Proper setup for night photography

OC57 · June 5, 2013

Hello all;

I suspect that this isn't the first time you've had someone ask these questions and I'm fairly sure that if I were smart enough, I might be able to find what I'm looking for but why not cut to the chase?

I'm going on a big family vacation soon and one of the stops is Glacier National Park. My goal is to be able to shoot the night sky (Milky Way) without a lot of noise. My issue is this, since I don't do night photography, I don't always get the shutter to fire and it's frustrating. This was when I was using my Nikon D200. Now, I also have a Nikon D600 with higher ISO ranges to play with but I'm not sure what the settings should be to ensure that I at least will get an image to preview and adjust from. I'm looking for suggestions. I've read where my Tokina 11-16mm lens for my D200 might not fit the bill so to speak and so that would leave me with either the 24-85mm VR or the straight 50mm lenses for this attempt. Do I need some subtle light in the foreground to read from? Is the sky enough? Can I shoot in aperture priority at maybe 1600 ISO? I have a cable release and a borrowed tripod for the adventure so shake shouldn't be an issue. I only have two nights at the park and I need this shot.

Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

ziggy53 · June 6, 2013

OC57 wrote: »

... I only have two nights at the park and I need this shot. ...

This is the most important part of your post. You will have little time to waste experimenting once you get to the site. What you need is experience, and the only way to get that is to do some testing beforehand. You can do some of that in your own backyard, so start testing now.

Manual exposure is your best bet, and manual focus the only valid method. Shoot everything in RAW and process later.

Regarding Glacier, you will not know your subject matter until you get to the park, so get to the preferred site early and choose your composition in daylight hours. Setup everything on a tripod, choose your lens and zoom setting (if not using a prime lens), record the lens settings (or tape everything down with gaffers tape) and either wait for night or mark the tripod position too, so you can revert everything in the dark.

As to the lens choice, when you get to the site in daylight it makes framing the shot so much easier. Take any appropriate lens with you on the trip because you won't know your composition until you see it in the viewfinder. Your D600 also has "Live View", which may help at night to relocate your composition (if you left the site and came back later to the site).

Illuminating the framing components of the scene is a consideration. Sometimes you may wish to add some electronic flash to closer framing matter (but I don't recommend this for a "Milky Way" shot at Glacier), sometimes the Moon helps the shot, and sometimes the Moon will hurt the shot. Carefully planning your trip schedule and locations beforehand, plus the experience you gain from all of your testing before the trip, will all pay off in an improved experience during the shoot.

Clouds are always a concern.

For noise reduction, both of your cameras have "long exposure noise reduction" capabilities, which simply takes a second exposure of the same duration as the "image capture" exposure, but without the shutter opening. The camera then subtracts the second "dark frame" exposure from the first exposure to eliminate "hot pixels" form of noise.

Alternately you may choose to take a single manual dark frame exposure, to manually subtract the dark frame noise later. This method reduces battery drain and saves time during the shoot, and there is competent software available to semi-automate the noise reduction in post-processing.

Combining multiple exposures can help reduce "random sensor noise", but it complicates other aspects of the capture.

Since you will be shooting time exposures, plenty of charged batteries are a must. Your experience with your at-home/near-home tests will help guide you in the number of batteries needed.

To find more DGrin discussions about all of this:

http://bit.ly/19LoUID

Stuff which relates:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1221389

http://juanpons.org/2012/02/landscape-photo-tips-from-glacier-national-park/

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/night-sky/

OC57 · June 6, 2013

ziggy53 wrote: »

This is the most important part of your post. You will have little time to waste experimenting once you get to the site. What you need is experience, and the only way to get that is to do some testing beforehand. You can do some of that in your own backyard, so start testing now.

Manual exposure is your best bet, and manual focus the only valid method. Shoot everything in RAW and process later.

Regarding Glacier, you will not know your subject matter until you get to the park, so get to the preferred site early and choose your composition in daylight hours. Setup everything on a tripod, choose your lens and zoom setting (if not using a prime lens), record the lens settings (or tape everything down with gaffers tape) and either wait for night or mark the tripod position too, so you can revert everything in the dark.

As to the lens choice, when you get to the site in daylight it makes framing the shot so much easier. Take any appropriate lens with you on the trip because you won't know your composition until you see it in the viewfinder. Your D600 also has "Live View", which may help at night to relocate your composition (if you left the site and came back later to the site).

Illuminating the framing components of the scene is a consideration. Sometimes you may wish to add some electronic flash to closer framing matter (but I don't recommend this for a "Milky Way" shot at Glacier), sometimes the Moon helps the shot, and sometimes the Moon will hurt the shot. Carefully planning your trip schedule and locations beforehand, plus the experience you gain from all of your testing before the trip, will all pay off in an improved experience during the shoot.

Clouds are always a concern.

For noise reduction, both of your cameras have "long exposure noise reduction" capabilities, which simply takes a second exposure of the same duration as the "image capture" exposure, but without the shutter opening. The camera then subtracts the second "dark frame" exposure from the first exposure to eliminate "hot pixels" form of noise.

Alternately you may choose to take a single manual dark frame exposure, to manually subtract the dark frame noise later. This method reduces battery drain and saves time during the shoot, and there is competent software available to semi-automate the noise reduction in post-processing.

Combining multiple exposures can help reduce "random sensor noise", but it complicates other aspects of the capture.

Since you will be shooting time exposures, plenty of charged batteries are a must. Your experience with your at-home/near-home tests will help guide you in the number of batteries needed.

To find more DGrin discussions about all of this:

http://bit.ly/19LoUID

Stuff which relates:

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=1221389

http://juanpons.org/2012/02/landscape-photo-tips-from-glacier-national-park/

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-tips/night-sky/

Thank you for your advice. I have a couple of days to do just that...test. I also appreciate the links you gave me to review. Should I become successful, or at least so in my mind, I will post an image from the trip.

ziggy53 · June 6, 2013

OC57 wrote: »

Thank you for your advice. I have a couple of days to do just that...test. I also appreciate the links you gave me to review. Should I become successful, or at least so in my mind, I will post an image from the trip.

Glacier National Park has lots of opportunities, day and night. Best of luck shooting there.

squirl033 · June 8, 2013

not sure why you couldn't get the shutter to open... unless you had the camera set to AF and it couldn't lock onto anything, in which case it would refuse to fire. for night shots, always shoot with manual focus to prevent that problem. set your lens for infinity and then back off just a tad. your 11-16 should be about perfect on a crop body (i'm a Canon guy, so i don't know if your D600 is a crop sensor or not...)... it' be equivalent to about an 18-24mm on a full frame camera. you don't need foreground light, though it can often and a dramatic touch, but it needs to be very dim. to get the Milky Way, you'll need to shoot wide open - f/2.8 - f/4 - and preferably at your lens's shortest focal length, or close to it. set your ISO for 1600 to start, and use a shutter of about 15-20 sec as a starting point. if you can get what you're after with those settings, great... if not, try a little longer shutter, but don't go past about 25 sec, or you'll start getting blur in the stars from the earth's rotation. you can also try upping the ISO if your camera doesn't generate too much noise at high ISO settings.

byoshi · June 10, 2013

I'll try and answer some of your individual questions:

I've read where my Tokina 11-16mm lens for my D200 might not fit the bill so to speak and so that would leave me with either the 24-85mm VR or the straight 50mm lenses for this attempt

My go to lens for night/star photography is the Tokina 11-16 on my D7000. You want the widest angle possible to allow youself the longest shutter time without streaking. Good rule is 600/focal length but I usually limit myself to 30 secs. The 11-16 also stops down to 2.8 to allow the most light in for that 30 sec time window.

Do I need some subtle light in the foreground to read from?

I carry a headlamp or flashlight with me to focus off on something in the distance or my closest foreground element. Most likely you will not be able to auto focus on the sky, and would need to focus to infinity manually. My preferred method is to use a spotlight to help, as infinity is hit or miss with me.

Can I shoot in aperture priority at maybe 1600 ISO

I would just go for manual. Try using f/2.8 or give yourself some room for error like f/3.5. Set shutter to 30 secs and ISO to about 1600 or 3200. Take a test shot and change your ISO as needed. You can also go higher in ISO and decrease your shutter speed but you will see more noise. Tradeoff may be less streaking.

If needed, you could take 2 shots if you can blend them in photoshop. Take a 30 sec, f/2.8, ISO-1600 for the sky, and take a much longer (few minutes) shot with a lower ISO and smaller aperture for the foreground if you want your foreground to not be a silhouette.

JC · June 11, 2013

I think everyone else covered your major issues. The only thing I can think to add, is that if you are planning for foregrounds to highlight your skies (which I recommend, otherwise the Milky way, no matter how good, is just another shot of a bunch of bright dots), then understand your hyperfocal distance. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/hyperfocal-distance.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance . My preference is to weight foreground sharpness over star sharpness, sometimes it even helps to have the stars just very slightly out of focus. Test your camera/lens out in daylight, to make sure the distance markings on your lens are accurate. If you can set up the scene in the daylight first, even better. You can put a small piece of tape at the right point of the distance scale on your lens (or across the barrel, to lock the focus in), once you have the foreground in focus.

pathfinder · June 11, 2013

Ziggy has given great advice.

I would strongly suggest focusing with Live View at 10X mag if you can. I cannot always see the stars through the viewfinder reliably to focus at times, so Live View at 10x magnification really is quite helpful and rather easy once done. Or set your lens for focus at infinity before it gets dark, and tape it down in Manual focus. Do not attempt to use autofocus. Bright moon lit nights are usually less favorable to Milky Way shots than nights will a small sliver of moon apparent.

I also strongly suggest shooting only in Manual Mode. Set your aperture at f2.8, ISO 1600 at 30 seconds and your exposure should be close. From there you can adjust your exposure up or down as needed. Do not be afraid of ISO 3200 if necessary. I would try to keep your exposures under 20 seconds IF possible, as the longer the shutter is open and the camera is not moving, the more apparent the star will appear as a trail, and not as a point. With wide angle lenses like the 11-16 you can ussually get up to 30 seconds safely, but not with a 75mm lens.

Once your basic exposure is determined, you can begin to add light painting in the foreground with a flashlight or a small LED light.

This was captured in the Alabama Hills with ISO 3200, f3.2, 30 seconds at 16mm, focusing with Live View, tripod and remote release, manual focus, and manual mode.

Milky%20Way%20Alabama%20Hills_V6P5990-L.jpg

Milky%20Way%20Alabama%20Hills_V6P5990-L.jpg

The RAW processing of night shots is somewhat different than daytime images as well, as I usually try to raise the black point enough to darken the sky and really help kill noise in the image.

Shoot in AWB for color balance, as final color balance will be a choice determined by the artist's creative view.

One other personal note, I really prefer heavy tripods for night shots. SO either weight your tripod with a back pack, or use a heavier tripod than usual if you can. My limited experience has shown me that small travel tripods just never give me as sharp images as my big heavy Feisol when shooting in the dark. You can't see anything in the dark, the wind may be blowing a mile a minute, and it can be cold too. Just my feelings about shooting in the dark, which can be lots of fun, or very frustrating the first few times one tries it.

This image was also shot at ISO 3200, f2.8, for 30 seconds with a 21mm Distagon in Kenya.

ian408 · June 11, 2013

Another small item that will help is a red flashlight. This helps keep your night vision and allows you to do stuff behind the camera while the shutter is open. And although the days might be warm, it gets chilly at night so don't forget a warm jacket and maybe some gloves too.

All of what Ziggy & Pathfinder have offered will do you well. About the only thing I can add is if you are an iPhone owner, Star Walk is an app that can help you plan your shoot. I don't know if it's available for other platforms. It's useful for planning purposes (as is the Photographer's Ephemeris). The night sky can be viewed to see where and when the MW will rise. Have a look see.

Good luck with your shoot!

ian408 · June 11, 2013

FYI, I merged the two threads.

pathfinder · June 11, 2013

A good compass is handy to have at night as well, to allow one to shoot in a known direction easily.

ian408 · June 11, 2013

pathfinder wrote: »

A good compass is handy to have at night as well, to allow one to shoot in a known direction easily.

Good point Jim. Your smart phone can work as can your car's compass.

Also, the app I mentioned lets you match the sky with the phone which makes getting things lined up a snap.

pathfinder · June 12, 2013

You're right Ian, the compass I am most likely to have with me today is my smart phone; but the new GPS devices that attach to your camera, may include a readout of a digital compass bearing also.

OC57 · June 21, 2013

Hello all;

I'm back from my 4000+ mile road trip and my attempt to shoot the Milky Way at Glacier National Park was thwarted by the brightest half moon I've seen in a while. I was out on a beach at Lake MacDonald all setup on my borrowed tripod with my straight 35 mm lens opened fully and the ISO set to 3200. The camera was in manual mode and the focus was set to infinity. It would have been far more exciting had the half moon not just sat there in the sky providing way too much light. I hung out until near midnight before giving up. It didn't look like the moon was going to cooperate and make its way down to the horizon anytime soon and I didn't want to be out all night since we had one full day coming up to see the remainder of the park. Once I got back home (today), I looked on here and found all of your advice. I think I was on track but I have nothing to show for my time. I did, however, take over 700 images during the trip. I'll be working on them and placing them in my Smugmug area for viewing. I hope I can find something worthy for viewing by such a group of photographers. I mostly just share with family and friends but would love to read comments from those of you who do this for a living. Thank you all for your time and comments. I wish I were more fortunate with my timing. Please, don't tell me that I could have gotten around the big bright moon and captured something amazing. I would be even more disappointed than I am already. I think what I need to do is consult the calendar and see when a new moon will be available and then look for a secluded spot here in Arizona with no light pollution for my next attempt.

ian408 · June 21, 2013

I'll say this and that is any time you get to go on a road trip, it's a good thing. If you weren't able to shoot exactly what you want? It's not that big a deal in the greater context.

Looking forward to seeing some of your work!

OC57 · June 22, 2013

Stars Near San Simeon
Hello all;

During our first night out on the road, we were in San Simeon. I decided to get out of town a little way in hope of being able to shoot the night sky. I wanted to show you the image but the site won't allow me to upload the jpg file as an attachment. I made the image a 4x6 in order to cut down the size but it still errors out when I try to upload it. Suggestions?

ian408 · June 22, 2013

You will find instructions here.

OC57 · June 23, 2013

An attempt to embed an image
After receiving instructions on how this is done, I'm going to embed an image I shot while just north of San Simeon on the eve of June 10th. The provided light was from the various hotels down the road and I thought it made the image more complete. It was shot at ISO 6400, f1.8.

pathfinder · June 23, 2013

Your embedding code looks correct, but I do not see your image.

Are you certain you have your gallery set up to be a public, not a private, gallery? When I take your link from your post and enter it into a browser, I do not see anything either.

OC57 · June 24, 2013

Interesting...
When I went and grabbed the image for the prior response, it showed up on my screen when I pasted the link. I had no idea that it would disappear after I closed out of dgrin. My library is public as you asked but I do protect the images from right click efforts. Is that the problem?

OC57 · June 24, 2013

I see the image
I just logged onto Darin with my iPad and drilled down thought this thread and I saw the image I was trying to show everyone. Why wouldn't you get to see it?

pathfinder · June 24, 2013

I can see images on your website fine that are public, but I still see no image in this thread, nor do I see an image if I copy your image link into a browser window where it should display just fine. Not sure what is going on.

OC57 · June 25, 2013

When I use my iPad on this site, I see the image that I embedded. However, I don't see it when I try to access it via my laptop. Why is that?

OC57 · June 25, 2013

I can see the image when I use my iMac or iPad but I can't see it while using a Windows machine. I find this to be 'odd' to say the least. Still not sure what I may have done to get this all fouled up.

pathfinder · June 25, 2013

Interesting, I cannot see your image on my MacPro tower OS 10.7.5, nor on my iPad with iOS 6.1.3

??

ian408 · June 25, 2013

Looks like you might have shuffled things around in your gallery? I compared the link in your original post with this image. It's different.

Proper setup for night photography

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