5 Tips for Stunning Astrophotographs
With modern cameras having such superb low light capabilities, never seen before in SLR cameras, we are seeing an emergence of beautiful astral photographs.
One things that many of these images have in common is the stunning yet remote locations at which they are shot. I have recently taken an interest in astrophotography but unfortunately I don’t always get to get far enough out of the city away from the lights so I have started a project to capture astral photographs in and around the city. I have called it “Dreamscapes”.
While practicing with different techniques I came up with this list 5 tips to help you get better astral shots.
Avoid bright lights
When starting out it can be quite a challenge to balance bright lights around you with the pin pricks of light coming from the stars.
I would advise choosing a spot with the least light around you. Perhaps down on the beach or in an open field. Also remember that the moon reflects a lot of light and can easily make things more challenging. Choosing a night with a small moon or wait for the moon to set before shooting. It is possible to get astral shots with the moon but keeping it simple at first helps a lot.
Keep it steady
Using a tripod for astrophotography goes without saying. It is absolutely essential that the camera is dead still throughout the exposure (Remember these are very long exposures)
To take it a step further I would also advise using a shutter release cable or the cameras self-timer mode. This will avoid the camera shake when pressing the shutter button.
Using High ISO
Most modern cameras are capable of very high ISO settings compared to the old film ISOs. This means that they are able to capture the Milky Way In far greater detail because they are far more sensitive to light.
The downside however to high ISO settings is a large increase in noise.
There is no perfect ISO setting to use to balance the sensitivity with the noise as each camera is different. It’s a good idea to experiment with different ISO settings and see what is the most you can push it to before the noise becomes too much for you. For astral photographs though I would recommend no lower than ISO1600.
There are special techniques for removing the noise from astral photographs such as stacking, but I will go through this in another tutorial.
Star trails or still image?
Decide if you are shooting a star trail image or a static image before setting your shutter speed. Remember that you need a long exposure but also remember that the earth is rotating and so the stars appear to be moving. Moving subjects and slow shutter speeds don’t always turn out well unless we intend for it to happen which in this case we are not.
So how do you know what to set your shutter speed at for a static star image? We still want to use the slowest speed possible so a rule of thumb to find out the slowest speed possible we need to know the length of the lens and simply divide 500 by this number (ei. If you have an 18mm lens your slowest possible shutter speed will be 500/18=28 seconds)
If you want to create star trails there are 2 ways of doing so. The first is to set your camera to bulb exposure and keep the shutter open using a shutter release cable or taping down the shutter button for a good few minutes. You should experiment with different times. The other technique is to take a series of exposures immediately after each other for a good few minutes and stich the images together in post-production. This technique is a lot more tricky but it will definitely result in a cleaner image and also is less harmful to your camera as bulb exposure can cause the sensor to overheat over time.
Post Processing
Post processing is a keypoint in great astral photographs. There is a lot of unwanted data in the Raw file which has to be removed. There are several techniques for processing astral photographs.
I advise you look into at least one method. There is free software available to help you process your images better. I prefer to do my processing in Photoshop. I will be doing a tutorial on my process soon. Keep a look out.
Conclusion
These are 5 basic tips which I hope have helped or at least inspired you to take your own astral photographs. Thank you for reading. Please subscribe to my newsletter for more tutorials and latest updates. If you have any questions or want me to do a tutorial on a specific topic please contact me and let me know.
