I don't pretend to be an expert, I just tend to experiment, but sometimes it's good to have a general direction to follow. Its probably an obvious thing to say, but for shots like these the camera must be set to manual rather than auto. If you're taking a shot of a bright object against the night sky the camera gets a bit confused and tends to over expose.
My camera is a Nikon 5100 DSLR. For any decent shots of the Moon you need a telephoto lens of at least 200 mm. For this shot I used a 300 mm telephoto lens. The exposure time was 1/100 sec , ISO setting 100, and F-stop f 11. It is always best fixed on a tripod with manual focus. If the lens has vibration reduction turn that off. Take the picture using the timer or a remote to avoid unnecessary movement
This shot of a Waning Moon, was again taken with the 300 mm Telephoto. This time the exposure time was 1/200 sec, with the same ISO 100 setting and F-stop f 11 as the half moon shot.
This shot of the Belt of Orion and the Orion Nebula was taken with a 55 mm lens. The exposure time was 2.5 seconds. You've got to strike a balance between a static exposure and the movement of the Earth, otherwise you get star streaks, which for this shot I didn't want. The ISO setting was ISO - 3200, and the F- stop f 5.6
This shot of the Pleiades star cluster was taken with the 300 mm telephoto. The exposure time was 4 seconds, probably a bit too long as the image is just beginning to streak. Again, it's all about striking a balance and experimenting with things. The ISO setting was ISO - 800, and the F-stop f 5.6
Finally, a shot of Jupiter using the 300 mm telephoto. I took this as a bit of an experiment. The planet was bright in the sky and I wanted to see how it would turn out. There's not much detail but you can just make out what I think are some of its larger moons. It had a 2 second exposure time with an ISO 100 and a F-stop f 6.3
Those are very good.
ReplyDeleteGreat shots Scoop! We haven't really tried hard to take star photos, concentrating mostly on moon shots. We're limited by having a 'bridge' camera - a little bit better than lower end point-&-shoots, but not as good as a DSLR. Some day perhaps.
ReplyDeleteYears before digital photography, I took some star shots and the prints weren't very good, but on the negatives, you could clearly see the stars were different colours, which I couldn't tell by looking at them!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Scoop. Im hoping for clear skies so I can put this info to use!
ReplyDeleteTop notch photography my friend!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments guys, always appreciated. I hope the info proves useful, Bill.
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