Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian W
Nevertheless this will all come together in time.  |
Yep, practice make perfect and all that. There's no One thing that will fix your imagine problems. And budget also impacts possibilities too. But you CAN image with ANY camera on a tripod, you're just limiting the capabilities and it forces you to comprehend what the limitations mean in practice and sometimes find ways around them.
Think of an astrophoto as a two part problem. First part is the capturing side (camera, tripod, filters, etc) and second part is processing in software. Both parts can be as simple or as complex as you want but still YOU need to operate both well. Too many people think buying a particular camera or piece of software will just magically make all their astrophotos look like NASA took them. It takes skill and patience and many people can't get that through their thick skulls.
So any little thing you can do in any part of the process adds to a gain in the final image. Don't be afraid either to sit through tutorial videos even if you dont have similar gear or software. I've learnt heaps from just seeing and hearing how others approach a common problem and have been able to adapt my own version to what I have and use.
My earlier suggestion of finding exposure limit before streaking, increase iso etc Got me to a set of manual settings for my camera as they dont change, unless I'm shooting the moon. They basically will just always work no matter where in the sky I point the camera.
Additional hints, I use a pistol grip ball head on my tripod so its easy to point and adjust framing orientation for me one handed. It never slips and works well. if you can hang a heavy weight under the center pole of your tripod too as this can help dampen vibrations from the ground or sudden breezes. I also use the lens hood on my lens for the same reason you'd use it during the day: keep unwanted stray light reaching the front lens element and adding extra unwanted light to the shot.
Just get out there and capture data, Its easy to get distracted by going after targets and doing everything at once. But I found it best to ignore all that, when I go outside its with a purpose, starting out you choose a different purpose each night. It works out better than trying 20 different things in one night as you're not efficiently refining towards the best your gear can do. Thats another factor NO two cameras/lenses are perfectly identical in performance and they are all subject to differences in temperature/humidity so don't get hung up on using someones elses settings and expect the same results on your gear, maybe use them as starting points (like the 500 rule) and YOU refine from there to find what works best for you to YOUR level of acceptability with the image.
Find settings that will maximise signal capture and a processing workflow to take that data and give you a single final image. then its a lifetime of refining. once you have camera settings that will work regardless of where in the sky you point the camera, then use them always, and you can be confident of being able to just grab your gear and take it outside anytime to grab shots so you make better use of your time outside. Next I started to go after targets, check cloud cover and stellarium to see whats in the sky and go try to shoot it. Then I got familiar with doing that quickly and getting my camera pointed at what I wanted and started hunting comets which I couldn't see, but the software told me were there. Skill and confidence grows together. And when I find out about something rare in the sky "right now" theres no messing around, if the skies are clear and its in a visible part of the sky I can grab my gear and get out and start shooting quickly. Some nights I just go outside and shoot anyway to capture data. Some other time when the weather is bad and I have the time I can process the data.
