stars photography

[Trustmeimadoctor]

hi any tips for photographing the stars
i took this last night im sure i could have gone shorter exposure to get it a little neater

f2.6 16mm iso3200

[DibblyDobbler]

Looks good to me - 25 seconds was maybe pushing it a wee bit (you know about the 'rule of 500' I guess?)

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Tried so more last night all oof yet all at the infinity mark on the display it's the Fuji 18-55 f2.8 and has focus by wire any easy way to see if it's in focus when you can't see st?

[GravelBen]

One option is to pre-focus on something far away but light enough to see.

It might be focussing past infinity, with the depth of field on wide-ish lens at long distance you should be able to focus well short of infinity and have stars in focus.

Edited by GravelBen on Thursday 17th September 10:05

[DibblyDobbler]

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Ha will try again looks like it will be a lovely night Again

Any direction better than others for an interesting sky

[mikeveal]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Any direction better than others for an interesting sky

Up?

[Trustmeimadoctor]

That's where I was going wrong!

[Trustmeimadoctor]

another attempt milky way this time strugling to get focus again might try a rokinon uwa see if i can do better the focus by wire is annoying

[GravelBen]

Tried shining a torch on the tree to AF on it and leaving focus set there?

[RobDickinson]

What lens?

Some are just hard to focus, ramp the ISO way up and use live view zoomed in as much as possible on a bright star

[Trustmeimadoctor]

It's a Fuji 16-55 2.8 great lens normally

[pherlopolus]

with lens that have a manual focusing ring I put a line with a white correction pen to mark appropriate infinity. On my kit lens I have mark at 3 zoom points

[mikeveal]

For focusing, try a Bahtinov mask. You can cut your own from a piece of card, there are several generators on line.
I've yet to have a play, but from what I've read, at camera lens focal lengths, the generators will create a mask that is too fine to be hand cut. Don't worry about making a fine mask, just fix the generator's minimum size to (say) 5mm.
You'll need to zoom right in on a star to focus.

I'm planning to print and cut one this afternoon.

Edit: Found this the other day. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuMZG-SyDCU It's very dry and very long, but equally as informative.

Edited by mikeveal on Friday 18th September 14:06

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Back home now but will try to get somewhere dark again soon. Going to arizon early next year so that could be a very good option tbh if I'd taken the laptop with me I could have checked focus on there but I didnt

[shed driver]

DibblyDobbler said:

Looks good to me - 25 seconds was maybe pushing it a wee bit (you know about the 'rule of 500' I guess?)

I bought one of these - http://www.skywatcher.com/product/star-adventurer/ about 4 years ago. I've not used it much, but I've had a Canon 5d3 and a 100-400 f/4-5.6 on it. It needs a pretty good tripod to hold it as it does weigh a fair bit.

I really need to get out and about to use it properly. Does anyone have any experience of using them?

SD.

[The Moose]

shed driver said:

DibblyDobbler said:

Looks good to me - 25 seconds was maybe pushing it a wee bit (you know about the 'rule of 500' I guess?)

I bought one of these - http://www.skywatcher.com/product/star-adventurer/ about 4 years ago. I've not used it much, but I've had a Canon 5d3 and a 100-400 f/4-5.6 on it. It needs a pretty good tripod to hold it as it does weigh a fair bit.

I really need to get out and about to use it properly. Does anyone have any experience of using them?

SD.

I started to go down that route but found it got pretty expensive pretty quick!

[Simpo Two]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Tried so more last night all oof yet all at the infinity mark on the display it's the Fuji 18-55 f2.8 and has focus by wire any easy way to see if it's in focus when you can't see st?

1) Usually you need to turn it to infinity then back a bit. Trial and error really.

2) Take a photo. Check focus. Adjust and repeat until it's as sharp as possible.

3) Note that at big apertures images can look soft even if in focus.

[DavidY]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

It's a Fuji 16-55 2.8 great lens normally

pherlopolus said:

with lens that have a manual focusing ring I put a line with a white correction pen to mark appropriate infinity. On my kit lens I have mark at 3 zoom points

Its a fly-by-wire focus lens so this won't work, you can focus it manually though

BTW the Rokinon/Samyang 12mm Fuji Fit lens definitely focuses past infinity giving a softer image

[Trustmeimadoctor]

Tbh I just need to practice slot look ok on the phone and web if not full res obviously