Received a t3i

[Basic]

My daughter in law gave me a t3i camera that belonged to her grandpa. He only took 5 pictures total before putting it away. I have been taking pictures with it and so far seems to be working good. I put a better SD card in it and got some extra batteries for it. I also bought a Canon 50mm macro lens and rokinon 14mm wide angle lens. My main two interests are taking pictures of the homemade soap and cosmetics that we sell and shooting the stars. 

Would anyone recommend that I take it to a camera shop to have someone look it over and make sure everything is correct? I also thought about cleaning the sensor lens. I would love to hear someone else's thoughts. 

[Basic]

That would explain a lot. I went through my settings and I can't find the bulb setting.

[Basic]

I found the setting. I feel like an idiot. I wasted 2 great nights of picture taking.

[jrhoffman75]

Here's an article. 

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/learn/education/topics/article/2012/august/astroph...

[Basic]

Thanks

[Basic]

Everything worked like it was supposed to but I only got 10 good shots before the clouds rolled in and ruined the night.

On the sequator app, is there a way to select all the pictures and add them as a group? I can't seem to find a way.

[jrhoffman75]

Good. Looks like you have dialed in your settings.

There isn't; Sequator doesn't have a browser.

Here is a good tutorial if you haven't seen it.

https://youtu.be/ODMMVrL8OrI

[Basic]

HERE'S the link and I have put a before shot in there as well. The final processed shot is off a little because I moved the camera because I didn't have enough confidence that I had everything right. I know that I have it dialed in now and on the next good night I'm going to do a lot of different shots at many different areas of the night

 sky.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/zy1bic9n9eel2t0/AABEgKBfSGyQQvRLcm1qA0d5a?dl=0 

[jrhoffman75]

Depending on the result you want, you might consider changing camera settings to 30 seconds at ISO 1600. It would darken the sky and help the stars stand out better.

If you know where north is at your location you can point the camera to the North Star and get circluar trails. Or choose other directions to alter how the trails look.

[Basic]

I got 5 kind of usable shots. Despite the clouds in the pictures, they are a thousand times better. I'm going to stack them and see what I get and then I will send you a link to view them.

[Basic]

It's funny that you mentioned changing the settings because that's first thing I thought when I saw how bright the picture was.

When I started the sequence on the camera, most of those stars were not visible to the naked eye. So I definitely agree with changing the settings.

I actually surprised myself when I knew that the settings needed to be changed.

Thanks for all the help and when the next good night comes around, I will hopefully have some better pictures to share with you.