Astrophotography - Which lens

Hi,

I was just reading about Astrophotography and i'm really fascinated about it. I'm not in a position to invest more on lenses. At least for now.

From what i learned so far, I'm hoping that the following two lenses may help. i need your opinion about which is best.

1. sigma 10-20mm 3.5
2. Nikon 35mm 1.8G

Your help will be much appreciated.

I can't help you in this except to point you to an article I just saw about Astrophotography using an 810A camera. I didn't read it, but did skim it and it talks about lenses, etc. It may help.

Landscape Astrophotography with the Nikon D810A: High ISO Performance to Reach the Stars - Image Chaser

It all depends on what you want to shoot


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would go with the faster of the 2. Both of those lens' are only going to be good for getting the Magellan clouds of the milky way or star trails.

To get these - you need

For milky way
1) A dark night.
2) No moon, or very little moon.
3) No clouds
4) Tripod
5) ISO between 800 - 3200 depending on how dark it is and how visible the milky way is to the naked eye
6) Lowest f stop you can get
7) Shutter speed of between 15 - 30 seconds
8) Cable release

For star trails
ISO can drop - and set camera to bulb and hold shutter open for up to as long as you like.

SJD said:

Hi,

I was just reading about Astrophotography and i'm really fascinated about it. I'm not in a position to invest more on lenses. At least for now.

From what i learned so far, I'm hoping that the following two lenses may help. i need your opinion about which is best.

1. sigma 10-20mm 3.5
2. Nikon 35mm 1.8G

Your help will be much appreciated.

Click to expand...

Personally I find the 35mm a bit narrow for night skies and the shutter speed is rather limited for that length. I have to limit them to faster than 10 seconds else my stars start to trail. The 10-20mm might work better in terms of shutter speed, especially at the short end but the aperture works against you in terms of light gathering and live-view focusing.

If you already own both lenses, experiment with them and see what works best for the shots you have in mind.

Two lenses that are often used for night skies are the Samyang (Rokinon) 24mm f/1.4 and the 14mm f/2.8. They're not too expensive so if this sort of photography interests you, you might check them out if you decide to get another lens in the future.

Yes I already own both those lenses. I will also do some research about Rokinon lenses.

SJD said:

Yes I already own both those lenses. I will also do some research about Rokinon lenses.

Click to expand...

Here's a review on the 24mm:

Into The Night Photography: Rokinon 24mm f/1.4 Review

He's a Canon shooter but the lens is identical for both. It's only manual focus for Nikon, contrary to Canon, for us aperture and all works automatically.

Unfortunately the "central asia" map cuts right through my country and I'm mostly in the lower part of it. Is there any other source.

There's this one but it doesn't reveal as much:

Blue Marble Navigator - Night Lights 2012

There might be other maps out there.

I agree with some of the other comments . 35mm is not really wide enough to get a big sky especially on a DX body.

Even a 24mm is still too narrow.

You need to go as wide and fast as you can to get the really good shots.

The manual focus Rokinon lenses are popular for this application. You can get a 14 or 16mm f/2 or 2.8 for $400 or less.