First attempt at shooting the "Night Sky"...

[Rebel]

Ok here is one of my attempts at shooting the night sky about an hour ago... I am quite pleased with the results and how visible the stars are, I haven't PP'd anything like this before but quite happy with that. The only thing I am disappointed with is the noise.

Could I have used a lower ISO for this? I should of experimented up there but it was extremely dark and a bit spooky!!

But I might try again tomorrow night if its clear.

21mm, f / 3.8, 25 sec, ISO1600

[Barbara Ponder]

Matt I like it! I am of no help in the technical but artistically I find it appealing!

[Geoff F]

Looks quite good for that Iso. The potential problem is that having a lower Iso will mean a longer shutter speed which risks getting some star movement. This sort of scene usually means taking a number of shots at different settings; then deleting most of them.

[JBW]

That is truly going over to the dark side. If you have a dslr here is a link that will help with the basic camera settings and give you an idea of what to play with http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/SETTINGS.HTM.

[selig1656]

First attempt is always a stepping stone to progress, night shots in general take a lot of calculating, defining the objective and then dealing with all the variables around it that will influence ISO , shutter speed , f/stop and proper setting of the tripod .Sky shooting of course varies tremendously from street and landscape photos. This is truly a challenge with many rewards. Keep on shooting the more you shoot the more you will learn. Good luck and hope tp see the fruits of your work.

[Shadowman]

I always try to keep ISO as low as possible, bu however to lern the limitations of your equipment sometimes you have to just go for it. I was shooting an indoor action sequence recently with an f/1.8 lens and still had to bump up ISO to 25600 before I could really get a sharp capture. I shot the remainder of the evening at various ISO levels, going for sharpness whenever possible, clean/semi-noise free as often as I could.

Nice effort, try a bit of noise reduction if you aren't happy with what you see.

[AlwaysOnAuto]

I say set the ISO to 100, f-stop to f8 or f11 and let the camera decide how long to stay open.

[IzzieK]

Good effort on your first astro...'wish I could have good weather condition next time I am in the right place. My place here isn't the right place -- too many street lights...Lucky you. Now I am envious...

[Rebel]

Thanks for all the responses guys. I am not sure what is defined as "astro-photography" but I suppose my goal is to produce images of landscapes with night skies.

Geoff: I did read something about a piece of software that stacks the images for you. It rotates the images so the stars align and then anything that remains constant it removes i.e the noise. But it will remove the foreground/landscape as well then, so I'd need to use layer masks in photoshop to re-introduce that.

Brian: Thanks for the link Brian, they are not far off the settings that I used for this shot.

John: Thanks John, I have already applied some noise reduction to this image in LR, I suppose ideally I would like the trees to be sharper.

Alan: I'll give that a try but won't the camera automatically just go for 30 second exposure?

Looks like I've got a lot of reading/experimenting to do, they are giving clear skies until Monday so a lot of late nights this weekend.

[James G]

Matt,
Your capture is pretty good.

I think the astro software you are referring to is Deepskystacker . It may be more suitable for star fields rather than landscapes including star fields. (It is also free!)

I was impressed with it for astrophotography and posted a thread recently....

Never thought I could shoot these images

I suspect , (not tried this myself), that you could stack a sequence of shots for the stars (eliminating a lot of noise), process the shot and then blend back into a shot processed for the landscape elements.

On the more conventional pp path, I've used luminosity masks to separate the star field from the rest of the image.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Matt. I really envy you because you live in such a suitable place for landscape photography. I can't shoot stars where I live because there are lights all around although I don't live in the city centre. From time to time, I say to myself, I have to move somewhere more rural and isolated. I will see what happens in the future

I love everything in your photo. I have read somewhere if the shutter speed is as long as 3 hours then you get very nice star trails (Silly me, I can't remember the aperture!). I don't know if you want to have star trails in such an image but the photos I saw before looked very nice.

About maximum 30 second exposure, you can calculate the time and shoot in bulb mode. How to calculate the time? You can choose the min.f and max. ISO values, in Aperture Priority mode. That will give you a shutter speed (hopefully less than 30 minutes). Than you can calculate the time according to the f point and ISO value you want and shoot in bulb mode.

[Rebel]

James: Thats what I was thinking, I'd have to do the sky in that software and then add the landscape in Photoshop later. I had a look at your images, very nice and some good info on there.

Binnur: I am very lucky, the area I live is perfect for landscape photography. I know another photographer who lives near me who shot star trails by taking 125 30 second exposures and then stacking them, it worked well!

I'm going to try and take a few more shots tonight, as it looks like we will have clear skies again. I'm going a bit further into the darkness this time

[James G]

Matt, I have a 'little black book' and for years (Pre internet... no google ), I have noted down formulas, recipe, workflows, links etc that I come across and might find useful later. One day I'll get around to systemising it

But this thread has reminded me of two items which I've checked back on and they may be helpful...

Firstly, a pdf reference I came across a while back..

http://www.tawbaware.com/max_lyons_n...hotography.pdf

It might help with getting some 'settings' to work with

And Secondly, a couple of formulas for estimating exposure for long (< 30 sec/ Bulb) exposures

a) set ISO to 6400, then select an aperture/shutter speed to get a workable? exposure that is captured in seconds (ie not minutes). With that , reset ISO to 100 and re-expose with an exposure set to the same number of minutes. i.e if 7 secs @ 6400 then 7 mins@ ISO100

b) an alternative to the above which can be used if camera cannot do 6400... Set ISO to 1600 and select aperture & shutter speed for an exposure in seconds. Again reset to 100, but multiply the seconds by 16 and then reshoot. eg 10 secs @ISO 1600 =160 secs @ ISO 100

This may help with the landscape element in that the first high ISO shot will give the stars (+noise), and the second the landscape element.

[Rebel]

Matt, I have a 'little black book' and for years (Pre internet... no google ), I have noted down formulas, recipe, workflows, links etc that I come across and might find useful later. One day I'll get around to systemising it

But this thread has reminded me of two items which I've checked back on and they may be helpful...

Firstly, a pdf reference I came across a while back..

http://www.tawbaware.com/max_lyons_n...hotography.pdf

It might help with getting some 'settings' to work with

And Secondly, a couple of formulas for estimating exposure for long (< 30 sec/ Bulb) exposures

a) set ISO to 6400, the select an aperture/shutter speed to get an workable? exposure that is captured in seconds (ie not minutes). With that , reset ISO to 100 and re-expose with an exposure set to the same number of minutes. i.e if 7 secs @ 6400 then 7 mins@ ISO100

b) an alternative to the above which can be used if camera cannot do 6400... Set ISO to 1600 and select aperture & shutter speed for an exposure in seconds. Again reset to 100, but multiply the seconds by 16 and then reshoot. eg 10 secs @ISO 1600 =160 secs @ ISO 100

This may help with the landscape element in that the first high ISO shot will give the stars (+noise), and the second the landscape element.

Thanks for the info James, let me check I understand this correctly as I'm slightly confused....

I would take several 7 second exposures at ISO6400 to capture the sky.

And then,

a 7 minute exposure at ISO100 for the landscape?

Stack the star shots in the software mentioned earlier..

And then blend the two together?

[James G]

Matt, the formula is for use in getting an exposure time for 'night' shots (where metering is basically not reliable).

The 'trick' is to try shots at high ISO to get an acceptable (but very noisy) capture quickly. If 6400 is used it is just maths to extend the exposure in order to use a lower ISO. At 6400 the recalc is easy 1 sec convert to 1 minute.

The second calc is helpful if the camera cannot shoot at ISO 6400.

As regards the two shots, I was suggesting that the high ISO capture will be noisy, but if processed solely for the stars (avoiding star trails), could be blended back to the low ISO long exposure containing the less noisy landscape element, which will have star trails.

Alternately, if you intend to use Deep sky stacker, then yes, use the formula to take , say a bulb shot (ie > 30 secs) and then shoot as many shots as you can in a short time at exposure times between 5 & 15 secs to eliminate startrails , process them with DSS and blend the sky back.

It still leaves a problem of sharpness in the landscape element, if there is a breeze and trees are involved for instance, then you might do better, trying, say, the longer exposure but simply 'light paint' if that is possible.

The problem and fun with night photography is that it often needs a switch in technique as conditions change. As I said in the earlier post, I have used DSS mostly for the sky and big stacks (60-200 captures).

On subjects similar to your posting, I've been more conventional, but got some 'reasonable' results. I'm still learning though...

These are two of Chesterton Windwill, nr Leamington Spa, using the 'formula' and light painting, I managed last autumn.

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[Rebel]

Those are nice shots James! I was going to attempt the "light-painting" tonight. How powerful a torch did you use for those?

[James G]

Small 9 LED 'pocket' torch from Maplin, £5 max

It's a kind of 'Less is more' technique. I found that too bright a torch burns the subject and it was better to be able to sweep back and forth from a low angle upwards.

[Rebel]

I have a LED head torch which I'll try.

I've filled a flask up with coffee, bought some chocolate muffins from tesco and I'm about to start the hour drive into the back of beyond!

[IzzieK]

This conversation makes my head sweat and wanted to try astrophotography again...perhaps failed again but that is what persistence is all about. For the time being, I'll just drool at your images until I can put my head together before heading outside of Missouri for some night fresh air...

[James G]

Izzie,
don't know what your skies are like, but I live on the outskirts of one of the UK's largest cities. I'm also 3 miles from Birmingham International Airport.

I have made the mistake of thinking that there was too much light pollution to try sky shots. Truth be told I've been getting pretty good results having tried Deepsky stacker along with using software like CS6. That, with a modern digital camera and its really surprising what I can capture.

I'd say just give it a try.... It can't match the great 'desert' shots I see from parts of the US but as I've said in previous posts, I'm knocking spots of the images I could take even 15 years ago.....