Shooting for the stars.
A practical guide to capturing the night time skies with your camera.
Going out in the middle of the night to do photography might sound like a stretch for many. There are so many other nice things to do in the night - like for example sleeping. What is it to photograph during the night anyhow?
With the right technique, patience and some good planning you can create magnificent imagery during the night. I am particularly fond of the night sky and the Milky Way. There is something about being able to capture something that individually are so small but together paints a very appealing picture. This article will focus on a few tips and techniques for capturing the beauty of the heavenly body.
The gear
You will need a couple of items for this kind of photography and the most important piece of equipment is a tripod. You will be using long shutter speeds and the objects you are photographing are very far away. Even the slightest movement of the camera will make an impact on the overall result.
The second most important piece is the lens. You do not need the most expensive lens but a lens that allows a lot of light through, also referred to as a fast lens - will give you better results. The amount of light in the night is obviously low and lenses with a low f-stop value will allow you to extract more light while still maintaining a lower ISO value which reduces the amount of noise in the image. One can of course argue that it is possible to use noise reduction to reduce the ISO noise but unfortunately the stars will also be interpreted as noise and removed or reduced by the filters.
You will need a camera capable of long shutter speeds at least up to 30 second exposure times. A full frame camera will provide better results but is not a must. Many modern cameras are capable of capturing the night sky handsomely. I do recommend though to disable or turn off the in camera noise reduction for long exposures as that filter will also reduce the amount of stars that will be visible in the end result.
The planning
Enough of the technicalities and let’s go to the planning. In order to capture the night sky you need to find a dark spot. A spot a bit away from big cities and dense populations. You do not need to go fully off the grid but try to find the darkest spot you can. There is a website named Dark Site Finder (darksitefinder.com) that can be of help. This web site displays areas of high and low amounts of light pollution. Another very useful tool is an app called PhotoPills - this app will be a really handy tool to help you navigate around the night sky. In this app you can visualise the night sky on location and help you frame and set up the shot. I use this app all the time - sometimes together with Google Earth to see if my ideas will pan out in real life.
So now the tools are in place the next thing is weather. Obviously a clear night is required but low temperatures is also a good aid. The colder air is clearer and will result in crisper images without haze or heat movement in the air.
Background image: Darksitefinder.com
The rule of 500
By now all your gear should be out in the open and your shot is framed and ready to go - so how about those camera settings. With a 24mm lens I usually shoot with 15-20 seconds exposures to prevent the stars from getting “tails”. For different lens lengths apply the 500 rule.
The rule of 500 is as follow: divided 500 with the focal length of your lens for example 500/24 = 20 sec rounding down to the closest shutter speed setting on your camera. Having a 14mm lens the math will be 500/14=35 sec.
Use the lowest value your lens allows for example f/2.8 or f/1.4 this will leave the lens wide open and allow more light to pass through the lens.
Using manual focus or even better focus magnification to zoom in on a star and try to make it as crisp as possible by turning the focus wheel on your lens.
Now you are ready to capture some stars. Good luck.
A little inspiration for your own images of the Milky Way
– The Milky Way reflected poster