First serious-ish shots - Nightscapes

[_Jimmy (Loren James)]

Hi All,

Here's a couple of shots from my first serious-ish go at astrophotography- nightscapes, a few weeks ago taken out near York/Beverley in Western Australia.

I tell you, you can only read up so much before you have to get out there and actually try with what you have and find out what you can do. And you learn a hell of a lot.

Deets - the images were shot as-
Camera - Canon 70d
ISO - 6400
F 3.5 (lowest the lens was capable)
Exp - 25 second (red house and panorama) 30 seconds inside
FL - 16mm (@10mm on a crop sensor)

The panorama was 12 images. The glow to the right is Perth some 113 kilometres away.

Obvious lens distortion in the corners. ISO was a bit high with these and so they are a bit noisy, but I tend to over do things first and work backwards. i.e. have not done it on this serious level before and not sure what to expect I wanted to come back with something. Will definitely revisit the site at some point!

My lesson from newbie to another- if you haven't gone out yet, just get out there and get some photos with what ever you have. You will learn more in one night than several reading about what to buy and techniques on the web.

-Jim.

[blink138 (Pat)]

very nice mate and you are correct about just getting out
pat

[langman78 (Ben)]

Great shots Jim.
What focusing technique did you use?
Just curious as I'm yet to attempt capturing similar pics with a building/structure in the frame.
I found a old windmill in my travels which would look fantastic for star trails as it is positioned rather nicely due south and I'm a bit undecided about my focusing procedure.
Past photos I've just found a bright star. Picked my desired FL, switched to live view and zeroed my focus until a nice sharp star appeared. Quite basic I know but not sure about including a structure to get everything relatively focused in a single frame or stacked frames for trails.
I know shining a torch on a desired structure and switching to auto focus is s method I've read online ppl use but I don't see how you could achieve sharp stars in the background.

[Constant (David)]

Great stuff!

[CJ (Chris)]

Very nice! What lens were you using?

[_Jimmy (Loren James)]

Originally Posted by blink138

very nice mate and you are correct about just getting out
pat

Originally Posted by Constant

Great stuff!

Thanks guys! Was a great night out, really enjoyed it!

Originally Posted by langman78

Great shots Jim.
What focusing technique did you use?
Just curious as I'm yet to attempt capturing similar pics with a building/structure in the frame.
I found a old windmill in my travels which would look fantastic for star trails as it is positioned rather nicely due south and I'm a bit undecided about my focusing procedure.
Past photos I've just found a bright star. Picked my desired FL, switched to live view and zeroed my focus until a nice sharp star appeared. Quite basic I know but not sure about including a structure to get everything relatively focused in a single frame or stacked frames for trails.
I know shining a torch on a desired structure and switching to auto focus is s method I've read online ppl use but I don't see how you could achieve sharp stars in the background.

I didn't do it here, got a bit excited and carried away , but one method I've seen is shoot your stars, then shoot your foreground, combine the relative parts in Photoshop.

So, you star focusing seems fine, if you aren't maybe include zooming in on live view to a bright star then focusing.

For the building, frame your shot, just do a practice one that has the building and make sure its framed how you want, shoot your star trails, then reset the shot and shoot the foreground/building in focus for how you want that to appear, this would be when you also do anything artistic with the building such as additional lighting if desired, and combine the two in Photoshop once you've had some sleep!

So, I'm keen on trying this out properly next time I go out!

Originally Posted by CJ

Very nice! What lens were you using?

The lens was a Sigma 10-20mm EX DC 3.5. I found it's not a bad lens, but it does have some obvious distortion around the corners that I had to work out as best I could. I've been looking into the Rokinon/Samyang wide angles for these shots as they seem to have a fairly good rep for this kind of work.