Starry Night in the Desert

GoNorthWest

Took this one last weekend at Catalina State Park in Tucson, AZ. My first real, focused attempt at star photography. Any comments?

HDRoamer

Keep going! You can vary this quite a bit and be surprised at what you gain. You'll have fun with the scenes you capture.

A few thoughts...
- That much light on the saguaros takes away from the stars. Try spreading out the artificial light if you can. Were did the light come from?
- Find a distinct subject in the sky to capture, like a constellation or specific grouping
- Try capturing the sky between saguaros letting them frame the sky from the sides.
- play with multiple exposures of diff EVs during the shoot and during post processing. You may find you can define the vegetation just enough to draw clear distinction for the sky.

Good start, I've had some dark shots that just turn out black at first, bet you have too.

HD

GoNorthWest

HDRoamer wrote: »

Keep going! You can vary this quite a bit and be surprised at what you gain. You'll have fun with the scenes you capture.

A few thoughts...
- That much light on the saguaros takes away from the stars. Try spreading out the artificial light if you can. Were did the light come from?
- Find a distinct subject in the sky to capture, like a constellation or specific grouping
- Try capturing the sky between saguaros letting them frame the sky from the sides.
- play with multiple exposures of diff EVs during the shoot and during post processing. You may find you can define the vegetation just enough to draw clear distinction for the sky.

Good start, I've had some dark shots that just turn out black at first, bet you have too.

HD

This is great feedback...thanks! I learned quite a bit during my first shot at this, and your feedback has given me even more food for thought.

I agree the lighting is a bit much. I used my bike light, which is 900 lumens, to illuminate the cactus. I realized the other night that I could dial that down a bit. I only shined it on the cactus for about 1s.

It appears that in this image, I managed to focus squarely on the North Star! If you look closely, you can see star trails starting a ring that centers on the middle of the picture. Pretty cool!

I also plan on going down to ISO100 for my next shoot, and messing around with longer exposure times. I'm sure I'll find the sweet spot with lots more practice.

Thanks again for the feedback!

Mark

08whitex

I would use less light on the cactus and try to paint more evenly. Also it looks like you got a little movement in the stars. Try to keep your exposure to 30 seconds or less.

GoNorthWest

08whitex wrote: »

I would use less light on the cactus and try to paint more evenly. Also it looks like you got a little movement in the stars. Try to keep your exposure to 30 seconds or less.

I agree with you on the painting aspect. I was going to try different colors next also.

This was a 120s exposure, and I was amazed I didn't get more movement! I'm going to keep trying to see what I get with different exposures. I want to try a super long one...like 5 minutes...to see what the trails look like!

08whitex

GoNorthWest wrote: »

I agree with you on the painting aspect. I was going to try different colors next also.

This was a 120s exposure, and I was amazed I didn't get more movement! I'm going to keep trying to see what I get with different exposures. I want to try a super long one...like 5 minutes...to see what the trails look like!

5 minutes is not long at all for star trails. You will want to expose for 25- 45 minutes to get good trails. I can show you some examples if you like. Also you got less movement because you were shooting dead north.

GoNorthWest

08whitex wrote: »

5 minutes is not long at all for star trails. You will want to expose for 25- 45 minutes to get good trails. I can show you some examples if you like. Also you got less movement because you were shooting dead north.

Would love to see some good examples! The dead north thing was a total accident, but a great lesson learned! I was more framing against the cactus, but I got lucky!

08whitex

Here is 30 seconds


Here is 20 minutes


Here is 55 minutes

kdog

Not bad for a first attempt at all. The problem I have with the foreground lighting is not the amount, but the color. You have very cool blue lighting on the cactus, and a very warm orange sky. The orange is caused by tungsten light pollution. I'm guessing that's an LED light. In order to make the colors match, I'd try an old-fashioned tungsten flashlight, or use a CTO or CTS gel held over your existing light. You can get rid of the orange cast by setting your camera or post-processing with a tungsten white balance. Then you'll have white stars against a black sky which to me looks more realistic. Here's a link to a shot done that way http://www.desertilluminations.com/Sky/Astrophotography/10354914_ZDyQ7#1127738515_576nm

Regarding your idea to shoot longer at higher ISO, I'd have to ask what you are trying to accomplish -- star trails, or sharp stars? If you want trails, then by all means shoot longer. However, lower ISO is generally not the way to go. You'll just end up with dimmer stars that way. I also noticed you were shooting at a small aperture. Generally I like to use as wide an aperture as I can. At 18mm, you could probably have shot this at F4 or F4.5, and still had the cactus and stars sharp. The more light you let in, the more stars you'll capture. The faster the shutter speed, the sharper the stars will be with the least trailing.

GoNorthWest

Nice! I like them all. What sort of lens did you use?

GoNorthWest

kdog wrote: »

Not bad for a first attempt at all. The problem I have with the foreground lighting is not the amount, but the color. You have very cool blue lighting on the cactus, and a very warm orange sky. The orange is caused by tungsten light pollution. I'm guessing that's an LED light. In order to make the colors match, I'd try an old-fashioned tungsten flashlight, or use a CTO or CTS gel held over your existing light. You can get rid of the orange cast by setting your camera or post-processing with a tungsten white balance. Then you'll have white stars against a black sky which to me looks more realistic. Here's a link to a shot done that way http://www.desertilluminations.com/Sky/Astrophotography/10354914_ZDyQ7#1127738515_576nm

Regarding your idea to shoot longer at higher ISO, I'd have to ask what you are trying to accomplish -- star trails, or sharp stars? If you want trails, then by all means shoot longer. However, higher ISO is generally not the way to go. You'll just end up with dimmer stars that way. I also noticed you were shooting at a small aperture. Generally I like to use as wide an aperture as I can. At 18mm, you could probably have shot this at F4 or F4.5, and still had the cactus and stars sharp. The more light you let in, the more stars you'll capture. The faster the shutter speed, the sharper the stars will be with the least trailing.

Great feedback...thanks! You are right..it was an LED light. It was an afterthought to bring it with me...I had originally intended to capture just the stars, but then thought of the idea to illuminate the cactus. Better planning next time should fix all that.

Ideally I think I'd like to shoot with my 50mm prime, as that's the sharpest lens I have. And, I prefer to shoot at the lowest ISO possible so as to reduce noise. I had no real goals for this first shoot other than to see what was possible. I intend to take all this feedback and try new things next time I go out. I'll post the new results later!

GoNorthWest

kdog wrote: »

Here's a link to a shot done that way http://www.desertilluminations.com/Sky/Astrophotography/10354914_ZDyQ7#1127738515_576nm

Just checked those out...very nice! The Milky Way is what I was really hoping to capture. I noticed that you shot at ISO1600...is that recommended for detailed star shots like that?

08whitex

GoNorthWest wrote: »

Nice! I like them all. What sort of lens did you use?

The 3 shots I posted were shot with a Canon 17-55 2.8. All shot at 17mm

08whitex

I was out shooting night shots last weekend also, the Milky Way was not very visible. You will need to do some research on the best time to see the Milky Way

kdog

GoNorthWest wrote: »

Just checked those out...very nice! The Milky Way is what I was really hoping to capture. I noticed that you shot at ISO1600...is that recommended for detailed star shots like that?

Yep, at least 1600. Those first few meteor shots in that gallery were taken at ISO3200. High ISO is your friend. I do shoot with a Canon 5DMKII, which gives a huge benefit at high ISO (that's why I have it). With your Rebel, I'd experiment with 1600, but certainly not go below ISO 800.

The milky way is pretty much viewable all the time. It does rotate across the sky. But it's so big that it's almost always viewable. It's allegedly brighter in the summer, but I have no problem seeing it in the winter as well. Again those meteors were just shot in mid-December. Clear skies without a lot of light pollution is the largest factor. And of course you'll need that high ISO and large aperture to capture it. A 50 prime will work great for this. Shoot it close to wide-open.

GoNorthWest

kdog wrote: »

Yep, at least 1600. Those first few meteor shots in that gallery were taken at ISO3200. High ISO is your friend. I do shoot with a Canon 5DMKII, which gives a huge benefit at high ISO (that's why I have it). With your Rebel, I'd experiment with 1600, but certainly not go below ISO 800.

The milky way is pretty much viewable all the time. It does rotate across the sky. But it's so big that it's almost always viewable. It's allegedly brighter in the summer, but I have no problem seeing it in the winter as well. Again those meteors were just shot in mid-December. Clear skies without a lot of light pollution is the largest factor. And of course you'll need that high ISO and large aperture to capture it. A 50 prime will work great for this. Shoot it close to wide-open.

I thought it was the other way around...that a high ISO would introduce a lot of noise into the picture. I understand that higher ISOs are good for low light conditions, but I was concerned about noise in the image...though maybe that's hard to detect with these types of images.

And, just to make sure I understand, when you say "wide-open," you're talking about, for instance, f/2 instead of, say f/12. Correct?

Thanks!

kdog

GoNorthWest wrote: »

I thought it was the other way around...that a high ISO would introduce a lot of noise into the picture. I understand that higher ISOs are good for low light conditions, but I was concerned about noise in the image...though maybe that's hard to detect with these types of images.

You're right in general that higher ISO means higher noise. However, what's even worse is underexposing an image, then increasing the exposure in post processing. Better to use high ISO and overexpose than low ISO and underexpose. Also noise can be dealt with, lack of light cannot.

And, just to make sure I understand, when you say "wide-open," you're talking about, for instance, f/2 instead of, say f/12. Correct?

Correct. Use your largest aperture, just stopped down a click or two for better sharpness. If you're using say an F1.8 lens, I'd shoot at maybe F2 or F2.2 or thereabouts. Get all the light in there that you can. If you're shooting a foreground object you may need to stop down a little further for more depth of field to get both foreground and stars in good focus.

GoNorthWest

kdog wrote: »

You're right in general that higher ISO means higher noise. However, what's even worse is underexposing an image, then increasing the exposure in post processing. Better to use high ISO and overexpose than low ISO and underexpose. Also noise can be dealt with, lack of light cannot. Correct. Use your largest aperture, just stopped down a click or two for better sharpness. If you're using say an F1.8 lens, I'd shoot at maybe F2 or F2.2 or thereabouts. Get all the light in there that you can. If you're shooting a foreground object you may need to stop down a little further for more depth of field to get both foreground and stars in good focus.

Excellent...I completely understand! I tend to not do much post processing, but need to start learning some. I appreciate you taking the time to share your expertise with me!