Stacking 200 frames taught me my polar alignment was the real problem all along

I spent six months blaming my camera for star trails in every landscape shot, thought I needed a new mount or better glass. Then last Tuesday I watched a tutorial that showed how to check drift over 10 minutes instead of just eyeballing the reticle, and sure enough my alignment was off by nearly 3 degrees. Has anyone else chased gear upgrades when a simple drift test would've saved them the headache?

1 comments

1 Comment

fisher.diana16d ago

See, I get what you're saying, but three degrees off is still pretty small in the grand scheme of things. I've been shooting with a polar alignment that's probably off by that much for years and my normal shots come out fine. You only really notice it when you're doing super long exposures or tight crops. I mean, sure, do the drift test if you're bored, but saying it was "the real problem all along" feels like a stretch. A lot of times people just need to shorten their shutter speed or stop pixel peeping at 400%.