# Shooting Night pictures of stars (and stuff)



## Sw1tchFX

So there are alot of threads that pop up about how to shoot pictures at night, so instead of writing (essentially) the same thing every time, I figured it could benefit us all if there was a sticky about it? I'll write this up for doing single exposures, if someone experienced wants to write up one about stacking and contribute, be my guest. I don't know a whole lot about stacking because I much prefer the results from single exposures. 







Anyway.... Night shooting is a ton of fun, the results can be awesome! There are so many things the camera will see that we can't. Night shooting takes alot of time, a little practice, and more than anything, *patience*. Night shooting isn't something that you're done with quickly. Your first attempt will be awful, everyone screws it up the first time. Don't get bummed about it. My first attempt was so bad, I deleted the pictures, and I _never_ delete pictures. But, over the years I&#8217;ve formulated a pretty good method of shooting at night. In an effort to save you the trial and error I experienced, i bestow onto thee enlightenment to mastering night photography!



Before you decide to go take pictures tonight, you'll need at least 3 things, most likely 6 though:

*1. Freshly charged batteries*. Nothing will kill your battery faster than long exposures and cold weather. On digital, your camera is constantly running, gathering light, using up energy. It sucks when you have to cut your night short by leaving with one partially charged battery, or forgetting spares.

*2. A cable release or remote.* They're (generally) cheap, there's no reason you can't go and spend $25-$100 on one. If you don't have one, long exposures can be tricky to do without stacking. Holding down the shutter when your camera is set to Bulb won't fly, your hands will shake the camera too much. There are exceptions to this, some cameras will let you do exposures longer than 30 seconds without a cable release via mechanical shutters that turn off electronics for bulb exposures or firmware hacks like Magic Lantern. nudge nudge Canon shooters..

*3. A real tripod.* Not the crappy 25-60 dollar Sunpak/Quantaray sticks. When it's breezy out, those lousy plastic heads don't do jack. Invest at least $200 in at least a Gitzo or Bogen/Manfrotto system. Trust me when I say it could easily be the last tripod you'll ever buy. I went through 3 of the lousy Quantaray's to figure that one out. I've had the same Manfrotto sticks (3021BPro/488RC4) for 6 years (at the time of this writing), and they may not look like new, but they sure act like it. 

*(Possibly #4) A friend.* If you don't have a good way to pass the time, you'll get impatient and thus, lazy, shooting yourself in the foot (so to speak) because you "just couldn't wait to see it". Also, if you're away from civilization it's good to have someone else there to talk to, compare exposures, or in case something goes wrong and you get hurt and need help. 

*(Possibly #5) Hot packs, food, a flashlight, and a first aid kit.* If you're out at 2 in the morning in the middle of a isolated area such as the mountains in below freezing temperatures, your camera battery will die quick. Hot packs in your jacket pockets will keep you warmer and will also keep your batteries warm so the cold temperatures don't drain them. Food is good because it will help keep you awake, pass the time, and hey, you might actually get hungry. I always forget a flashlight, but LED's on cell phones work just as well. I don't think I need to explain why a first aid kit is a good idea, if you're out in the middle of nowhere and something happens, it helps to be at least somewhat prepared. 

*(Possibly #6) If you want pictures of stars and live in a Metro area, get the heck out of town.* I live in Portland Oregon, and even driving 60 miles out to Mt. Hood, I still get light pollution. If you want lots of stars in your images, expect to go for a little bit of a drive. 



 Now that we have all our gear in order and we're at our location, how the heck are we going to pull this off?!?!

Night photography pushes the limits of your tools. This is part of the reason I shoot Full Frame and use just about only f/1.4 (or brighter) prime lenses when doing this. They suck in tons of light and are generally awesome by f/2-2.8, which sometimes can negate the need to stop down further and will allow you to freeze the Earth's rotation that f/2.8 lenses and cameras (at the time of this writing) can sometimes have a little bit of trouble with. There are exceptions though, and as the years go on this will be less and less of an issue as cameras improve at the upper ISO's. 

To start with,

*1. Set up the camera on the tripod, hook up the cable release, compose as best as possible and focus the lens at infinity, not past it.* If your camera has a level built in, use it to help composition. 

*2. Set the WB pretty cool to keep things looking like night.* If it's too warm (or "correct"), it can look wierd. Think of when TV illustrates night time. When someone turns off the lights, they fill it in with blue colored light so you can still see what's happening but your mind makes the switch to "nighttime".. I start off at about 3000K and work my way up or down from there (I prefer adjusting the color temperature by Kelvin vs. presets). Adding magenta can also help in getting that cool night time color too.  

_Now what about exposure, the important part right?_ This is where mileage varies and equipment differences become apparent. 

*3. Max out the ISO and open up your aperture all the way.* We can always close it down later, we just need to get a _base exposure_. I start off my very first exposures at around 1-5 seconds ISO 25,600, and f/1.4. If that doesn't give me an accurate exposure, then I adjust my shutter speed shorter or longer until my histograms and exposure looks good and bright. *Keep the ISO up!* You would rather do 30 seconds at 25600 then 2 minutes at 6400, especially if you're just trying to figure out your brightness. If you can't get a bright enough exposure at max ISO, 30 seconds, and max aperture, _THAN_ adjust the shutter speed. This just a test shot, it's going to be tossed aside anyway, so why should you care if its noisy or not? 

*4. Count down.* Once the base exposure is determined, count down and crunch the numbers to whatever the equivalent exposure is at a more reasonable ISO and aperture. Reasonable apertures i'd say are within the realm of f/2.8 and f/11. This is completely dependent on the ambient light. If the moon is out or you're in the city, you'll be closer to f/11. If you're in the desert with no moon in sight, closer to f/2.8. 

 Why? Because lenses are at their weakest wide open (generally), and I never recommend final exposures going longer than an hour. After that, the possibility of damaging your camera rises exponentially. I met a gentleman who told me he fried his Rebel XT doing a 3 hour exposure in Death Valley. 






*So, let's recap a little on the exposure.* If my test shot is 6 seconds, f/1.4, ISO 25,600, what is my final exposure going to be?

 Lets err on the side of overexposure to keep numbers even, start with ISO, and count down..

6 sec / ISO25600
15 sec / ISO12800
30 sec / ISO6400
1 min / ISO3200
2 min / ISO1600
4 min / ISO800
8 min / ISO400
16 min / ISO200
32 min / ISO100

Alright, so we have: 32 minutes, ISO100, and f/1.4. Wow! that's long, but the aperture is still a little wide, Let's count down the aperture to something reasonable, like f/2.8.

32 min / ISO100 / f1.4
1 hour / ISO100 / f2
2 hours / ISO100 / f2.8
4 hours / ISO100 / f4

 OY VEY! 4 HOURS! That's a bit long, lets let the amplifier shave some time off that and bump the ISO back up to 400, giving us:

1 hour / ISO 400 / f4

This is where super wide aperture lenses are key. We could either keep the ISO lower, or shorten our exposure time.

Now, you might have to do something called "Long Exposure Noise Reduction" If you shoot Nikon and are using a D3(s), or D700, I'd go so far as to say you can skip this if your exposure is within an hour. Those bodies are flat-out incredible when it comes to amp noise. My old D70 was _awful_ past 60 seconds without LENR. I haven't got a clue how good Canon's or other Nikons are. Without LENR, your images may be riddled with noise or worse you'll get amp noise which looks like purple/magenta clouds in the sides and corners of the frame. Your mileage may vary. 

 The way Long Exposure Noise Reduction works is that it takes two exposures. your normal exposure, than another exposure for the same length of time so it can subtract the noise pattern from the exposed image. So, if you have a 20 minute exposure, you've got 20 minutes of LENR, meaning you need to wait 40 minutes to see if you got the picture right (or wrong). Bummer. Also, ambient temperature affects noise in long exposures, so when your camera is doing LENR, you need to make sure that you leave your camera alone so it can be in the same temperature as your exposure was, that way the subtraction will be as accurate as possible. 

 As long as you're on a stable tripod, focused, composed correctly, using a cable release and are patient enough, you'll get awesome results from your digital camera. One great thing about digital is that reciprocity failure doesn't exist on it!






So *let's put things in perspective with images.*

Lets say we hike up to this awesome view and want to take a picture. Let's assume you've got your sticks down and are composed. 

We take our initial picture:
6 seconds, f/2, ISO 25,600






Ugly, right? Well let's count it down to the equivalent exposure at ISO 200 and f/2.8:

32 minutes, f/2.8, ISO 200





*MUCH BETTER!* Now we just have to open up the RAW file, do some post-processing, and BAM!






*AWESOME NIGHT TIME SINGLE EXPOSURES!*







And you can apply this towards any of your long exposures too!

20 minutes, ISO 400, 24mm, f/5.6





Or, keep the ISO up to freeze the stars!

30 seconds, ISO 1600, 24mm, f/2





15 seconds, ISO 6400, 24mm, f/1.4:





10 seconds, ISO 6400, 24mm, f/1.7





In the city too!

3 seconds, ISO 200, 24mm, f/8





1/2 second, ISO 100, 24mm, f/8





After two or three nights out, you should have a pretty good handle on things and shouldn't have any excuse for having dark or poorly-exposed night time pictures if you're shooting digitally!

Hope this helps, and happy shooting!!!!


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## PapaMatt

awesome work


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## JustinL

Fantastic job! May I ask what camera you shoot with? it's handling those high iso's quite well.


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## Sw1tchFX

Thanks! Those were off of the D700.


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## Overread

*moving up to articles cause its good enough  *


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## Archer

Great write up and great photos. Thanks for taking the time.


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## Kolia

Very informative, thanks !


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## Overread

Switch - out of interest have you ever tried stacked exposures - so that you can keep the ISO down and keep the exposure time (thus pressure on the sensor and noise build up from heat/long exposure) down - whilst still getting a full combined 30min - 60min - 4 hour long exposure?


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## Sw1tchFX

yay!!! Thanks guy's!

I have tried stacking exposures, but didn't like it because it made something subtle, gawdy.

I feel the same way about stacked night exposures as I do about HDR. The technique took the front seat instead of the subject. It became obvious what happened when the stars instead of looking like light streaks, looked like laser beams. And that's just what stacking does, it makes laser beams. And just like HDR, it got the smallest nuisances and cranked the volume to 11.


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## Overread

Hmm did you try subtle application of the method? Maybe tried adjusting the brightness/saturation/contrast of the shots so that the streaks lost some of their overpowering brightness. Surely like HDR it would be possible to edit the results to hide the fact that its a stacked shot since you'd have the most light data to work with (and darkening is always easier done than brightening, whilst retaining quality).


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## DorkSterr

Amazing work, great guide.


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## Rjcommando

Amazing images!


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## Derrel

Excellent post, and excellent images. That Nikkor 24mm f/1.4 AF-S G lens is simply *AMAZING in how well-corrected it is against coma*; it renders those pin-point stars as "pin-point stars", and not as blurry football-shaped blobs of light; not many lenses perform THAT superbly when photographing point light sources against a dark field...

I'm not trying to take anything away from you--you are the one that got the camera and tripod to all of those locations; it's just that the superb optics in that 24mm 1.4 lens are, well, extraordinarily better than what most people have.


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## KyraLamb

Love it! Thank you!


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## Josh220

These shots are amazing. I have seen some of them in your threads a couple years ago, but they still blow me away.


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## Edsport

Yup those are very nice however some night shots require stacking to get a good result. These 2 shots was taken with my 350D and the 75-300mm lens...

Andromeda galaxy.
Exposure 4 mins x 13 stacked and processed.
ISO 800.
F 5.0.
220mm.






Here is the Orion nebula using 1 exposure of 180 secs @ 280mm unprocessed.





180 secs x 5 stacked and processed.
280mm


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## OscarWilde

These are amazing! What kind of "processing" are you using? Just sharpening up the image after stacking or is there something more specific you are doing?


Edit: Somehow ended up here and failed to notice this was the second page...
Now that I've read the original article I must say I'm ridiculously impressed! Just started on this forum today and immediately went from feeling that I knew a little bit about photography, after a year, to feeling like I don't know anything!

I really enjoy reading quality articles like this and look forward to using them to expand my horizons! (Quite literally with this technique...)


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## Sw1tchFX

Part of my beef with stacking is that I hate doing post production. It's a lot of work for something that can be temperamental. With single shots, you know if you've got what you want during shooting. You don't have to wait till you get home and spend an hour on the computer to figure out if it works or not. Also, if you're doing deep-sky type stuff shooting pictures of galaxies and whatnot, that's a _totally_ different technique.


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## Sw1tchFX

OscarWilde said:


> These are amazing! What kind of "processing" are you using? Just sharpening up the image after stacking or is there something more specific you are doing?Edit: Somehow ended up here and failed to notice this was the second page...Now that I've read the original article I must say I'm ridiculously impressed! Just started on this forum today and immediately went from feeling that I knew a little bit about photography, after a year, to feeling like I don't know anything!I really enjoy reading quality articles like this and look forward to using them to expand my horizons! (Quite literally with this technique...)


It's mostly just white balance adjustments, dodging/burning, and high-pass to bring the stars and texture out.


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## Edsport

OscarWilde said:


> These are amazing! What kind of "processing" are you using? Just sharpening up the image after stacking or is there something more specific you are doing?
> 
> 
> Edit: Somehow ended up here and failed to notice this was the second page...
> Now that I've read the original article I must say I'm ridiculously impressed! Just started on this forum today and immediately went from feeling that I knew a little bit about photography, after a year, to feeling like I don't know anything!
> 
> I really enjoy reading quality articles like this and look forward to using them to expand my horizons! (Quite literally with this technique...)


You say this is the second page but for me it's still the first. You can go to Forum actions and then general settings and choose to show 30 posts per page...


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## pgriz

Edsport, you need to tell people that those exposures were guided.  Anything with 200mm+ over 10 sec will show star trails if shooting on a simple tripod.  If you have an equatorial mount (one that is properly aligned and can compensate for the earth's rotation), then much longer exposures can result.  I am in awe of what the advanced astrophotographers are able to do these days.  Here is a link to Sky and Telescope's gallery pages on Nebulas:  Nebulae & Galaxies - Celestial Scenes - SkyandTelescope.com.  If you look at the images, which are gorgeous, and then at the equipment list, you realize that the beauty shown is extracted by using very good equipment, and even better technique and LOTS of work in postprocessing.


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## brian_f2.8

great job but boy you better be correct with a 32min exposure time.


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## Edsport

pgriz said:


> Edsport, you need to tell people that those exposures were guided. Anything with 200mm+ over 10 sec will show star trails if shooting on a simple tripod. If you have an equatorial mount (one that is properly aligned and can compensate for the earth's rotation), then much longer exposures can result. I am in awe of what the advanced astrophotographers are able to do these days. Here is a link to Sky and Telescope's gallery pages on Nebulas: Nebulae & Galaxies - Celestial Scenes - SkyandTelescope.com. If you look at the images, which are gorgeous, and then at the equipment list, you realize that the beauty shown is extracted by using very good equipment, and even better technique and LOTS of work in postprocessing.


Actually they are unguided. I used tracking to counteract earth's movement but unguided...


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## RxForB3

This is a great article, but perhaps this article might be of interest to some that want a more in-depth look (especially in reference to stacking):

Timescapes - Digital Timelapse Discussion - View topic - ULTIMATE Astrophotography Resource Thread

Also, if you're interested in timelapse photography, definitely give that forum a look!


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## Forkie

This is bloody brilliant.


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## shutterpals

great article. i recently read a book called Creative Night Photography that explained similar tips as you did. Night photography is awesome!


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## duyfwdjfl

You are asking two different questions here. Taking pictures of stars is very different from taking pictures of the moon. The moon is like any other sunlit object, and you can use a much faster shutter speed than you think. If sunlight in daytime is a "sunny 16", the the moon is about a "moony 11". The stars require timed exposure, and a equatorial mount tracking device to keep them from forming star trails. To get the color you see in the astronomy magazines requires long exposures, long lenses, and lots of know how. Or you can plan to shoot star trails, where the stars "revolve" around an axis in the sky. Either one requires a good tripod and manual exposure. Use the lowest ISO and a middle aperture for the moon, and bracket your exposure. Be sure to dress warmly. You might want to have a look at the Geminid Meteors this weekend, maybe you can capture some meteor trails.


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## Compaq

:hail: Switch

Thank you for taking the time!


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## Yantropov

Very useful, thank you.


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## misterjake2000

Wow, very informative and great showing examples of what can be accomplished


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## shuttervelocity

I just got a good DSLR and have started taking pictures of stars.  I found your writing very useful.  thank you very much!! 

Sam


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## lauraxlovegood

Those are absolutely AMAZING!  I plan on trying this as soon as I get all the right equipment lol.  I love stars and being able to photograph them will make me a very happy camper <3 Thank you so much for posting this


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## Majeed Badizadegan

Sw1tch are you in Portland, OR?


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## tissa

Awesome work! I tried to do long exposures but for whatever reason my pictures of the stars always came up overexposed if i did long exposures. Even if I boosted ISO to 100 and f to 22. Why is that? I even figured that i needed a density filter or something to prevent too much light coming in. And mind it, i was outside the town where it was absolutely dark and i didn't do exposures longer than 10 minutes.


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## Joanmc33

wow! awesome shooting. i liked


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## ipschoser1

After a fair amount of personal night photography, the OP's images are inspiring. Thanks for posting.


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## Steve5D

That's really an excellent write-up...


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## printsnpaints

Excellent tips and equally awesome samples. Night photos are challenging to shoot yet they are also among the most dramatic ones to capture. Thanks for such informative posts.


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## charlie76

Extremely awesome write-up.   Hope I can figure out how to "bookmark" or something.  Im kinds new to this friggin awesome forum


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## freshw

Thx for the awesome tips. Cannot wait to see how I m doing for the night shoots!


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## Cpi2011

I am so surprised after visit your post absolutely brilliant photographers you are. These shoots are mindblowing !!


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## Josh66

Sw1tchFX said:


> I figured it could benefit us all if there was a sticky about it


MODS - Why hasn't this happened yet?

If ever there was a thread deserving of being stickied, would this not be one of them??


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## Overread

Because I just used all our really sticky glue to make my models stick together 


Actually its more because if we sticky all the good articles we'd end up with a maze of sticky articles and that would then be counter productive. What is possible is if a single thread were made which acted like an index. Listing important articles in the section we are in (the Articles of Interest section). Such a thread can be stuck to the top and can then index and list (with a short description) the articles here which are worth reading. That way we only have to make one sticky which can be updated from time to time (either by the member that creates it or a passing mod).


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## Josh66

Overread said:


> What is possible is if a single thread were made which acted like an index. Listing important articles in the section we are in (the Articles of Interest section). Such a thread can be stuck to the top and can then index and list (with a short description) the articles here which are worth reading. That way we only have to make one sticky which can be updated from time to time (either by the member that creates it or a passing mod).


Like what LaFoto did with the themes section, right?  Why hasn't that been done here...?



(If there was a section that needed an index, I think 'Articles of Interest' is it...)


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## Overread

Because............................................... we are overworked and underpaid? 

well at least under paid 

Truth is I've no idea why there isn't something and heck there might have been in the past but it got lost (some updates can desticky stickies which means if no one remembers to re-sticky them they get lost). But if you want to see it go ahead and start building one . Like I said its not something a mod has to start - we can edit any posts if a member isn't around to adjust them themselves and a regular appearing member can easily start things up and edit their own posts at any time to add new content .


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## Josh66

If someone doesn't do it soon, I'll see what I can do.  It will be biased if I do it though.  I'll only include things that *I* think are interesting...lol.


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## EDL

Ok, I have a question about shooting stars.  How do you focus??  I can't see anything through the view finder to reference for focus.  My lens isn't marked for infinity and manually focusing for it in the dark is completely guess work (i.e. not really usable).


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## wolfie138

Many thanks for this, it's exactly what i was looking for as a tute.


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## Chasr

Just to add to your thread,,a line or 2 to show how easy it is to have some fun,,first off download " FREE "  Stellarium,,it's a free star chart,,put in your location and it'll save it and bring up the stars as to where they are live at that time of day,,you can go into the menu on the left and set any time you want to see just where everything is,,around the end of Aug. Orion will be rising far in the east and as days go by it'll get up earlier and earlier as the days go by,,generally all say to get a dark sight to shoot the stars but as you'll see Orion is very bright,,I was at the White Rock pier here in BC and there are lights everywhere,,just a simple tripod,,50mm lens with remote shutter and a couple seconds exposure gets you some fine photos,,I focus to infinity and back it off just a touch,,set the camera to AV and it does the rest,,you could set it to manual and play with focus using live view,,find a nice tree or house or whatever to get some foreground in the photo,,Orion is a fun set of stars to play with because it's so bright and easy to find,,my plan this year is to get it and all the lights on the pier as background,,will have to play a little and maybe use a bit wider lens but it'll be fun and a good project,,the photos on my web page say more than I can,, Zenfolio | Just Photos | Star night with Orion | Photo 1  good luck all.


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## picchic45

Thanks for the information, can't wait to try it out.


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## manaheim

Stunning pictures and great guide.

Of course, now I'm offended because Over didn't move MY night-time photography thread up to articles.

harrrumph.

Awesome post, Sw1tch!


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## pizzazzography

I have just joined this forum and this is the first thread that I have read. If this is the standard of contributions then I know that I'm in for many hours of great reading. I was a professional photographer for 15 years and this is a great article, and the pictures are a stunning example of what can be achieved, in this digital age of Photoshop, with getting the technical side of making images correct and good old-fashioned trial and error which is half the fun. Thanks for a really good post


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## evti

I am most definitely book marking this thread, since I am very interested in this stuff. These pictures are quite amazing, I especially love the one with the moving river.


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## sim597

Chasr said:
			
		

> Just to add to your thread,,a line or 2 to show how easy it is to have some fun,,first off download " FREE "  Stellarium,,it's a free star chart,,put in your location and it'll save it and bring up the stars as to where they are live at that time of day,,you can go into the menu on the left and set any time you want to see just where everything is,,around the end of Aug. Orion will be rising far in the east and as days go by it'll get up earlier and earlier as the days go by,,generally all say to get a dark sight to shoot the stars but as you'll see Orion is very bright,,I was at the White Rock pier here in BC and there are lights everywhere,,just a simple tripod,,50mm lens with remote shutter and a couple seconds exposure gets you some fine photos,,I focus to infinity and back it off just a touch,,set the camera to AV and it does the rest,,you could set it to manual and play with focus using live view,,find a nice tree or house or whatever to get some foreground in the photo,,Orion is a fun set of stars to play with because it's so bright and easy to find,,my plan this year is to get it and all the lights on the pier as background,,will have to play a little and maybe use a bit wider lens but it'll be fun and a good project,,the photos on my web page say more than I can,, Zenfolio | Just Photos | Star night with Orion | Photo 1  good luck all.



Sorry, I can't figure out how to post without replying just Yeats I'm new and on my iPhone5, I used Nikon d7000 and my Celestron EQ mount to get some really nice wide field, and hook it up to a 3.5" vixen apochromatic telescope. 
   But the reason I am posting this is because I use an app to check the conditions for "seeing" which in astrological terms means all conditions, light pollution, humidity, time of day, temp, wind speed and more, like cloud cover and transparency, this Chart is iCSC and is on both android and iPhone as an app. For iPhone guys another great way to know what your seeing and interesting "what to look for" is this great app called "pocket universe". This gives you an overview of what your seeing on a reality based algorithm that uses GPS, integral compass, and other chips like velocity to basically give you a digital monocular out to a couple million light years at least, and besides a great tool to help align scopes, it's an awesome learning tool an has a terrific "wow factor" for others.


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## dsmcguire

EDL said:


> Ok, I have a question about shooting stars.  How do you focus??  I can't see anything through the view finder to reference for focus.  My lens isn't marked for infinity and manually focusing for it in the dark is completely guess work (i.e. not really usable).



Without an infinity mark, focusing in the dark is guess work. The method I use is, set the lens to auto focus and hold the shutter button down half way. This causes the lens to attempt to focus. It should stop trying to focus when it is on infinity. Release the shutter button and flip the lens to manual, now your ready to shoot on infinity. This usually works for me. If for some reason it doesn't, try it again. If not the first time, it always works the second.


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## osumisan

I am inspired!


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## jessicaevans1062

I am new here and this was the first post I read. I am so glad I came! I'm really looking for ideas to step out of my comfort zone, and this definitely counts! Thanks to your wonderful explanation I don't feel like I'm going into it blindly. I do fear my equipment is seriously inferior, but I'll give it a shot anyway! Thank you!


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## Luke345678

Wow, this was a very detailed thread packed with tons of great information. I was wondering what was the best way to shoot the stars and I think I just found out! Thanks man.


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## JTPhotography

Great thread. After a few tries, I have pretty much gotten the hang of shooting the stars. My problem is processing them. I realize you have to do quite a bit of work to make the details pop, but I just can't seem to get it. I need some help. Any links or tips would be greatly appreciated. It would be even better if I could send one of you processing pros a few images so you can do your thing!


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## bc_steve

EDL said:


> Ok, I have a question about shooting stars.  How do you focus??  I can't see anything through the view finder to reference for focus.  My lens isn't marked for infinity and manually focusing for it in the dark is completely guess work (i.e. not really usable).



I find this to be one of the more difficult things when taking pictures at night.  If possible I auto-focus on a distant streetlight or something along those lines, but otherwise I just find Venus or the brightest star I can see and manually focus it.  I find it easier with some lenses than I do with others.  You may want to max the ISO and take a quick test photo to see if it is okay.


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## Josh220

bc_steve said:


> EDL said:
> 
> 
> 
> Ok, I have a question about shooting stars.  How do you focus??  I can't see anything through the view finder to reference for focus.  My lens isn't marked for infinity and manually focusing for it in the dark is completely guess work (i.e. not really usable).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I find this to be one of the more difficult things when taking pictures at night.  If possible I auto-focus on a distant streetlight or something along those lines, but otherwise I just find Venus or the brightest star I can see and manually focus it.  I find it easier with some lenses than I do with others.  You may want to max the ISO and take a quick test photo to see if it is okay.
Click to expand...



Switch to manual focus, set your lens to infinity, shoot away. Nothing more than that is needed.


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## brinda

thank you for the lovely tutorial


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## amethyst201190

I must say,there are some various moment of the pictures that can't satisfy to see.This isn't exactly undesirable trails can be beautiful, and some  of  the people prefer them in their pictures.


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## pollock

But i guess sometime its quite difficult to captured thhese scenes in your cam, as i have tried for few times but, unfortunately unable to take clear view of it. And then i need to delete those. Have tried with different settings but in vain.


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## MavChat

Great stuff thanks! I love sitting on my balcony at night with my Fujifilm S4200. I know its not one of the greatest cameras but I have taken some very nice photo's of the moon. The stars still evade me but at the end of march when I go to the farm I will be spending much time out in the bush!


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## Holman68

This is why I am here...to take it all in and see what I can produce with the equipment I have. I love challenges and the information in this article was great to read. Thanks for posting!


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## AlexanderB

tissa said:


> Awesome work! I tried to do long exposures but for whatever reason my pictures of the stars always came up overexposed if i did long exposures. Even if I boosted ISO to 100 and f to 22. Why is that? I even figured that i needed a density filter or something to prevent too much light coming in. And mind it, i was outside the town where it was absolutely dark and i didn't do exposures longer than 10 minutes.


Too much light in the night? That's news. There's something wrong here or you are from other planet where night is sunny like day.


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## Wastures58

what a lovely thread and excellent images


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