Star Photography

[beanie1983]

Hi

I've just got back from testing my new lens (nikon 50mm 1.8g) I've not really done much star photography.... Are these any good? I wouldn't have a clue what setting I used I took that many :-) these are a couple of the better ones.

What do you think?

John

[RobDickinson]

They look OK shoot raw? Fix the white balance will help a lot

[beanie1983]

RobDickinson said:

They look OK shoot raw? Fix the white balance will help a lot

Ah yeah I think I did shoot raw I think it's set to save fine and raw I'll check on the computer tomorrow I just put them onto the ipad to have a look what they look like

I will give the fixed white balance next time I go out

Thanks for the tips :-)

John

[marksx]

First post for me in this long thread. Some cracking photos here.

Here are a couple of my attempts. I'm struggling really to get the settings right to counter the LP. Also struggling with the post processing. Generally tend to make a mess of it!

Using a Canon 1100D with remote timer. Images stacked using Deep Sky Stacker and processed using Gimp.

Capella (first test shot)


Cassiopeia 10, 5 second images, F3.5 ISO 1600 18-55.


Orion. 50, 15 second images. F3.5 ISO 1600 nifty fifty.

[Dan_1981]

Fairly basic question I imagine, but in the pictures that have got a foreground point of interest for example a windmill, how are these objects being lit?

Are they being painted with a torch or similar source in one image and then stacked with the various other ones with the building in darkness or am I way off track?

Ta

[ecsrobin]

Hopefully I can help answer that by looking at the below examples. Let's start with the chinook, no lighting was used for this shot, moving on to the folly this was about 240 images for the star trails and then an extra image where I used a torch to paint in the folly and finally another image with me in it and a flash to light me. These were then all joined together in PS.

The windmill shot is lit until 10/11pm I can't remember exactly so I started my star trail image with the light on and they went off after about 5 minutes which got that effect with a small amount of PS. Finally the viaduct. I conducted the star trail and whilst waiting thought what could I do with the arches so grabbed a flash and some gels and then popped about 5 flashes per arch.

Hope that helps. The key though with light painting buildings is not to over light it.

ecsrobin said:

Here's a selection of mine:

stars by -robinecs-

Folly by -robinecs-

Windmill by -robinecs-

viaduct by -robinecs-


As for stacking software I use a piece of freeware called starstax a lot quicker than doing a photoshop script.

Edited by ecsrobin on Sunday 19th January 22:44

[toasty]

A couple of attempts in my local area. Lots of light pollution around but worth getting some practice in.

The first with a 7D and 10-22mm lens. Very noisy, so played around with a few settings.


The second with my new 5D3 and the 24-105. A wider lens is next on the list.

[14-7]

toasty said:

The second with my new 5D3 and the 24-105. A wider lens is next on the list.

16-35mm II is a cracker!

[rj1986]

First attempts- Did these in early Jan
550d- 50mm 1.4, forget the rest.

About 12-15 exposures, was far too cold for anything else



And just a long exposure. It's quite amazing to see that many stars considering i was just on a hill on the outskirts of town

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5512/11777409456_d2...

Edited by rj1986 on Tuesday 11th February 17:39

[RobGT81]

Not much of a photographer and not so much stars, thought I would share some of these from a recent trip to Iceland.

[mojitomax]

I've just moved out to OZ and took these from a friend's back garden. There are so many stars visible. it was quite a bright night and this was in the middle of a town of about 60000 people. I can't wait for the clouds to clear and to go out into the bush.

[RobDickinson]

Oz has some pretty dark skies!

[RobbieKB]

Anyone shoot last night? It was a rare supermoon and black moon which in the layman's terms I can understand means it was simultaneously a new moon and the moon was extremely close to the earth (causing king high tides).

It was 12am last night which was the darkest hour and 7 minutes after the official new moon and I had all my gear, I was suited and booted in boots and ski jacket and I had an idea I was excited about. I got half way to my location on one of the clearest nights I'd seen for months (which I should have known was too much luck in one go) and it clouded over completely. I was genuinely gutted.

So, anyone get anything?

[droopsnoot]

I had a look outside because I was hoping to get some more shots of the ISS overpass, but it was cloudy here at that time so I didn't bother. Of course, later on it was much clearer. I'm trying to head towards some of the quality of some of the shots here, but not getting there yet. This was from Tuesday night, I'd dropped the ISO down a bit but didn't open the aperture up quite enough.

[MysteryLemon]

droopsnoot said:

I had a look outside because I was hoping to get some more shots of the ISS overpass, but it was cloudy here at that time so I didn't bother. Of course, later on it was much clearer. I'm trying to head towards some of the quality of some of the shots here, but not getting there yet. This was from Tuesday night, I'd dropped the ISO down a bit but didn't open the aperture up quite enough.

You need to up the ISO, not drop it down.

My go to settings for stars - ISO 800, 30 second shutter, largest aperture available. Tweek appropriate to the conditions, but you can't really fail to capture stars like that.

[droopsnoot]

I was hoping to improve the quality by dropping the ISO - I've been using ISO 400 and a 10" exposure, but I'm not getting very good quality shots. Cloudy again tonight so no chance of experimenting more.

[RobDickinson]

You need to gather more light.

I tend to shoto at 10-30 seconds, ISO 3200-6400 f2-3.5

[LongQ]

RobDickinson said:

You need to gather more light.

I tend to shoto at 10-30 seconds, ISO 3200-6400 f2-3.5

Don't listen to Rob. He has no idea what he's talking about. I mean, just look at the variations in his figures. (And have you seen the strange stuff he posts on here with all those little light dots in the nice, familiar, dark night sky? Bizarre!)

10 seconds at ISO 3200 and f3.5 up to 30 seconds at ISO 6400 and f2.

Come on - where are the errors bars on those values?

Anything I tried to shoot around my way using any of those number combinations would just come out as a pale blob ... or very dark. depending on the weather. And what the neighbours were doing that night.

[RobDickinson]

I do seem to get a lot of hot pixels.

[Gilhooligan]

Didn't get the 'super moon' but I did venture out recently as the sky was clear. 30 sec, f4 and ISO 3200. Really need to get myself a faster lens that is relatively wide angle.