Stars and night time photography

[robertbody]

In the last week I took some night time photos of the sky, learned some things the hard way, like you don't want

to use ISO-400 or higher with digital... you want to use ISO-200 or ISO-100. I wanted to hear from others what

worked or didn't work for them using digital equipment for night time photography... how long battery lasted

before it gave up - for multi-hour exposures...... and examples of photos of star trails too

 

<center>

<br><img src="http://www.robertbody.com/arizona08/images/2008-09-02-supers-stars-23434.jpg">

<br>ISO-800, 20s f/2.8 - 17mm (x1.5=25mm), D300

<br>

<br><img src="http://www.robertbody.com/arizona08/images/2008-08-30-supers-mtn-22867.jpg">

<br>ISO-800, 67s f/2.8 - 35mm (x1.5=52mm), D300

<br>

<br><img src="http://www.robertbody.com/arizona08/images/2008-09-04-supers-stars-23820.jpg">

<br>ISO-100, 4s f/1.8 - 50mm (x1.5=75mm), D300

 

</center>

[thomasmckown]

I typically use ISO 1600 for my star shots. :] I love the second shot!

[garydem]

youn shots have both sky and land in them. are talking anout taking sky only shots? for the following i assume sky only.

 

the user is limited in taking startrails, you really cannot get a hours long star trail with a digital camera. film yes, not digital. you are limited by heat buioldup in the sensor and electronics which makes noise and the battery life. for star trils want is doine is to make a series of shirt(60sec) shots and put them together. a program called startrails.exe does this. try google. it is free.

for other object like stars and planets you need to stack a group of many images. like 20-50-100 shots. a program called registax does this, and it is free. what many users have done is to use a camcordewr and shoot a movie of the sky through a telescope or large telelphoto, say 200 frames and stack those. the signal in ach frame is added to gether while the noise in each frame is subtrcted out via dark frames.

 

try-

http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

http://www.astropix.com/

http://www.geocities.com/capecanaveral/lab/6529/

http://rickastro.freehomepage.com/

http://www.astronomie.be/registax/

http://www.astrostack.com/

http://deepskystacker.free.fr/english/index.html\

 

note-astropix is loaded with info. has many sub pages on taking and processing astro pics.

[bruce_margolis]

I read one article recently where the photographer actually had to change batteries but he said it was done in only a couple seconds. Nice how-to article but I can't find the link. Here are a couple others.....

 

http://www.naturescapes.net/112006/ej1106.htm

 

http://www.weatherscapes.com/techniques.php?cat=astronomy&page=startrails

[bobatkins]

If you are prepared to give up digital, there are a number of EOS film bodies which draw no current at all when the shutter is open (it's held open magnetically). As I recall the EOS 630 has such a shutter and you can probably find one for $50 or less. If I wanted to shoot multi-hour star trails I think I'd be quite tempted to go back to using film

[garydem]

i echo what bob a has said. if you use dslr you end up with all kinds of problems to solve. many years ago i took star trails with a 35mm slr and it was just a matter of puting camera on tripod with cable release and waiting the number of hours wanted or needed. i used the north star polaris, ended up with about a 1/5 or 1/6 of a circle. the pastel colors were outstanding. the only lens needed is a 50mm or 35mm. just drive to a dark place and shoot.

[nick_davis]

If you are a Nikon shooter, you could pick up a manual body FM (or similar). To get complete star trails you need exposures that can be several hours long. This is nearly impossible with an uncooled sensor like what is in your DSLR. The other thing you need is very little light pollution. It can turn black skies green or sometimes orange depending on the type of local street lights.

[chelsea]

I've been shooting with my Canon Rebel XT, up to about 1/2 hour is okay, after that, the noise picks up, and then it's a lot of time spent in photoshop cleaning it up. On bulb setting I can't figure out how to set it for more than about 30 seconds, so I've rigged up a little wooden wedge with rubber padding glued to it, and use an elastic band to hold it in place. (Yeah, guys, I hear you cringing, I haven't gotten around to buying the remote shutter release yet.) The battery holds up for about an hour. For models like the Rebel, you can get the extended battery mount, that would give you more time. I usually shoot 100 or 200 iso, I have shot up to 1600 for a full moon with clouds setting, but I don't like the grain.

 

Rose-Marie

[stp]

I purchased a Nikon FM2N specifically for this purpose. Also got a 35-70mm f2.8 (and a 24mm f1.4 just because I really

like that lens) to go with it. A film camera is great for long, long exposures.

[15sunrises]

Hmm, ISO 800 on the D300 seems noisier than ISO 1600 on the 30D. Not sure if it's just my imagination?<div></div>

[alpenglow]

Certainly I agree that film is the way to go for the long exposures. But I would consider getting a medium format camera rather than 35mm. There are some great, and cheap Mamiya 645 systems that will work wonderfully for this purpose... as will as the Pentax 67.

 

Mike

[robertbody]

Mike, I see your example here: <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6431527">http://www.photo.net/photo/6431527</a>

with Mamiya... can you put some numbers on what's a "cheap Mamiya 645 system" ?

<br>

<br>

It sounds intriguing when you say "cheap" and "medium format", even though this would be my only use of it (at night, stars, sometimes)....... while a manual FM2N body would be the only investment + Film

<br><br

but back to medium format, can you put some number of

<br>1) how cheap one could get Mamiya 645 system, and are there any parameters of just one Mamiya 645

<br>2) which lens (and approx price) would be for a 20mm and 24mm equivalent of 35mm format

<br>3) film - i see you used ISO-400 for your 20minute star trail -- why not ISO-100 or ISO-200 for more color saturation? If it's a long exposure anyway.. like 30minutes.. or 5 hours?

<br><br>

Bob and others... thanks for the film camera idea... from my more recent experience it looks like strange things happen after 10minutes at ISO-200, the sky becomes white, noisy white... it's not just that film is better... digital can't do it... yes a few minutes are ok but after that, no-go, that's my experience with my D300..

<br><br>

and Bob, which film would recommend specifically? Probably not Velvia-50 with it's green cast of long exposure and slow speed -- to fix the green cast I read one could use a fluorescent light filter -- but I recall seeing somewhere to use Provia-100... or Provia-400? or what would one ideally use?

<br><br>

and finally... if this would be the only film body i get, just for night stars, and trails... and long time cable exposures... would there be a difference between FM2N or FE or some other body? I mean FM2N is supposed to be the Pro version right? If i want a fully manual camera that doesn't need batteries... I would probably use my Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 lens, it will fit right? And my Nikon 50mm f/1.8... or would something fastter do better like a 24mm f/1.4 if one exists? in AIS?

[alpenglow]

Robert,

 

Certainly the term "cheap" is always relative... especially in the current economy. But used medium format gear is realtively very cheap compared to what they use to cost new and used. You should be able to find a Mamiya 1000S body with a non-metered finder for between $100.00-$200.00. The Mamiya 35mm lens would be about a 22mm equivalent in the 35mm world, but they cost about $350.00 used and it's not my personal favourite lens. I much prefer the 45mm (equivalent to about 28mm in 35mm terms), and they can be had for about $200.00. I also like the 55mm, (35mm equivalent), and they cost about $125.00.

 

You are dead on correct about my startrails photo, in that it would have been much better if I had used a slower speed film. But this particular photo was not "planned" to be a startrail image. I was actually out that night trying to capture some meteors during the Perseid meteor shower, and the faster film would have been an advantage if I had actually "caught" any of these faint streaks. But, alas... no luck, and it just ended up being a simple startrail shot. On those occasions when I do set up for startrail photography, I always use a 50 or 100 ISO film, and then stopped down to f/5.6 to minimize reciprocity failure and sky-fog.

 

BUT... a good/simple 35mm camera would still work fine for you. Even a very cheap, ($50.00 or so), Minolta SRT series camera, or XD-5, will work perfectly, (see some of the images in my night gallery made with this simple camera), it's just that the medium format images are so much nicer and the equipment is so reasonable.

 

Best of luck,

Mike

[15sunrises]

I've gone 45 minutes with no problems on digital, you just have to wait twice as long. I'm pretty sure I could've gone

even further if I was more sure about the battery life.

 

Here's one that was 45 minutes:

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7667013

 

35 minutes:

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7666854

[Stock-Photos]

Bob,

I found that to get the gas and dust clouds of the Milky Way to be prominent, I needed to use ISO 1250 on my 5D. Lens was 50MM 1.8, wide open and 30 second exposure.

 

I was looking to avoid star trails.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7669651&size=lg

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/7688920&size=lg

[alex_smith13]

Nice shot of the supers.

 

I will chime in on film bodies also. I have no experience with very long exposures and digital. For color film I usually used provia 400 and added a fl-d filter that seemed to help with the color shift. Regarding bodies I mainly used a fm-2n and it worked great. That was until I was at the bottom of the grand canyon with a N80 and decided to try it. I have used the N80 several times since. The shutter on it doesn't seem to draw enough power to worry much about. I have easily done several nights with the stutter open for 2-3 hours each in 15-40min increments without a battery problem. the 123a batteries are dirt cheap now days and you can even get rechargeable. I would just go for N80 if you don't have that many non-cpu lenses. That would be a cheap way to go.

[rick_wong]

http://av.adobe.com/russellbrown/StarTrailSM.mov

 

The link above will take you to Russell Browns movie on creating star trials with a digital camera and photoshop.

[image.a.nation]

I have just returned from the Aus outback where I took a few long exposures with a 40d and the Canon EF-S 10-22mm. I tried doing a 2 hour exposure on an aftermarket battery but it died doing the lengthy post processing after the shot. Being bloody minded enough I tried the same exposure with a Canon battery and it survived the 2 hour shot, about 40-50 minutes post-processing (long-exp noise reduction) and recorded an image. The image is attached.

 

I always shoot long time exposures at 100iso. I made that rule with my 350d body - I could probably relax that to 200 with the 40d.

 

I hadn't thought of doing multiple exposures to eliminate noise and record long trails. I will try that soon.<div></div>