starry night and milky way (please view larger for the stars!)

The sensor noise in the D300 (it's an ancient sensor, indeed) required

some post-production work, but now I feel quite happy for the result. Tnx for

comments and ratings

Well done and strong composition.  My appreciation of this image is probably in part because it appears beyond my skill and knowledge to produce.  Excellent work, Mauro.  I would have expected more star drift with this shutter speed. 

Beautiful night shot. I haven't tried this yet. Think I should so one starry night.

Sidsel

You shall definitely try it because it's a great experience and can give great satisfaction. At a first impressioni what comes out of the camera is disappointing and a great work of post production is mandatory to give the images the look we are used to. In Italy is very difficult to find places dark enough and the few are on high mountain (like this that is the Nivolet Pass easy reachable by car but at 2.700m asl (8.200 feet). Even in september the temperature drops down below 0°C and it makes staying out for some hours and taking picture an experience far from a comfortable one.

Maybe you'll find that this temperature is not lo low, but for a latin... it is! :-)

Mauro

 

PS: Wayne: the drift is a function both of the exposure time AND of the focal length. A raw formula that you can apply to find the exposure time limit to avoid drift is: T = 500/focal in mm (referred to the full format): for example: if you use a 12mm like mine (that becomes an 18mm on the full frame): 500/18=27,7777777 sec. If you exposure time is less the 28 seconds you won't have any drift.

Mauro,

Many thanks. You are not only an artist but a very generous one.  Thanks for the help and encouragement.

Una immagine molto bella e che mi ispira, ho letto la formula che hai indicato ma penso che oltre al tempo da usare debba essere indicato anche il diaframma e gli ISO se puoi aiutami, ciao Giangiorgio

Ciao Giangiorgio, volentieri ti aiuto

But allow me to write in english because there is a chance that Wayne is interested to in my answer. The formula I suggested above allows you to calculate the maximum exposure time to be sure that the stars will seem perfectly point-shaped and don't result in small dashes.

On the other hand the shutter speed is just one of the three parameters you must control to have the right exposure. So we need to define the aperture and the ISO setting. Consider that you biggest enemy when you deal with night and low light photography is the sensor noise that is due to both the long exposure time and the high ISO. Since the exposure time has been fixed by the previous formula the only parameter you can control to keep the noise low is the ISO setting and, considering that as greater the ISO and greater the noise you shall minimize the ISO and, to do so, your unique chance is to open the lens as wider as possible. Of course a great aperture will affect you DOF and compels you to compose the picture according to this limitation.

Fortunately the best lenses for this kind of photography are wide and ultra-wide angle lenses and this helps because they give you a good DOF even with great apertures. Consider for example that my brand new AF-S nikkor 20mm f/1,8 has an hyperlocal distance of 7,50meters at f/1,8!

Taking all this in consideration your recipe should be: T = (500/f - 1) sec; A = as wide as possible; ISO = as low as possible. If you can set an aperture equal to f/2,8 make a try starting from ISO 800 and then adjust: I’m quite sure that the right ISO is between 400 and 1600.

That’s all for now but there are a lot of other useful consideration that we can develop about this wonderful topic.

I hope this post helps.

Have a nice day

 

Mauro

Grazie Mauro per la tua risposta molto chiara e precisa, prenderò spunto dalla tua esperienza per cercare il posto adatto, ciao Giangiorgio