Night photography

[jiminee]

I am going to try star trail photography. I have a good sturdy tripod,, a remote shutter release I can set to take timed shots,, and now I have tried taking a series of 6 shots at infinity and  then combining them in photoshop but looked just awful. I have tried other settings and left  the shutter open for a full 30 minits and I am now thinking it is extraneous light getting in from a nearby town ( altho it seems quite dark where I am shooting from.

What is a good setting to start with and whats the best lens to use?

[Waddizzle]

Use an ultra-wide angle lens.  The Rokinon 14mm f/2.8 is popular.  Do a search for astrophotography in this forum for more information.  There are dozens of insightful threads.

[jiminee]

Thanks. I will do more research. I also think my software isnt the greatest of PC... takes forever to combine images

[Waddizzle]

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@jiminee wrote:

Thanks. I will do more research. I also think my software isnt the greatest of PC... takes forever to combine images

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I've been trying to use the freeware application RegisStax, but my source images are not very good.

[ebiggs1]

"... it seems quite dark where I am shooting from."

The three main most important things in photography, which applies even to shooting the sky are, location, location and location.  What is dark to your eyes may not be so dark to the camera.  Light pollution is a difficult to impossible problem to overcome.

"...whats the best lens to use?"

There is no such as thing as the 'best' lens.  Just like everything else you need to use what works best for what you are shooting.  It could be a UWA or a 30" telescope.

"...in photoshop but looked just awful."

Learn how to use PS more productively. I know it isn't easy to learn but it is essential for truly great astro photos.  All the best and great sky pictures are heavily post processed. Emphasis on "all".

[TCampbell]

The program that does this is called "StarStax" and I believe it is free.

You'll set the camera to "continuous burst" mode but then set the shutter speed to 30 seconds.  Use the remote 'wired' shutter release which has a "lock" on the shutter button (all Canon models do as well as most 3rd party plungers).  

Basically you'll press and "lock" the shutter button (in continuous burst mode) so that as soon as it's done with one 30 second exposure it will immediately begin the next 30 second exposure.  

Most newer cameras will do this.  I'm told that some rather old models wont save the image from the buffer unless you give them a few moments in between shots... but you'd need a fairly old camera to have that problem.  Every Canon EOS camera I've seen in the past several years can save one image *while* simultaneously capturing the next image.  But if you do have an older model, you might need an intervalometer to give the camera perhaps 3-5 seconds between shots.

You can then feed all the images to StarStax and it will merge them (it has lots of merging options.)  If you shoot "continous" 30 second shots there will be no gaps.  But if you had to wait 5 seconds between shots it's possible to get tiny gaps... StarStax apparently has a feature that fills in the gaps.

You want to do this on a moonless night and preferably as far away from any urban/suburban light pollution as you can manage.  Shoot in a direction facing "away" from the source of the light pollution (e.g. if you want the northern polar region then shoot from the north side of your town so the worst of the light pollution is behind the camera.)

[jiminee]

Thanks. I boight an intervalometer and now I am just waiting for the moonless night. I have made several trips to northern NH and spent the weekend but the sky didnt clear and rained both days. UGH   very discouraging to say the least... I will keep tryin though.

 So lets see if i get this right.

1. - set the shutter to expose for 30 seconds w/wide open aperture ( I will use a 50mm canon f 1.4)

2. - take 30 second exposures

 so I gues my next question is ....how many exposures is a good starting point?