Hi all
Was looking for some tips on shooting starscapes as I'm off to Peru and will have a great chance to get some good ones. Has anyone any tips -I've searched and can't find that much on it.
Cheers
Edd
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Hi all
Was looking for some tips on shooting starscapes as I'm off to Peru and will have a great chance to get some good ones. Has anyone any tips -I've searched and can't find that much on it.
Cheers
Edd
What camera do you have? I like using ISO 100 to reduce noise, and doing very long exposures. I've since read that doing multiple shorter exposures over the same time period and then stacking them can give better (less noisy) photos however. But, in that case you will have a lot of files on the memory card instead of just one. I usually shoot at whatever the lens is sharpest at, usually ~f/8. On my 20D I would put it on a tripod and have a remote shutter button, set it to bulb time and click the bulb and I'd go to sleep and check the camera in the morning. That would get me about a 2.5 hour exposure before the battery died. I tried doing this on my 7D but the battery lasts a lot longer, so I ended up running into the early morning sky, which washed away the stars. So for my 7D now I set my remote shutter/intervalometer to hold the shutter for about 3 hours.
If you do the multiple exposure things and then stack them afterwards, that also leaves you with the opportunity to create a time lapse. But if you shoot in RAW and take a bunch of exposures with an intervalometer, this is going to use a LOT of space. Also one thing you may run into issues with if the temperature changes a bit during the night is condensation on the front lens element. Also, pay attention to where the north star is (or the southern cross) depending on which hemisphere you will be in, because the stars will appear to rotate about that point, so that will help you compose your shot.
I just realized I don't have any of my starscape photos on my Flickr to give you examples! I'll have to get those off my external drive and uploaded!
Also, one of the main reasons I upgraded from my 20D to my 7D was my hope that I could take less noisy starscapes. With long exposures and my 20D I would get red pixels in many different parts of the image. Not sure what camera you have, but when I first opened my 7D, it had one red pixel when I would take a photo with the lens cap on. I was so mad until I figured out that if you run the "manual sensor cleaning" for a couple minutes and then turn the camera off and back on, it fixes it. If your camera has this feature, make sure to do that.
Cheers Eric, that's a great help and will try have a play before I leave. Also need to remember how to spot the northern star!!! I am shooting with a 450d and will have the 15-85mm on it. Is there a way of getting good starscapes without the light trails is 'freeze the sky' can you get enough light?
The north star is easy, just fine the big dipper, and the two outer stars that form the cup form a line towards the north star. Not sure on the southern cross since I've never lived down there. I suppose when you're really close to the equator that you'll just have to aim north or south to get the rotation point though! http://coolcosmos.ipac.caltech.edu/c.../northstar.gif
If you don't want star trails, you will be limited to about 20 or 30 seconds before the stars start becoming elongated. In that case, use ISO 800 or higher, and open the aperture up. Wide open on the 15-85 should be fine. Give that a go and see how it works for you. It really depends on what time of night it is, and where the moon is, so you'll have to play with it. Make sure to shoot in RAW so that you can increase the exposure if needed! And when you are reviewing images on your camera outside, they will always look brighter than when you go back inside and put it on your computer, so if it looks just right, you should probably expose by one more stop or so! You could play around with light painting the foreground of your composition with a flashlight as well.
You can also read Bryan's tips here : http://www.the-digital-picture.com/P...08-08_21-57-43
A lot of websites go on about post processing of starscapes. Do you usually have to do a lot of this to get decent shots?
I would say no, you don't usually have to unless you want to have the photo look a certain way for your artistic style. The more foreground in your photo the more post processing you'll want to do I would guess. This photo is two stacked images taken back to back, with zero post processing of any kind (and automatic white balance in camera):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ericols...2909/lightbox/
If you shoot at high ISO, then you may need to do some noise reduction. It's tricky with stars though, because to get rid of the noise, you often lose a lot of the faint stars that make the photo look so cool. I've heard that StarTrails is a decent program for stacking multiple exposures, but I have not used it yet.
I think if you get more into looking at nebulae and stuff then most post processing would be needed as well.
Deepskystacker is the one recommended to me by Daniel. It's pretty easy to use, and a quick survey of YouTube should get you the basic knowledge to use it. Later on you can start using dark frames and fancy stuff like that.
For the stacking technique what settings should you be using for each shot to begin with. Sorry very new to this all!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by andnowimbroke
I would prolly ship you over to cloudynights to start with. Good people that won't steer you wrong. Stargazerslounge is another one. It's been so long since I did this stuff, I can't remember whether the settings I remember are the "post-advice" ones or are the ones I made up that made me want to chuck my tripod across the darkened pond.
Ps- Don't be scared when you start seeing a bunch of red pixels. It happens.
Just to let people know, I bought the Shooting Stars eBook and have found it really helpful. My 15-85 has just arrived so stay posted for some shots - hopefully if they're not too bad!!!
I usually shoot in Tv or full M mode with manual focus Samyang glass when I'm shooting start trails. I set the shutter speed to 30s and set the camera up shooting continuously with a remote shutter release that has a switch you can lock. Then I use an application called StarStaX (very simple) to combine the exposures into a single frame and then blend in the foreground from one of the images from the series or from a different exposure that I have taken of the scene before setting the camera to shoot continuously.
Here is one example I took last Monday, click for a little background info in my blog
The lens used was the Samyang 14mm f/2.8 on a 5D3, settings f/5.6, ISO 160 and shutter speed of 30s for as long as the battery holds :)
http://qwrad.files.wordpress.com/201...pg?w=553&h=820
For the final image I used around 220 thirty second exposures taken 15 seconds apart. I was trying my new intervalometer and messed this up, 30s exposures without an interval in between would be better for trails as now there are small gaps in them. Also as this is taken in a city there is lots of light pollution and only the very brightest stars show trails. I have also processed the images (tweaked white balance, contrast, clarity etc.) in Adobe Camera Raw before combining them with StarStaX. After combining I blended in the foreground from one of the later exposures with the fog and from one I took before setting the camera up.
Hope this gives some tips and looking forward to your images!
EDIT: Oh and one more thing you have to do is watch out for planes. The final composite doesn't look very nice when lots of plane light trails zig-zag all over it. You have at least a few options to get rid of plane trails.
A) Just remove the images before combining/stacking that have plane trails in them. This makes gaps in the trails. This is what I have done here as I already have 15s gaps between the images from my settings so the resulting gaps don't matter much.
B) Clonestamp/Healing brush the plane trails away from the images you will use for the composite before StarStaX. This will take time but with CS6 content aware healing brush it is fairly easy. I had about 40 images out of 586 (about 4h45min of 30s exposures) with plane trails on them when I took another star trail image that I'm currently working on and the removal was a bit time consuming but doable.
C) Remove the images and clone/heal the breaks or gaps in the star trails after combining. I haven't done this but it seems much harder in my opinion than removing the plane trails before StarStaX.
Sampsa
Thanks so much for all the tips. The weather here in England has been so bad recently so not a clear sky in sight. I will be trying all of this when the clouds lift. I find the post processing difficult. All that you say about blending in the foreground, I have no idea how to do this!
Thanks, edd
Great shot! Thanks for sharing the details. I would like to try star trails one of these nights.. when it's warmer to stay out late at night and no work the next day. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by qwRad
Quote:
Originally Posted by d0051m
Thank you both for the nice feedback!Quote:
Originally Posted by MrGreenBug
Yeah the weather has been quite grey and dull here too for most of January but lately there has been a couple of clear days which is nice. On clear nights it is a little bit cold though (-22 Celsius or -7.6 Fahrenheit during capturing of the image I posted) but fortunately I can leave the camera on top of my apartment building and sleep in my warm bed while it is doing the hard work. :) Attached is a crappy cell phone image of the camera when I got up to get it back inside around 8 AM after another night on the roof in the same conditions as the posted image was taken in.
I would love to go camping somewhere north of Finland (in Lapland) where there is hardly any light pollution and there would even be a chance to see the northern lights. Should make for interesting night sky images. Maybe if I have the time in February.
As far as blending in the foreground from another shot I just open both images in Photoshop and copy the composite with the star trails as a new layer on top of the image that I want to use for the foreground. Then I apply a simple layer mask to the composite layer where the star trails are and paint over the mask with a low opacity black Brush tool to reveal parts of the image layer below that has the good foreground.
Hope this helps. You should also find plenty of tutorials from web/youtube if you google "working with layers" or "blending layers together in photoshop" or something along those lines.
5D3 with battery grip + Samyang 8mm Fisheye after spending about 10 hours in -20 celcius:
Attachment 1661
Here is the other image (click the image for a larger version or check out the full blog post):
http://qwrad.files.wordpress.com/201...pg?w=582&h=430
Taken with the 5D3, battery grip and Samyang 8mm f/3.5 Fish-eye (built in lens hood removed to make it full frame compatible) combo that you can see in the post before.
Settings were manual focus (obviously since the lens doesn't have AF), ISO 160, f/5,6, 30s.
Total of 583 images of 30 second exposure were captured and they were shot without an interval in between them this time so the battery lasted just under 5 hours in -22 degrees Celsius.
53 of the images were edited before stacking to remove plane trails. All images were also processed in Adobe Camera Raw for white balance and other minor tweaks before stacking. After these tweaks they were stacked using StarStaX.
The foreground was blended into the final image from one of the latest exposures in the sequence in Photoshop. Then some spot removing and final tweaks to color, distortion, sharpening, noise reduction etc. were applied in Lightroom before exporting for web.
Hope you like it. Any feedback and tips welcome and thanks for viewing!
Hi All, finally got out last night to give it a try. Realised North Wales is not as dark as first thought!!! Any comments on image capture and suggestions for post processing would be gratefully received. All were taken at 15mm, ISO1600, f3.5, 30sec. Post processing all I have done is reduced the temperature. Thanks, Edd
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8097/8...721fea59_z.jpg
IMG_2523 by edd.jones, on Flickr
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8384/8...1c5b93d6_z.jpg
IMG_2519 by edd.jones, on Flickr
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8516/8...b54295b0_z.jpg
IMG_2525 by edd.jones, on Flickr
There are some great tips above. When ever I have a Do It Yourself Project, I often go to Flickr and see what others have posted about techniques. Many share their "secret sauce" and can us save a bunch of time to get the desired look. Good luck and do post some of the keepers! Erno
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=mono%20milky%20way
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jpn/4799129509/
Finally got good enough weather to give it a go! Here are the results, ant thoughts?
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8248/8...4a4039a155.jpg
St Asaph 2 Stacked by edd.jones, on Flickr
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8262/8...00cb631ae8.jpg
IMG_2600.JPGbw by edd.jones, on Flickr
A few thoughts from me.
In the first picture, I like the exposure, and the distant light from the city. However, I think that it would be nicer with a wider angle on the sky to get it more like picture 2. In picture 2, I like the use of wide angle, and the tree in front, but the sky is a bit bright to me (at least on my screen). Darker mid-tones might give the image a more dramatic look. However, I like that you have tried B/W. If the sky was darker, I think B/W would create a "spooky" atmosphere in this image. Perhaps a tiny bit more foreground as well.
Lars
I finally got around to trying my hand at this.
Tokina 11-16 @ 16mm, f/2.8, ISO 100, 20 second shutter speed.
Portsmouth Naval Prison, Portsmouth, NH
http://i.minus.com/im5cLR7YqDFme.jpg