EOS Rebel T3 Tips and lens recommendations for nighttime photography

[tswartwout]

Hi All,

Happy New Year's!

I'm new here : ) I have a Canon Rebel t3 and have some questions. I would like to use it for night photography. Is this even really possible? 

My husband and I just returned from Joshua Tree National Park and tried it out with these settings:

manual, raw, tripod, turn off ALO, auto lighting, white balance set to daylight, long exposure noise reduction turned off, 10 second timer, ISO 6400, F4 aperture, shutter 15”

Considering the lens I have, I was unable to get an aperture lower than F4. Is there a lens available for this camera that would help?

The night shots were not spectacular. Hoping to improve for our next dark sky adventure...

Thank you for any advice you can give. 

[kvbarkley]

Here is a shot I took at 150mm and 15 seconds with my T3i. It is also not very spectacular. Note the star trails. Is that what you want?

What kind of "night shots"? Astro-Photography?

What lens?

Can you share an example of a "not spectacular" shot?

[jrhoffman75]

It is possible. As kv posted show us what you are trying to achieve; that will govern the recommendations we would have.

[tswartwout]

[jrhoffman75]

Based on EXIF data lens was at 27mm f/4 15 seconds. Photo Pills recommends 14 seconds; you are close and have good almost point stars, you are close. Looks like light pollution; not much you can do about that. Dropping ISO down to 3200 would darken the sky. No Milky Way available, so I don't think you can get more than what you captured. Not sensational because the subject isn't sensational at this time of year. I did some quick edit in Lightroom - reduced exposure by 1 stop, used Auto WB, cloned out the satellites and plane and sharpened (with masking) the stars.

[tswartwout]

Thank you very much for your reply. Would you recommend a different lens for this camera? 

[jrhoffman75]

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@tswartwout wrote:

Thank you very much for your reply. Would you recommend a different lens for this camera? 

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It depends on how frequently you want to be doing night sky photography. A wide fast lens is the tool of choice. The Irix 15mm f/2.4, and Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 are two popular ones at reasonable prices. A lens like that would let you get down to 10 second exposure and a lower ISO, targeting 1600-3200 range.

[tswartwout]

Hi, this was our best shot.