Wide angle or multiple shots for landscapes and stars

[Speed addicted]

I've been inspired (mainly by Rob Dickinson to be honest!) to get more shots of dark night skies. I live in NE Scotland so can get away from light pollution and into the hills fairly easily.
I'd like to shoot a lot wider than my current lenses will allow, so will either need a wider angle lens or a mount to allow accurate multiple shot exposures.

My thinking is that the wide angle lens would be a simpler option but will limit me to it's field of view. I was thinking the Canon 17-40 would do the job, but it's f4 means higher iso shots.

The mount option would allow me to use lenses I already have, but I'm concerned about the movement in the stars and things lining up for stitching. It's obviously possible because people are doing it though!
The Gigapan looked like a good option, but I think it's too big to be chucking in a camera bag and taking places on the off chance I get good weather (most of my better shots are from trips abroad).
Would something like the Novoflex VR slim be strong enough to take a 5d mk3 and lens comfortably?

Short version - Want to shoot wide landscape and star shots. Is a lens or mount a better option?

[8bit]

I had a go at this recently, up at the Cairn o' Mount (I'm in the NE as well). I did this as I think a ten-shot panorama with the camera in portrait orientation:



Lightroom seemed to stitch them with no problem. The images were I think 20 second exposures each. Lightroom stitched them without any problem. The stars aren't going to move that much in the sky between shots. Camera was my D5100 and the lens was my Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8.

I'm going to try and get up to Loch Muick one of these evenings for some night sky shots across the Loch - welcome to join me if you fancy that?

[Monty Python]

There's this as well - I've used it and it's pretty good:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/c...

[RobDickinson]

Speed addicted said:

Short version - Want to shoot wide landscape and star shots. Is a lens or mount a better option?

Hey what gear do you have now?

IMO the 17-40 isnt a good choice even on a ff body, f4 is quite slow and its not at its best at f4, 17mm isnt that wide for wide astro either.

Basically if you want a large part of the mw or whole arch you will be stitching. Wider lenses mean less shots overall (higher absolute resolution) , but something really wide can cause stitching issues, too narrow and you have too short shutter speeds and too many frames overall.

14-35mm primes are the best, typically people are shooting the samyang 14/2.8 or the new 14/2.4, sy 24/1. I use a 35/1.4 on canon ff when I can or an irix 15/2.4 for single frames.

You dont need a gigapan to stitch but a pano head really helps, that flat horizon and constant spacing is a real help. I use my gigapan with my 50mm, I mostly use a novoflex vr slim at the moment but any indexing pano head will be ok.

MW core has buggered off for the next 5 months or so but its worth practising before march/april when it returns.

Stitching can be tricky I use pt gui and lock to a grid which helps but lightroom/acr stitching has improved I now can do 2 row stitches (my last for example) in there sometimes, 1 row it usually goes ok.

[Speed addicted]

8bit said:

I'm going to try and get up to Loch Muick one of these evenings for some night sky shots across the Loch - welcome to join me if you fancy that?

Sounds good, I'm offshore until the 20th though! Loch Muick was one of the places I'd thought of while looking at options for really big skies.

Monty Python said:

There's this as well - I've used it and it's pretty good:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/c...

I'll have a look, I've got lightroom (and photoshop) so I'll give that a shot first, but dedicated software would probably be better.

RobDickinson said:

Hey what gear do you have now?

IMO the 17-40 isnt a good choice even on a ff body, f4 is quite slow and its not at its best at f4, 17mm isnt that wide for wide astro either.

Basically if you want a large part of the mw or whole arch you will be stitching. Wider lenses mean less shots overall (higher absolute resolution) , but something really wide can cause stitching issues, too narrow and you have too short shutter speeds and too many frames overall.

14-35mm primes are the best, typically people are shooting the samyang 14/2.8 or the new 14/2.4, sy 24/1. I use a 35/1.4 on canon ff when I can or an irix 15/2.4 for single frames.

You dont need a gigapan to stitch but a pano head really helps, that flat horizon and constant spacing is a real help. I use my gigapan with my 50mm, I mostly use a novoflex vr slim at the moment but any indexing pano head will be ok.

Thanks, that helps.

Gear is the 5d mk3, usual lens is a 24-105 but I have a 35mm f2 prime as well as the old 24mm ts-e that's become my go-to for wider landscapes.

I think if I'm going to be stitching anyway a pano head might be a better option for me, would you recommend the Novoflex for a FF camera?

[RobDickinson]

novoflex are a great brand but the slim is a little lighhtweight for a 5d imo

[shed driver]

I've got a 5d3 and 17-40 f/4. I have also got a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer mount. http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/review/mounts/sk...

It seems a very sturdy piece of kit, sadly all the clear, dark nights have also coincided with me being at work.

Hopefully I'll get to try it out soon.

SD.

[GravelBen]

Monty Python said:

There's this as well - I've used it and it's pretty good:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/c...

I've been using that too and finding it good, I like the flexibility to apply different projections when it suits. Seems to do a good job of multi-row stitches (I often do handheld pano sequences for landscapes as I don't always take a tripod hiking/mountaineering), and its free!

I didn't even know Lightroom could do pano stitching now, only upgraded recently from ancient LR 2 to CC so its a bit of a jump.

Edited by GravelBen on Saturday 4th November 11:22

[8bit]

GravelBen said:

I didn't even know Lightroom could do pano stitching now, only upgraded recently from ancient LR 2 to CC so its a bit of a jump.

Edited by GravelBen on Saturday 4th November 11:22

It's not the most reliable but it works if you have the right amount of overlap (ideally no more than 25% IME). My image above was I think 5x2 in portrait orientation.

[8bit]

Speed addicted said:

8bit said:

I'm going to try and get up to Loch Muick one of these evenings for some night sky shots across the Loch - welcome to join me if you fancy that?

Sounds good, I'm offshore until the 20th though! Loch Muick was one of the places I'd thought of while looking at options for really big skies.

Cool, pop me a PM once you're back. The Milky Way isn't very visible now until spring time but it's nice and dark up there so should be plenty of stars visible. A wee bit of moonlight to pick out some of the landscape might work too.

[Speed addicted]

8bit said:

Speed addicted said:

8bit said:

I'm going to try and get up to Loch Muick one of these evenings for some night sky shots across the Loch - welcome to join me if you fancy that?

Sounds good, I'm offshore until the 20th though! Loch Muick was one of the places I'd thought of while looking at options for really big skies.

Cool, pop me a PM once you're back. The Milky Way isn't very visible now until spring time but it's nice and dark up there so should be plenty of stars visible. A wee bit of moonlight to pick out some of the landscape might work too.

Will do, I can also take stuff for other shots, flash gels etc if you're feeling creative too!

I think the Nodal Ninja 6 will be the one I'm going for, looks well made and reviews well. I'll get it bought next week so it get's to my house about the same time as I do. Saves answering questions from the wife!

[Speed addicted]

Nodal Ninja 5 bought after stumbling across it on Talk photography classifieds, it's also got a (cheap) leveling base.
All for the very sensible sum of £200, a big enough saving over the £450 NN6.

Just need to finish what appears to be my final trip on this rig and go play in the dark now!

[RobDickinson]

Great.

Work out your nodal points and degree spacings and have a play in daylight before heading out in the dark!

[Speed addicted]

RobDickinson said:

Great.

Work out your nodal points and degree spacings and have a play in daylight before heading out in the dark!

Sounds like the bitter voice of experience!

Don't worry I'll be trying it all out in the house first, like an excited 40 year old kid.

[RobDickinson]

nope just helps not trying to figure it all out in the dark!

for my astro I usually dont worry too muh about nodal points, I dont usually have a foreground close enough. But I know my 35mm I need '16' on my spacing ( 16 shots around or 360/16 or 22 degrees.

an app like photopills will give you your field/angle of view for any lens ( 35mm on ff is 38 degrees by 55 degrees or so)

1/3rd overlap ( for astro add more if you have a lot of vignetting) in portrait mode means 55/3 * 2 = 36 degrees , so 10 clicks around would work.

So I am over shooting but my pano head is small and light and only has a limited number of click stops, so I stick with 16

[Likeomg]

shed driver said:

I've got a 5d3 and 17-40 f/4. I have also got a SkyWatcher Star Adventurer mount. http://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/review/mounts/sk...

It seems a very sturdy piece of kit, sadly all the clear, dark nights have also coincided with me being at work.

Hopefully I'll get to try it out soon.

SD.

Does anybody know if these would work whilst on a moving platform? i.e. a ship...

I see some wonderful clear skies from time to time, with my current setup (oly em5ii & 12-40 2.8) i often struggle as with the ship moving even fairly slow things get blurry quick, from time to time i do get lucky another factor is the wind shaking the camera..

thinking of getting the oly 8mm 1.8 for this kind of thing

Shot this somewhere in the gulf of Oman; probably the brightest stars ive seen shame it was a little cloudy..



Had a beautiful 2-3 hours with the Aurora on my last trip between Iceland and canada... again it was pretty windy so stopping the camera from shaking was very difficult... (whilst keeping an eye on what the ships doing)



Also, shooting lightning at sea in the darkness is very cool !

[shed driver]

I very much doubt it will work on a moving platform - it's used to move the camera slowly following the stars to eliminate star trails. It can also do some time lapse stuff too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sj4wK4emHLc

SD.