This week, I'll be showing you how to shoot the stars.(music)
Shooting the stars or astrophotography is a very specialist side to photography.
As there is very little light about, your camera needs to be really good in low light,
and you need a really fast lens.
So basically one with a really big aperture.
I took my first astrophotography picture with a canon 350d with the sigma 10-20mm.
Now I shoot with a sony A7rii.
I use two different lenses, the Samyang 14mm f2.8, it's surprisingly sharp for a lower end, budget lens
everything is manual which is actually really good.
You can set the focus and the aperture just by shining a light on it,
you don't even have to turn your camera on.
the second lens I use is the Zeiss Batis 25mm f2, this is a really clear concise lens,
it takes beautiful photographs.
It is on the pricier end, but the more you get into photography, the more you'll want
to spend all of your money on gear!
If you are shooting with a crop sensor, I'd get something like a 10-20mm lens.
You can get lots of stars in the shot, you can also zoom in to 20mm to get a slightly
tighter shot, so it gives you a lot of flexibility.
So these are the steps:
1. get your camera on a good sturdy tripod
2. turn the mode dial to manual
3. Set the drive mode to the self timer (s seconds)
4. turn off image stabilisation in both the lens and the body
5. Change your white balance to tungsten (indoor or incandescent)
6. zoom out as wide as possible
7. Select manual focus
If you have markings on your lens to show you where to focus,
focus to infinity, if you don't have markings on your lens, switch on live mode.
find a bright star or a light on the horizon and use the magnify button to zoom in on it,
then use the manual focus ring to get a clean image.
You may have to take a few images and check the focussing....and change if necessary to get a good image.
This is why lenses with a marker are better.
You can see when the lens is at infinity.
Then keep the focus in manual and try not to touch or knock it.
9. Set your ISO to about 10,000
10. Set your aperture as wide as possible
11. Set your shutter speed to about 4-6 seconds and take a shot.
Depending on there moonlight and any ambient light from cities nearby,
your shot might be overexposed with these settings,
if it is, bring down your shutter speed.
This first step is mearly to find a pleasing composition, so you're saving time by having
a high ISO and a low shutter speed.
so ISO high, shutter speed low, take the photo and check the composition.
If it is not good, move the camera, repeat this process until you're happy with the composition.
Once you've got a good composition and exposure, start bringing the ISO down
and your shutter speed up,
just don't take your shutter speed up to much though,
otherwise the stars will start to steak from the rotation of the earth.
unless that's the look you're going for, then get them streaking as far as possible.
There iso a rule called the 600 rule, basically you take your focal length
and divid 600 by your focal length,
this will give you the amount of seconds you can leave your shutter open,
before the stars start to streak.
This is slightly different when it comes to APS-C, it is known as the 400 rule.
If you're shooting on an APS-C sensor, divide 400 by the focal length, that will give you
a maximum shutter speed.
So if you're on a kit lens at 18mm, you'll want a maximum shutter speed of about 22 seconds.
I'd probably keep it to about 20 seconds.
If you are using a full frame camera, divide 600 by the focal length.
Then it's just a case of coming up with interesting compositions and following the patterns of
the moon and the stars to see what might give you an interesting sky.
Sometimes if the ambient light is really bright, you'll have to drop the ISO,
but not too much to lose the starts, so you're sometimes battling with the light coming off the ground
and the light coming in from the stars.
If you do some research on line, you'll see that people really get into this
and it can get quite expensive.
I tend to keep it to just a wide lens, I try and get the milkyway with some moonlight,
or just a nice interesting sky full of stars.
Normally if you go out with a full moon,
a lot of the stars will get bleached out by the bright moon light.
I use an app called photopills,
it shows me where the milkyway is going to be at any given time of the year,
it shows me where the moon is, what cycle it is in,
also where the sun is.
It's really good, it's just got so many different aspects to it, I use it all the time.
I'm not sponsored by photopills, but I love it, I use it all the time and it helps me
so much.
So that's about it, there are a lot of steps in this and it does take while to get used to,
but if you stick at it, you can get some amazing shots.
If you need to see the information written down and print out these steps, go to my blog
at boxheadmike.com, there I'll have a list of these steps and how to go through them.
I hope this has helped you and your astrophotography and motivated you to get out there and start
shooting more, ultimately this is the only way you will get better.
As always if you like what you see, give me a thumbs up, if you didn't give me a thumbs
down and for weekly tutorials hints and tips in photography, subscribe and turn on notifications.
And if you've got any hints or tips about astrophotography or about shooting the stars
differently, leave a comment below or send me an email.....I'll see you in the next one.