Looking for night shots technique

[mushy]

Here's my shot of the stars, I was hoping some people with more experience could help improve future efforts as well as explain some post processing tips.

This one I'm pretty happy with although there is plenty of noise.
http://mushy.smugmug.com/photos/161715570-L.jpg

This one had less ambient light, but needs some work
http://mushy.smugmug.com/photos/161718964-L.jpg

cheers in advance to any insite people can provide

[Antonio Correia]

I found this site (http://www.thenocturnes.com/about.html) the other day.
I thought it might be usefull for you...:D

[mushy]

I found this site (http://www.thenocturnes.com/about.html) the other day.
I thought it might be usefull for you...:D

Cheers Antonio am reading through his journal/blog now :thumb

[pyrtek]

This one I'm pretty happy with although there is plenty of noise.

You can significantly reduce the amount of noise in long exposure shots by
taking more shots with shorter exposures and combining them later. Here's
more information:

http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

[Stu Engelman]

Hi,

A major problem with night shooting is slow shutter speed, especially if you want to avoid freezing motion of your subject. Shutter speeds slower than about 1/30 of a second (depending on camera sensor) will make the photosites in your senser overheat, causing blotches in your picture (so called "chroma noise"). You can compensate for this a bit by speeding up your shutter and increasing ISO, but this causes little colored dots to appear ("luminance noise"). The bottom line is that you can't really reduce noise levels to an acceptable level in night sky shooting using a digital camera. Post-processing the noise out likely will not help, as there will be so much noise that any remediation will soften the picture too much.

The best solution is to switch to a film camera, using slow (ASA 100) film. The slow film will avoid grain similar to digital high ISO noise, and a slow shutter speed here will not cause chroma noise (since there is no sensor to overheat).

Another hint - use a wide aperture (about one EV stop lower than the widest possible, to avoid color fringing at maximum iris). Due to the infinity focus, you have no depth of field issues, so let in as much light as possible to minimize shutter time and thus reduce the risk of camera shake. Your shutter speed will still be quite slow due to the low light level, so set your shutter delay and mirror lock to a few seconds each (this will let your camera stabilize on your tripod before the exposure is taken).

Stu Engelman

[farfromthesun]

They look good to me! I posted this: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=64057 elsewhere on the forum.

Digital imaging is great for shooting the night sky because you can just keep trying, reviewing, and refining your efforts in the field. As I say in that thread, I'm a complete beginner, so do not claim to be an expert, and believe me, there are experts out there. If you're seriously into imaging the night sky, search for "Cloudy Nights" forum on Google, and see what info you could pick up from there.

[DoctorIt]

Did you search right here on dgrin? :D

try this link:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2055


edit: ok, took more of a read of your post... "astro" and "night" are a bit different. the link above is for night time shots. it may help with stars as well, who knows. :dunno

[farfromthesun]

Did you search right here on dgrin? :D

try this link:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=2055


edit: ok, took more of a read of your post... "astro" and "night" are a bit different. the link above is for night time shots. it may help with stars as well, who knows. :dunno

I did search, honest!

[jimevans_2000]

You can significantly reduce the amount of noise in long exposure shots by
taking more shots with shorter exposures and combining them later. Here's
more information:

http://www.tawbaware.com/imgstack.htm

I wonder if anyone has used Stacker when photographing the Northern Lights?

Jim

[mushy]

Thanks all for the comments, hints and tips. Fingers crossed I can put a few idea's into play this weekend, if the weather holds out that is :dunno