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<blockquote data-quote="Wahugg" data-source="post: 75166" data-attributes="member: 10685"><p><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px">-<strong>ISO</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000">----- ISO refers to how sensitive your sensor will be to light. Normally in the day time we use a lower ISO because there is plenty of light, but this is not the case at night. The bad thing about making the ISO higher is that it makes ALOT more noise present in the picture, but without a high ISO a good night sky picture will not be possible. We'll come back to this noise issue in just a little bit.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px">-<strong>Aperture</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000">----- Aperture refers to how big the diaphragm is currently in the lens.The diaphragm roughly limits how much light enters your lens. Since we want to let as much light from the stars in as possible, we open it up all the way. Ideally it will be around 1.8f to 2.8f, but 3.5f is acceptable. Anything less than 3.5f is real hard to work with.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px">-<strong>Exposure time</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000">-----30 seconds may seem like too long to some, and too short to others. Well 30 seconds is what I find works the best most of the time. Sometimes if the stars are exceptionally bright, I will tune it down to 25 or 20 seconds, but never less. These stars are pretty dim having traveled thousands of light years to get to us, so more time never hurt anyone. But if you go above 30 seconds or if you make your focal length longer then 20mm then you might notice the stars streaking across the sky. Some people like this, I do not. To counter act the streaking, simply tune back the </span></span></span>exposure</span><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"> time a bit.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px">-<strong>Turn off Vibration Reduction systems</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000">----- Why do this? We don't want vibrations, but the VR system actually can mess up BADLY when it is extremely dark out (just like AF). It will get confused and try to shift the lens to counter act non-existent motion, which it turn causes real life blurs in our picture. So turn that baby off.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px">-<strong>Turn on a 2 second time delay</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000">----- We do this to help reduce vibrations. By putting the timer on, we give the camera a few seconds to stop any vibrations or movements caused by pushing the shutter button. You’re already waiting 30 seconds, so 2 more aren’t going to hurt.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><strong>-Turn ON delay shutter release</strong></span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">----- Shutter delay is just another way to help reduce vibrations in the camera. Normally when you hit the release button, the mirror flips up (the loud click you hear and feel) and the second the camera registers the mirror in the up position it takes a picture. This causes vibrations to some degree. When the delay shutter mode is enabled, the camera waits 3/4th of a second before it starts to record the image. This allows any residual vibrations from the mirror to subside. Just imagine if you threw a baseball at a wall. If your hand was on that same wall you could feel the thunk and vibrations of the baseball hitting the wall. Well if you waited for the baseball to hit the wall, then put your hand on the wall you would feel nothing. Same concept with the camera, but with the mirror assembly hitting the internal stops instead of the baseball hitting the wall.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">-<strong>Turn off auto focus and focus it manually</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">----- It's a well known fact that the AF will not work in the dark. Manually focusing stars can be hard, but there is a simple way to do this. Zoom your lens on the brightest star and focus on that till it's not blurry. Then zoom back out to a focal length equal or less then 20mm. That's all there is to it.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">-<strong>Make your focal point as small as possible</strong>:</span></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">----- The longer your focal point, the less time your exposure can be before streaking occurs. Since we are trying to use 30 seconds as our exposure time, we are limited to a 20mm focal length. Also it's nice to add things into your photo by making your focal point nice and small.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">-<strong>Turn off auto white balance</strong></span></span><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"> (If your shooting in RAW this won't matter, but if you’re using JPEG turn it from auto to florescent for now):</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">-----If you’re not shooting in RAW then you should. Really! You can change the white balance settings later to ANYTHING you want in Lightroom or any other good photo editing software. This way you can make your picture look as good as possible. But I understand not everyone wants to shoot in RAW. If that's the case I have found florescent to make the best, most natural looking images.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Read over that all one more time to make sure you have everything strait. Now here is some more stuff!!! Yay!! But this is actually really important.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-size: 18px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"><strong>ISO VS Exposure time VS Aperture</strong></span></span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">The ultimate goal of Astrophotography is to take a picture as fast as possible without compromising the details of the photo. So we want to cram as much light from the stars into the lens as possible to turn the exposure time down. This can be achieved by making the ISO higher, and by opening the Aperture more. **Always remember that the smaller the aperture number, the better it will be for you. This is absolutely no draw back to using a 1.8f over a 2.8f other than getting more light into the camera, which is good! However, there is a huge draw back by increasing the ISO. Doing this makes the camera more sensitive to light, but it also introduces noise.....badly. But at the same time, it allows us to decrease our exposure time, allowing us to save battery and take more photos. However, decreasing the exposure time does not significantly reduce the noise levels.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Therefore we must find an equilibrium of sorts. The point where the (ISO level) noise is not too much, and the exposure time is not to long all while making sure the camera is getting enough light to make sure the stars show. </span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Unfortunately on my D60 I didn't have this luxury of decreasing the exposure time that much. The sensor in the D60 is not the best, and limits me to a real ISO of 1600 and an extended ISO of 3200. In reality I need an ISO of around 4000 to 5000. 1600 ISO does not capture enough of the stars light, and the 3200 was often grainy (since it's not a true 3200) but it let enough light in. Keep in mind this is all with the exposure time at 30 seconds. On your camera it might be different, but this is my experience.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Well how do we take nice photos? </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Once you find your ideal shot, start to dial back the ISO to an acceptable level of noise. You will not eliminate noise completely no matter what you do, but try to minimize it. Then start to dial back the exposure time till a good picture is produced.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Hopefully by now you start to see the correlation between ISO and exposure time. If not, then the best way is to go out and shoot on your own. Also keep in mind, editing go a long way with night shots. Also a little bit of luck is needed! </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Once again take a breather and go back over everything. It may be confusing, but I swear once you go out and start changing settings on your own, you will begin to understand how everything ties into everything else.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'"></span></span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Also please keep in mind that this article will change over time as I evolve skill wise and equipment wise. All of the pictures in this article were made with a D60, and I now have a D5100 and a D600 so the rules have changed dramatically which I will incorporate over time.</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">If you have any questions please post them, and I will try to answer them</span></span></span></span></p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="font-size: 12px"><span style="color: #000000"><span style="font-family: 'comic sans ms'">Keep on shooting!</span></span></span></span></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Wahugg, post: 75166, member: 10685"] [FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5]-[B]ISO[/B]:[/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000]----- ISO refers to how sensitive your sensor will be to light. Normally in the day time we use a lower ISO because there is plenty of light, but this is not the case at night. The bad thing about making the ISO higher is that it makes ALOT more noise present in the picture, but without a high ISO a good night sky picture will not be possible. We'll come back to this noise issue in just a little bit.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5]-[B]Aperture[/B]:[/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000]----- Aperture refers to how big the diaphragm is currently in the lens.The diaphragm roughly limits how much light enters your lens. Since we want to let as much light from the stars in as possible, we open it up all the way. Ideally it will be around 1.8f to 2.8f, but 3.5f is acceptable. Anything less than 3.5f is real hard to work with.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE][/FONT] [FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5]-[B]Exposure time[/B]:[/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000]-----30 seconds may seem like too long to some, and too short to others. Well 30 seconds is what I find works the best most of the time. Sometimes if the stars are exceptionally bright, I will tune it down to 25 or 20 seconds, but never less. These stars are pretty dim having traveled thousands of light years to get to us, so more time never hurt anyone. But if you go above 30 seconds or if you make your focal length longer then 20mm then you might notice the stars streaking across the sky. Some people like this, I do not. To counter act the streaking, simply tune back the [/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE]exposure[/FONT][SIZE=3][FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000] time a bit.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5]-[B]Turn off Vibration Reduction systems[/B]:[/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000]----- Why do this? We don't want vibrations, but the VR system actually can mess up BADLY when it is extremely dark out (just like AF). It will get confused and try to shift the lens to counter act non-existent motion, which it turn causes real life blurs in our picture. So turn that baby off.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5]-[B]Turn on a 2 second time delay[/B]:[/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][FONT=comic sans ms][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000]----- We do this to help reduce vibrations. By putting the timer on, we give the camera a few seconds to stop any vibrations or movements caused by pushing the shutter button. You’re already waiting 30 seconds, so 2 more aren’t going to hurt.[/COLOR][/SIZE][/FONT] [SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5][FONT=comic sans ms][B]-Turn ON delay shutter release[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]----- Shutter delay is just another way to help reduce vibrations in the camera. Normally when you hit the release button, the mirror flips up (the loud click you hear and feel) and the second the camera registers the mirror in the up position it takes a picture. This causes vibrations to some degree. When the delay shutter mode is enabled, the camera waits 3/4th of a second before it starts to record the image. This allows any residual vibrations from the mirror to subside. Just imagine if you threw a baseball at a wall. If your hand was on that same wall you could feel the thunk and vibrations of the baseball hitting the wall. Well if you waited for the baseball to hit the wall, then put your hand on the wall you would feel nothing. Same concept with the camera, but with the mirror assembly hitting the internal stops instead of the baseball hitting the wall.[/FONT] [SIZE=5][FONT=comic sans ms]-[B]Turn off auto focus and focus it manually[/B]:[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]----- It's a well known fact that the AF will not work in the dark. Manually focusing stars can be hard, but there is a simple way to do this. Zoom your lens on the brightest star and focus on that till it's not blurry. Then zoom back out to a focal length equal or less then 20mm. That's all there is to it.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5][FONT=comic sans ms]-[B]Make your focal point as small as possible[/B]:[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]----- The longer your focal point, the less time your exposure can be before streaking occurs. Since we are trying to use 30 seconds as our exposure time, we are limited to a 20mm focal length. Also it's nice to add things into your photo by making your focal point nice and small.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5][FONT=comic sans ms]-[B]Turn off auto white balance[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][FONT=comic sans ms] (If your shooting in RAW this won't matter, but if you’re using JPEG turn it from auto to florescent for now):[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]-----If you’re not shooting in RAW then you should. Really! You can change the white balance settings later to ANYTHING you want in Lightroom or any other good photo editing software. This way you can make your picture look as good as possible. But I understand not everyone wants to shoot in RAW. If that's the case I have found florescent to make the best, most natural looking images.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]Read over that all one more time to make sure you have everything strait. Now here is some more stuff!!! Yay!! But this is actually really important.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][SIZE=5][FONT=comic sans ms][B]ISO VS Exposure time VS Aperture[/B][/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]The ultimate goal of Astrophotography is to take a picture as fast as possible without compromising the details of the photo. So we want to cram as much light from the stars into the lens as possible to turn the exposure time down. This can be achieved by making the ISO higher, and by opening the Aperture more. **Always remember that the smaller the aperture number, the better it will be for you. This is absolutely no draw back to using a 1.8f over a 2.8f other than getting more light into the camera, which is good! However, there is a huge draw back by increasing the ISO. Doing this makes the camera more sensitive to light, but it also introduces noise.....badly. But at the same time, it allows us to decrease our exposure time, allowing us to save battery and take more photos. However, decreasing the exposure time does not significantly reduce the noise levels.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]Therefore we must find an equilibrium of sorts. The point where the (ISO level) noise is not too much, and the exposure time is not to long all while making sure the camera is getting enough light to make sure the stars show. [/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]Unfortunately on my D60 I didn't have this luxury of decreasing the exposure time that much. The sensor in the D60 is not the best, and limits me to a real ISO of 1600 and an extended ISO of 3200. In reality I need an ISO of around 4000 to 5000. 1600 ISO does not capture enough of the stars light, and the 3200 was often grainy (since it's not a true 3200) but it let enough light in. Keep in mind this is all with the exposure time at 30 seconds. On your camera it might be different, but this is my experience. Well how do we take nice photos? [/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][FONT=comic sans ms]Once you find your ideal shot, start to dial back the ISO to an acceptable level of noise. You will not eliminate noise completely no matter what you do, but try to minimize it. Then start to dial back the exposure time till a good picture is produced. Hopefully by now you start to see the correlation between ISO and exposure time. If not, then the best way is to go out and shoot on your own. Also keep in mind, editing go a long way with night shots. Also a little bit of luck is needed! [/FONT] [SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000] [FONT=comic sans ms]Once again take a breather and go back over everything. It may be confusing, but I swear once you go out and start changing settings on your own, you will begin to understand how everything ties into everything else. Also please keep in mind that this article will change over time as I evolve skill wise and equipment wise. All of the pictures in this article were made with a D60, and I now have a D5100 and a D600 so the rules have changed dramatically which I will incorporate over time.[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]If you have any questions please post them, and I will try to answer them[/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [SIZE=3][SIZE=3][COLOR=#000000][FONT=comic sans ms]Keep on shooting![/FONT][/COLOR][/SIZE][/SIZE] [/QUOTE]
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