Help with astrophotography P900

[salukfan111]

Hi all I have some amazing photos of the moon and some average photos of stars. I understand this camera is not primarily set up for astrophotography but I am sure that it can take better photos of stars than I currently am. What would be your recommendation for settings?

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1. shoot off tripod
2. shoot manual
3. use 500 (600) rule. Your built in crop factor might mess you up. Shoot with increasing exposure length to see when the stair trails start and cut that in half. Use that cut in half number to figure what number to divide your focal length into.
4. use prime lens (nikkor 20 f/1.8 set a little lower than 1.8 is really good but there are better - I've found a Tamron 15-30 f/2.8 at 15mm almost as good as nikkor 20mm f/1.8). If you're stuck with some sort of zoom set at minimum.
5. use a high iso (as high as you can). If there is too much ambient light keep your exposure long and reduce iso until the results are exceptable. Your camera will have a iso limit where going above will have a bad effect.
6. use a shutter release.
7. set color temp around 3800-4000K

Dark Sky Finder (there will be a simliar site for your area) dark green will produce acceptable result but blue and gray are what you are really after.

 

[mikew_RIP]

1. shoot off tripod
2. shoot manual
3. use 500 (600) rule. Your built in crop factor might mess you up. Shoot with increasing exposure length to see when the stair trails start and cut that in half. Use that cut in half number to figure what number to divide your focal length into.
4. use prime lens (nikkor 20 f/1.8 set a little lower than 1.8 is really good but there are better - I've found a Tamron 15-30 f/2.8 at 15mm almost as good as nikkor 20mm f/1.8). If you're stuck with some sort of zoom set at minimum.
5. use a high iso (as high as you can). If there is too much ambient light keep your exposure long and reduce iso until the results are exceptable. Your camera will have a iso limit where going above will have a bad effect.
6. use a shutter release.
7. set color temp around 3800-4000K

Dark Sky Finder (there will be a simliar site for your area) dark green will produce acceptable result but blue and gray are what you are really after.

Its a bridge camera,some of those things he could do but not all

 

[salukfan111]

Its a bridge camera,some of those things he could do but not all

He should be able to do almost all of it. I've ran into birders in the field with these camera the iso and color temp can be changed. I bet his pictures will be fine. I'm more worried about any built in crop factor his camera has.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

The whole southern part of Alabama is perfect for astrophotography. Go between mobile and montgomery.
Dark Sky Finder

I have checked dark sky finder and went to the darkest of dark in Alabama at night on a moonless night only to find it is not very dark Utah is what real dark looks like


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[salukfan111]

I have checked dark sky finder and went to the darkest of dark in Alabama at night on a moonless night only to find it is not very dark Utah is what real dark looks like


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So you don't even try unless absolutely perfect? You could easily shoot galaxies, milky, planets etc.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

So you don't even try unless absolutely perfect? You could easily shoot galaxies, milky, planets etc.

I did go to a number of these places and although you can get shots of the milky way they are not that good There is just to much light pollution on this side of the country. There is nothing to compare to being able to go out and stand and look up and see the entire milky way from horizon to horizon

 

[oliaras]

You just don't realize that he can't take a milky way photos with the Nikon P900. This camera has auto limits even at "M" manual shoot.

For example, at ISO 1600 the larger exposure you can choose is 2" and 3.6f aperture.
And at ISO 800, the larger exposure is 4" with 2.8f aperture.
If you choose 15" exposure the higher ISO you can choose is 200 with 2.8f aperture, so the photo you¡ll take is a black background.

You need at least 15", ISO 1600 and 2.8f aperture to take a decent shoot of milky way, and that's not be able with this camera.

 

[Don Kuykendall_RIP]

You just don't realize that he can't take a milky way photos with the Nikon P900. This camera has auto limits even at "M" manual shoot.

For example, at ISO 1600 the larger exposure you can choose is 2" and 3.6f aperture.
And at ISO 800, the larger exposure is 4" with 2.8f aperture.
If you choose 15" exposure the higher ISO you can choose is 200 with 2.8f aperture, so the photo you¡ll take is a black background.

You need at least 15", ISO 1600 and 2.8f aperture to take a decent shoot of milky way, and that's not be able with this camera.

this is very old post. The original poster has not been back since 12-15-2015 11:52 PM

 

[ihatesnow]

If 15 sec is the longest the p900 can do it is not the right camera for shooting stars ........unbelievable the camera was not made to shoot longer exposures

 

[okulo]

My problem has always been focussing. It's manageable if there is a Moon to focus on first but trying to focus on a cold Moonless night is very frustrating. I have similar problems on my D5500 - modern cameras have lots of cool features but I miss genuine manual focus where the focussing ring has proper end stops.

 

[vader]

I'm a new p900 user. I found that using high iso monochrome mode gives you 1/2 second at ISO 12800. This means that you can zoom to the full 1200 without star trails. I got some really good shots of m42 (orion) and crux (southern cross). You could split the double stars, and see the jewel box. In this mode, you can see stars in the viewfinder, so zoom out, put a bright star in the middle, zoom in and focus as you zoom in (whenever the star starts to become a circle). Add a self timer for 10 seconds to stop and wobble on the tripod, disable VR.

This gave some surprisingly good results. You will lose dynamic range, but brighter stars become larger dots, so they still look brighter.

1/2 sec at 12800 = 1 sec at 6400 = .... 64 sec at 100. The camera will only do 15 seconds at 100, so using high iso mode gives over 4 times brighter (if not overexposed) images. Better to do the amplification before JPEG encoding rather than at the computer.

 

[vader]

Here is an example (full image just resized). From my suburban back garden - not very dark. Taken at about half zoom, between the trees.