One of my favourite subjects for photography is star trails. On a recent trip to Martha Creek near Revelstoke, I was disappointed with some of the results I was achieving with my
Nikon D600, especially given that the exposures were 8 minutes in length:
 |
| Minor Light Leak at Martha Creek |
I had much better success with my
Nikon D90
in earlier shots:
 |
| Milky Way At Lac Le Jeune |
Initially I thought this was being caused by the fire or small lights in my campsite. I made adjustments, and faithfully re-composed to a different location and attempted a 30 minute exposure. The results were very disappointing to say the least:
 |
| Major Light Leak at Martha Creek |
I began to question the usefulness of a D600
in one of my favourite styles of photography, and was considering calling Nikon support to report the issue. But before doing so, I did a quick search on Google and observed results that were similar.
After digging further on various forums, I concluded that I might have had light leaking through the viewfinder of the D600
, which was odd considering I had not had this problem with the Nikon D90
. I did some quick experiments using my
Cokin IR
and
Cokin ND
filters during daylight conditions:
 |
| Cokin IR Filter - Light Leaks |
 |
| Cokin ND8, ND6, & ND4 Filters Stacked - Light Leaks |
Light Leaks! After adding the
Nikon DK-5
to the viewfinder of the Nikon D600
(you know, that small piece of plastic that your camera came with, but you didn't know to do with!), I was pleased with the results:
 |
| Cokin IR Filter - No Light Leaks |
 |
| Cokin ND8, ND6, & ND4 - No Light Leaks |
I have not yet tested this in a star trail scenario, but I am quite confident about what I was observing, and relieved that my decision to move to a D600 was not a bad one.
Cheers!
