Bodiam Castle

Bodiam Castle, a photo by simon.anderson on Flickr.

Went to Bodiam castle tonight to try and so some startrails, something I've been wanting to do for ages.
The weather said some clouds but I thought I would make the effort and risk the trip.
My daughter came with me to keep me company on this long exposure shot.
The local pub said it was ok for me to use their carpark whilst I was taking my shots which was great.
I set up my camera on my tripod at the end of the walkway which leads to the entrance to the castle then attached my cable release.
I took a few shots to test my settings and composition and ended up with ISO 400 @ f/5 using 30 second exposures.
I locked the cable release and took 138 shots at 30 seconds each which when combined makes an exposure of 1hr 15mins or 75mins.
On the last few exposures I lit the castle with my 2,000,000 watt spotlight by lighting a section of the castle for 30 seconds then moving onto the next section.
The sky was soooo clear I saw 6 shooting stars which is a record for me.
It was very quiet apart from the ducks splashig about which made me a little jumpy now and again.
I combined the 138 exposures using startrails.de a very good and free programme for this kind of stacking then finished off with the usual adjustments, contrast,saturation,unsharp mask and so on.