Just some advice?

[masquerad101]

Not sure if this is the right place for this thread

Im going camping this weekend to try and get some forrest and waterfall shots but the weather forecast says the skys are to be clear on friday night and seeing as I will be in the contryside there will be very little light pollution, so I am thinking of trying some night sky shots! Just wondering does anyone have any settings advice? Like exposure and f.stops? I know the exposure will prob be something like 20 secs but not sure of f stops, ISO and such. Any advice would be great.

 

[Superfitz]

http://m.wikihow.com/Photograph-the-Night-Sky

 

[Designer]

The directions seem fine, but the camera LCD and the directions don't match up in #5.

Says; "widest aperture" but the display shows f32.

I'd post the screen shot, but I think it is against the rules.

 

[Superfitz]

The directions seem fine, but the camera LCD and the directions don't match up in #5.

Says; "widest aperture" but the display shows f32.

I'd post the screen shot, but I think it is against the rules.

Funny.... Don't pay attention to the picture. Must be a mistake. You can also look here.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/articles-interest/276016-shooting-night-pictures-stars-stuff.html

I was looking for that thread earlier, but couldn't find it...hence the wiki link

 

[masquerad101]

That picture would be confusing (f32) If I didnt slightly understand aperture. So really I should use an aperture more lik F 3.2? which is the widest my D3200 kit lens can go!

 

[shaylou]

http://m.wikihow.com/Photograph-the-Night-Sky

I would not take the advise here. As stated "use the widest" yet they have their lens dropped all the way down. Not to mention that is a major mistake in its own right. The other thing that struck me was the one of the most basic things to do was not even mentioned. They said nothing about locking the mirror ( must do).

No one can tell you the correct setting for the situation because they don't have enough information to do so. Not knowing the subject or depth of the field leaves it up to an educated guess. My guess would be some where around f11 or even to f16 or so. So do not stop your lens down that far unless you are a fan of defraction. . Leave your iso low and see where your meter goes for the proper exposure time. Don't worry about going 30 or 45 seconds. As long as you have taken the proper precautions you will be fine.

 

[JackPhotography1998]

When I took this photo

I used a f.4 with a high ISO of about 1000 (I know it seems Hugh but it works) and I shutter speed of 30 seconds. I hope I helped

Jack M'crystal Photography

Ps sorry about the low resolution image my Internet wont upload anything better

 

[DiskoJoe]

Use a wide aperture, low ISO, long shutter speed, and focus manually.

 

[shaylou]

When I took this photo

I used a f.4 with a high ISO of about 1000 (I know it seems Hugh but it works) and I shutter speed of 30 seconds. I hope I helped

Jack M'crystal Photography

Ps sorry about the low resolution image my Internet wont upload anything better

Why are you using a wide aperture on a shot that needs a deep depth of field? Look at the pic and you will see what I'm talking about. My advise would be stick to the basics and forget about general presenting. Think about what you are trying to accomplish and set accordingly. The one setting that can be predetermined would by the f-stop and that is the one setting that is missed or set wrong here. A shot like this is very simple. Set to around f11 with a low iso and take a shot and check the dof. Once you determine that all the stars are in focus with the correct dof let the camera tell you the shutter speed and take another test shot. This is where your creative eye comes in. Sometimes the camera gets the exposure correct but I always play with the exposure (shutter speed) to get different exposures till I find what I like . Generally it's a little under exposed shot that I end up liking the best but that's a matter of taste. You may like something else. Point is the f-stop needs to be the priority for this shot so that everything is in focus. Once that is determined you can set the exposure around that. It's about finding the priority of a particular shot, setting that Priorty and making adjustments around it. Stick to that philosophy and it will make set ups easy for you. Hope that helped.

 

[zombiemann]

Remember the rule of 500 when attempting to shoot the night sky. The stars over head are moving a LOT faster than you think. The rule of 500, while not the be all end all formula, will certainly help you along the right path. Basically you take your effective focal length (remember to multiply by crop factor on crop sensors [1.6 for most canons]) and divide 500 by it. That will give you a rough gauge on how long you can expose before stars start to go oval. So, for example, using my T2i (1.6 crop sensor) and my 18-55 lens at 18 I can shoot for about 13 seconds (give or take, round down to be on the safe side) before star trails begin to form. Resist the urge to crank up your ISO.

One option is to take several exposures and feed them through a piece of software like Deep Sky Stacker. It is theoretically possible to do it in Photoshop, but it is a LOT more work, and DSS is free. Keep in mind though, this type of stacking has nothing to do with HDR or other types of exposure stacking you might be used to. Essentially what you are doing is stacking say 10 13 second exposures into 1 130 second exposure (without the inherent star trails). It can produce some really nice results.

Single Exposure - 20 13 second exposures stacked

 

[Gavjenks]

Everything is at the same infinity focus in the night sky, so stopping down is fairly useless. If you have less-than-the-best quality lens, you may want to stop down a LITTLE bit, like 2/3 of a stop or something from wide open, which usually will help a lot with corner sharpness. But other than that, wide wide wide. And if you have a top quality prime lens for instance, fully wide open may be the best (likely to be sufficiently sharp across even when fully open). Use your knowledge of your own lenses and their limits at the wide end. But F/32 is really dumb for astrophotography no matter what you're using.

 

[shaylou]

Everything is at the same infinity focus in the night sky, so stopping down is fairly useless. If you have less-than-the-best quality lens, you may want to stop down a LITTLE bit, like 2/3 of a stop or something from wide open, which usually will help a lot with corner sharpness. But other than that, wide wide wide. And if you have a top quality prime lens for instance, fully wide open may be the best (likely to be sufficiently sharp across even when fully open). Use your knowledge of your own lenses and their limits at the wide end. But F/32 is really dumb for astrophotography no matter what you're using.

I politely disagree on two things here. First just off infinity is always sharper then right on Infiniti in my experience. Second, using Canons L series glass wide open is always softer then stopped down a bit regardless of prime or zoom.