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Nikon DSLR Cameras
D3200
Night sky pictures - how to focus?
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<blockquote data-quote="sOnIc" data-source="post: 190848" data-attributes="member: 15861"><p>Myself, I recommend you find one of the brightest stars in the sky (Vega in the Summer, UK, or Sirius in the Winter - the most obvious bright star you can see) and zoom the lens in; say 55mm for the kit lens, this allows you to manually focus on that bright star with great accuracy, then zoom back out and compose your shot, being careful to not mess up your focus. As the lens gets colder it might move a tiny bit; so its worth checking the focus occasionally during a session to be safe. I do have a right-angle 2x viewfinder extension as well but I rarely need to use it, it maybe useful if there are bright lights around and you cannot dark adapt your eyes enough to see; or you have less-than-ideal eye-sight.</p><p></p><p>Live view is a good idea; but it will destroy your dark adapted night vision - likewise using a star-map app on your mobile phone; even in red mode; will completely ruin your dark-adapted eyes. By this I mean that for viewing the night sky you want at least 10 minutes of darkness to get your eyes adjusted; looking at any form of backlit screen will put you back to square one.</p><p></p><p>EDIT: Before somebody points this out - of-course this does not help if you're using a prime lens; I'll worry about that when I get one .. but thankfully the thread was about the kit lens!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="sOnIc, post: 190848, member: 15861"] Myself, I recommend you find one of the brightest stars in the sky (Vega in the Summer, UK, or Sirius in the Winter - the most obvious bright star you can see) and zoom the lens in; say 55mm for the kit lens, this allows you to manually focus on that bright star with great accuracy, then zoom back out and compose your shot, being careful to not mess up your focus. As the lens gets colder it might move a tiny bit; so its worth checking the focus occasionally during a session to be safe. I do have a right-angle 2x viewfinder extension as well but I rarely need to use it, it maybe useful if there are bright lights around and you cannot dark adapt your eyes enough to see; or you have less-than-ideal eye-sight. Live view is a good idea; but it will destroy your dark adapted night vision - likewise using a star-map app on your mobile phone; even in red mode; will completely ruin your dark-adapted eyes. By this I mean that for viewing the night sky you want at least 10 minutes of darkness to get your eyes adjusted; looking at any form of backlit screen will put you back to square one. EDIT: Before somebody points this out - of-course this does not help if you're using a prime lens; I'll worry about that when I get one .. but thankfully the thread was about the kit lens! [/QUOTE]
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Nikon DSLR Cameras
D3200
Night sky pictures - how to focus?
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