Will be taking some star shots soon.. have a question

[arcooke]

I'm going to be on a camping trip in the Rocky Mountains later this month, and I wanted to try to get some nice star shots. My question is related more to internal features of the camera. Should I turn off internal noise reduction? Should I turn off vibration reduction? Are there any other things outside of the standard exposure settings that I should take into consideration?

I'm hoping to get some milky way shots, if not, just some starry night shots (not star trails). Finally have my Tokina 11-16.. can't wait

 

[tirediron]

As long as you can afford the time (NR will take approximately the same amount of time to process as the original exposure), I would recommend leaving that on, but definitely turn off the VR in your lenses whenever they're tripod mounted. The main consideration is how long your camera's sensor can go before the heat build-up reduces the image quality beyond point of usability.

 

[arcooke]

Well like I said I'm not doing star trails, so the shutter won't be open more than 15-30 seconds.. heat shouldn't be an issue. I wasn't sure if I should keep NR off and do that in post for more control, I've never done any star/sky shots.

 

[KmH]

What part of the Rocky mountains? In particular, what latitude?

If you read the users manual for the 18-105 it says on page 16:

When the camera is mounted on a tripod, set the vibration reduction ON/OFF switch [FONT=RNUM_W_R][FONT=RNUM_W_R]b [/FONT][/FONT]to OFF. However, it is recommended that the switch be set to ON when using the camera on an unsecured tripod head or with monopod.

The in camera NR is better than using post processing, because the in camera NR is way more accurate and won't decrease image detail like PP NR will, which is why it takes as long as your exposure if you use long exposure NR.

You actually have 2 choices:

1. High ISO NR - for use at or above ISO 800 and available in 3 levels of how much NR is performed (page 168 of your D90 user's manual)
2. Long exposure NR - for use when shutter speeds of longer than 8 seconds are used. (page 167 of your D90 user's manual

With a 15-30 second exposure you will be getting slight star trails. What you really want shots of is the Milky Way because just stars is pretty uninteresting.

What lens are you planning to use? The 2 listed in your siggy each have issues. The 50 mm is not really wide enough, but it is fast enough, and the 18-105 at 18 mm is wide enough but on the slow side at f/3.5, unless you crank up your ISO to about ISO 2000. ISO 2000 would really be pushing the D90's high ISO capability.

 

[arcooke]

What part of the Rocky mountains? In particular, what latitude?

Well we haven't completely decided yet on a campground yet, but the latitude will be in the vicinity of 38-39°. However, I'll be making a stop at an old ghost town at the southern edge of CO (37.3°). I ran the time and place through Stellarium (love that software!) and it seems I'll have a fairly good view of the milky way at the southwest, with the moon thankfully out of sight by 8PM. The milky way is my #1 goal, I've never gotten a photo of it before.

The in camera NR is better than using post processing, because the in camera NR is way more accurate and won't decrease image detail like PP NR will, which is why it takes as long as your exposure if you use long exposure NR.
You actually have 2 choices:

1. High ISO NR - for use at or above ISO 800 and available in 3 levels of how much NR is performed (page 168 of your D90 user's manual)
2. Long exposure NR - for use when shutter speeds of longer than 8 seconds are used. (page 167 of your D90 user's manual

With a 15-30 second exposure you will be getting slight star trails. What you really want shots of is the Milky Way because just stars is pretty uninteresting.

Now that's some good info. I wasn't aware I had two options for that.. haven't spent a lot of time reading manual except when I needed to look something up. I'll definitely look into that, thanks.

What lens are you planning to use? The 2 listed in your siggy each have issues. The 50 mm is not really wide enough, but it is fast enough, and the 18-105 at 18 mm is wide enough but on the slow side at f/3.5, unless you crank up your ISO to about ISO 2000. ISO 2000 would really be pushing the D90's high ISO capability.

I mentioned in my first post that I just got my Tokina 11-16mm f2.8.. that was what I had planned on using. (Sig updated!)

Thanks for the reply :thumbup:

 

[KmH]

Unfortunately, pretty much all Tokina lenses are famous for their lateral CA.

If you haven't read your user's manual cover-to-cover several times, there is a lot more stuff you don't know about.