Night stars & landscape settings please?

O

Orange Elephant

Messages
149
Edit My Images
No
Hi

I'd like to try some night shots of a star sky with landscape & sea. I don't want star trails. It's in an official Dark Skies location with no light pollution - unless a boat goes past.

I realise that it's trial & error, but what sort of settings should I use & what do I focus on?

I'm thinking of using my 58mm f1.4 for this.
 
If you want static stars and no trails then everything rests on the shutter speed.

600/58 will give you the max shutter speed without the stars starting to streak/not be round

Adjust the iso/f stop to maintain that shutter speed.

You'll probably want a lot wider than 58mm though...
 
keety said:
If you want static stars and no trails then everything rests on the shutter speed.

600/58 will give you the max shutter speed without the stars starting to streak/not be round

Adjust the iso/f stop to maintain that shutter speed.

You'll probably want a lot wider than 58mm though...
Click to expand...

Thanks. I can use the 24-120mm @ 24mm if necessary. Now sure if I understood the shutter speed. Did you mean 1/600 sec or it was a formulation giving me 10.34 sec?

I'm easily confused. :eek:
 
10.34 seconds... I tend to drop it a bit lower, as at a wider focal range the stars towards the edge of the elns tend to lose their roundness.

The earth is rotating, but to us quite slowly, so anything past 10 seconds at 50mm you'll start to get motion blur on the stars.
 
The above is a guide for cameras with 35mm sensors. If you have a camera with a smaller (or larger) sensor you will need to adapt it to account for the crop factor.

Maximum shutter speed to prevent star trails = 600/(focal length of the lens x crop factor)

It is a guide and the motion is more obvious for stars close to the celestial equator than near the poles, so as Keety has suggested its a good idea to reduce the exposure a little.

Dave
 
Thanks, I'm on full frame. FWIW, I just checked through some old mags & found a suggested base of 300 instead of 600...?

I wonder what happened to my signature? o_O
 
it's quit addictive and a word of warning, you'll end up planning family holidays to places with dark skys around the phases of the moon... Although it's normally ok as long as you don't tell your partner that that's what you've been doing :)
 
Useful, not heard of this rule before. I sometimes use my 8mm fisheye on a crop, so would it be;

600/8x1.4= 112.5 secs?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top