slowing Down

I have been experimenting with night photography, I like to figure things out for my self. It was a moonless start to the night last night and largely clear skies (a few light clouds drifted by). The longest exposure I can get on my Pentax K20 (without manually holding the shutter down in B Bulb mode) is 30 second so I have had to open the aperture right up (only f4 on this lens) and really crank up the ISO to 3200 (I can go to 6400 but the digital noise is then too great). I did get some reasonable shoots but this one, take into the last two street lights in town does give the charming feel of man's artificial world trying to compete with the ancient light of the stars.

Moral : Despite the brilliant flash effect the manmade lights only create local pools of illumination. The Stars are eternal.