Shooting stars?

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This will (hopefully) be the first clear night since I bought my Canon 200D and I want to get out tonight to photograph some stars, my old bridge camera just couldn't do it so I am hoping my 200D can.
Any tips guys on getting a decent starry photo?
 
For general star field shots, as wide as possible and as fast a lens as possible. To avoid stars trailing, keep shutter speed down to 20s or so - if the stars are still trailing, go faster, otherwise go slower until the stars are trailing too much. To get trails, use as slow a shutter speed as you can and probably stack shots.
 
I have a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM, would that work? And how do you focus? My lens doesnt have the infinity option.
 
That will work but something wider would be better BUT try the 50mm, the extra speed might tip the balance towards it rather than a wider kit lens (if you have one).

If you have live view, you should be able to zoom in on a bright star enough to achieve manual focus.

There is a fair amount of trial and error in star shooting - that's part of the fun (but could get expensive in film days!!!)
 
I have a EF-S 18-55 1:3.5-5.6 III, I cpuld try both and see what is best. Do the same rules apply with a unlit subject in the foreground, a house for instance?
 
With a 50mm lens on a crop body (1.6 crop) you'll only get an exposure of 6.25 seconds before the stars start to trail.

The zoom would be better as at 18mm it will give you just over 17 seconds.

You'll need to ramp the ISO up more than you think.
 
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GreenNinja67 said:
With a 50mm lens on a crop body (1.6 crop) you'll only get an exposure of 6.25 seconds before the stars start to trail.

The zoom would be better as at 18mm it will give you just over 17 seconds.

You'll need to ramp the ISO up more than you think.
Click to expand...

Why do the stars trail in one but take longer in the other? I thought they would trail at the same time regardless of what lens I used?
 
They will trail the same with either lens at the same shutter speed but the trailing will be less noticeable with the wider angle. I can't remember the number but there's a basic rule of thumb regarding focal length to shutter speed. A quick Google threw up THIS link that explains it better than I can.
 
I had a crack and dont think I did too bad, is there a way to upload RAW files to the forum?
 
No (in a word!) You need to convert the files to JPEGs and reduce them in size to something like 1200x800 pixels and under 350kB (IIRC). I use the Attach files button and just select the shots I want to post using that. (Again) IIRC there is a limit of 3 shots per post dropped in like that.

Look forward to seeing your results.
 
I tried to change to jpg using the Canon DPP4 program , but when I did the quality dropped so much most of the stars disappeared! I will see if JPEG is any better.
 
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