Reducing star quantity

Peter69

Peter69

Messages
1,013
Name
Peter
Edit My Images
No
I'm still trying to get some good night sky photos.
is there any way to photograph the sky as the eye sees it?
I get either no stars or millions of them - am I just missing the beginners guide to night sky photography. With my eyes I see the plough etc but when I try photograph it it gets lost amongst all the other stars detected.
 
What equipment/settings are you describing?

I used to find I struggled to get many stars in, but now using a f2.8 lens I get far more and all the ones I can see. Getting millions may be noise at high iso? But is also possible since many are very faint.

There are quite a few guides out there.
 
if you decrease iso or amend the shutter speed (faster) it should then show less stars :)
 
dazs said:
if you decrease iso or amend the shutter speed (faster) it should then show less stars :)
Click to expand...
:agree: I normally mess with the ISO when trying to capture the amount of stars I want and then adjust everything else to suit. Higher ISO for more stars, lower ISO for less.
 
I barely moved the tripod between these two:

ISO3200 & f/2.8 for 30 sec

End of summer

ISO1000 & f/2.8 for 10 sec

Signs of life

With a slightly different approach to processing each in Lightroom- nothing too dramatic in either case, though.
 
Last edited:
AndWhyNot said:
I barely moved the tripod between these two:

ISO3200 & f/2.8 for 30 sec

End of summer

ISO1000 & f/2.8 for 10 sec

Signs of life

With a slightly different approach to processing each in Lightroom- nothing too dramatic in either case, though.
Click to expand...

different processing or not, still gives a good example of how much difference a few tweeks to shutter speed and ISO make. I made the mistake of getting some star trails last week and got too many stars. By the time I'd finished stacking the images the sky was pure white lol.
 
Ok, I must be processing wrong I guess.
I tried leaving shutter & appature the same and slowly decreased iso. This resulted in all stars getting dimmer then disappearing.
You #2 is good for stars but no good for foreground. Can that be balanced too?
 
Shoot raw with exposure to capture loads of stars then reduce exposure in PP until you've got the desired density of stars.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top