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- Name
- Lloyd
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Not easy this stuff is it!?
So last evening, for the first time ever, I decided to try and get out for the peak time of a meteor shower (reported to be around 2am) and see if I could capture any of it using my Nikon D850 and 24-120mm f/4. I'm not new to photography but I seriously got to a point last evening where I just could not work out what else to do to try and capture the night sky, stars (without trails), and a meteor trail.
I would LOVE someone to help point out what i did wrong so here's what I tried.
Kit: D850 24-120mm f4 lens, tripod, remote shutter release (MC-36), iPad with Night Sky app (which pointed me directly in the direction of the shower)
Location: Greenham Common (old USAF air base). It's pitch dark up there, but there's still a lot of light pollution around when you consider the town of newbury and thatcham are within a couple of miles of the location (and this might be why I struggled)
Process:
I first wanted to work out how long I could have the shutter set to without it introducing star trails. I googled it and found some rule of 500, which I applied to my 24mm focal length, giving an effective total shutter time of 20s (already worried that this didn't seem enough)
I set up the camera on the tripod, levelled it, tried to get some of the shadowed trees in the frame while still pointing skywards in the direction of the shower. Set focal length to 24mm and my aperture to f4. Focused manually at inifinity and then set the shutter to 20s. All was set so I activated the shutter remotely - pitch black image, not a star in sight. There's no way I was going to get these wonderful star filled night skies with that setting. I therefore decided to ramp up the time and see just how bad the star trails would be. I set the shutter to 1 min and tried again. This time I got some stars, with beginning of trails (urghh) and I wasn't happy with the image. In fact I still was not getting enough stars in the image.
Then I also realised that these meteors (which I could see with my naked eye every few mins) last around a second before disappearing. They themselves are not particularly bright and so now I'm attempting to capture a dimly lit 'shooting star' in a pitch dark night, that will be in the frame for just a second, perhaps two, and all while leaving the shutter open long enough to capture night time stars, preferably without trails.
I tried every which way but south and never got anything close to what I wanted.
Hints, tips, blatant point outs where I went wrong - gratefully accepted.
So last evening, for the first time ever, I decided to try and get out for the peak time of a meteor shower (reported to be around 2am) and see if I could capture any of it using my Nikon D850 and 24-120mm f/4. I'm not new to photography but I seriously got to a point last evening where I just could not work out what else to do to try and capture the night sky, stars (without trails), and a meteor trail.
I would LOVE someone to help point out what i did wrong so here's what I tried.
Kit: D850 24-120mm f4 lens, tripod, remote shutter release (MC-36), iPad with Night Sky app (which pointed me directly in the direction of the shower)
Location: Greenham Common (old USAF air base). It's pitch dark up there, but there's still a lot of light pollution around when you consider the town of newbury and thatcham are within a couple of miles of the location (and this might be why I struggled)
Process:
I first wanted to work out how long I could have the shutter set to without it introducing star trails. I googled it and found some rule of 500, which I applied to my 24mm focal length, giving an effective total shutter time of 20s (already worried that this didn't seem enough)
I set up the camera on the tripod, levelled it, tried to get some of the shadowed trees in the frame while still pointing skywards in the direction of the shower. Set focal length to 24mm and my aperture to f4. Focused manually at inifinity and then set the shutter to 20s. All was set so I activated the shutter remotely - pitch black image, not a star in sight. There's no way I was going to get these wonderful star filled night skies with that setting. I therefore decided to ramp up the time and see just how bad the star trails would be. I set the shutter to 1 min and tried again. This time I got some stars, with beginning of trails (urghh) and I wasn't happy with the image. In fact I still was not getting enough stars in the image.
Then I also realised that these meteors (which I could see with my naked eye every few mins) last around a second before disappearing. They themselves are not particularly bright and so now I'm attempting to capture a dimly lit 'shooting star' in a pitch dark night, that will be in the frame for just a second, perhaps two, and all while leaving the shutter open long enough to capture night time stars, preferably without trails.
I tried every which way but south and never got anything close to what I wanted.
Hints, tips, blatant point outs where I went wrong - gratefully accepted.