How to photograph the night starry sky. How to photograph the starry sky How to photograph the moon and stars

19.01.2022

Photographing the night sky may seem like an impossible task and a real challenge for beginners, but I assure you, everything is much easier than you might think. Modern camera settings include incredible ISO settings, allowing photographers to dramatically increase their sensors' sensitivity to light, and capture the light of the stars like never before.

In this vein, I want to talk about the equipment you will need; how to install the camera correctly; I will also talk a little about composition and lighting. If you're ready to level up your shooting for the stars, let's get started!

What equipment will you need

At the most basic level, it will be enough for you: cameras (DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, soap dishes) capable of photographing in manual mode, a wide-angle lens, and a tripod.

However, most consumer grade cameras are not capable of high quality long exposures and do not have good dynamic range. In order to get amazing photos of the Milky Way, try investing in vehicles by class, which are described below:

Camera selection

The best cameras on the market for photographing the night sky are cameras with full frame sensors. This is because they are able to work at high ISO and at the same time get a result acceptable in terms of noise, which is impossible to achieve when shooting from some primitive device. The higher your ISO, the brighter the night sky will look, and you just need a camera that shoots cleanly without any noise whatsoever.

Good cameras would be:

Nikon: D810A, D750;

These recommendations are top brands and they don't come cheap, but they aren't necessary to get great photos. For example, the photo below was taken with the Sony DSC-RX100, which can be purchased for less than $500. To choose a camera, you need to decide what budget you are targeting, and build on this.

Lens selection

Just like with landscape photography, you'll want to have a wide-angle lens that can capture as much of the sky as possible. The faster the lens, that is, the smaller its f / aperture (f / 2.8 or less is excellent), the more light you can let in in a certain period of time to get good. Personally, I prefer Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 (for cameras with APS-C sensors); for its cost, its sharpness satisfies me.

Selecting camera settings

You will start to notice that the choice of settings for long exposures at night usually stays the same. This is because the first rule of shooting the night sky is to find a dark place that cancels out the dirty colors and allows the camera to draw the maximum amount of light from the sky; for this, the characteristics of our camera are simply increased to the maximum in order to get the best image. Rule #1: shoot in manual mode!

Aperture selection

Becomes much less visible at night, and in order to take in as much light as possible, make sure your aperture is wide open.

Excerpt

This feature is very important because most lenses begin to pick up star trails after 25 seconds of exposure. I used to shoot with a shutter speed of 30 seconds, but the movement of the stars was noticeable, so the faster the shutter speed, the clearer the stars will look.

ISO

The choice of ISO value depends on what kind of camera you have, or what kind of camera you want to buy. For example, Sony a7S shoots with clean exposure, up to 12000 ISO, while my Canon 6D can shoot up to 6400 ISO with minimal noise, which can then be leveled out in Lightroom.

Focus

One of the biggest challenges people face is focusing images when shooting at night. Many lenses have an "infinity focus" (manual focus), which is a point at an infinite distance at which the lens will focus. This is ideal for night photography as it is very difficult to see what you are focusing on in the dark.

Composition and light painting

Once you get the hang of the exposure process, the fun part is creating dynamic compositions and using light painting techniques to bring objects in the foreground to life.

Like landscape photography, you want the audience to feel separate from the picture. When shooting stars, it would be ideal to capture the scenery around you, then the night sky looks even more incredible.

To do this, find a good place so that you can focus on the object in the foreground. Further, using a flashlight or even a smartphone screen, you can “draw” the object that you planned to light in your picture. This only takes a few seconds, as the reflected light is exposed very quickly in the case of night photography.

Tip: If you're using , position it in complete darkness, or take a short exposure to get it clearly. You can always stack 2 exposures one on top of the other and thus mix different ranges of light.

What to do after taking photos

Of course, treat them! Photographs of the night sky change drastically even with small fluctuations in white balance or contrast.

Almost every photo of the night sky I edit twice (once for the sky, once for the foreground) and then blend them. (Some photographers use the remote control to make the exposure much longer than the camera will allow, and use that for the foreground to add shadows.)

In the end, enjoy and develop a style that is unique to your preferences. Returning home with photos of stars, you experience incredible sensations!

Interview with photographer Yuri Zvezdny about how to photograph the starry sky. What is needed for this and what obstacles exist.

We continue a series of interviews with interesting people who share their knowledge in various fields. Last time we talked with Sergey Kovtun about how. And today we will talk with a professional photographer who fixed his eyes on the sky. So, the guest of our issue - Yuri Star.

Carina Nebula, NGC 3372

Mikhail Roskin: Good afternoon, Yuri. Tell me something about yourself. Where did the interest in the starry sky and photography come from?

Yuri Star: Hi. Love for the starry sky was born in me a very long time ago. At the age of eight. A lot of time has passed since then, but the memories are alive, as if it were yesterday. It was hot summer weather. I was sitting on a bed in a country house. The sun pierced through the curtains and illuminated the dust flying around the room. Before me lay the book "Earth and Sky" by Alexander Volkov (the same one who wrote "The Wizard of the Emerald City", he also wrote popular science books). This book changed my life. From it, I learned that the world is actually much larger than I had imagined before. It was not limited to my city and country. It turned out that we all live on a stone ball, which rotates at great speed in outer space around a flaming star called the Sun. But the Sun is only one of the countless stars that fill the Cosmos. These stars cluster together and form galaxies, which are more than grains of sand on all the beaches of our planet.

My mind collided with infinity and changed forever. Since then, I have been unusually strongly drawn to the sky, to the stars. By the time I read the book, it was already August. It got cold. I went out of the house, wrapped myself in a fur coat and looked at the stars. Sometimes lingering until dawn. I looked at the stars and now I saw not just twinkling dots, I saw entire worlds. Worlds similar to ours and completely unlike it. I saw inhabitants of other planets. Perhaps even one of them is now looking at our star, just as I look at his star. Maybe he even has a mind? Maybe even much bigger than mine? What is he thinking about? Maybe the same thing as me?

Where are you, brother in mind? Maybe on bright Arcturus? Or at the Diamond Chapel? Or maybe on that completely nondescript star, barely visible to the eye? She doesn't even have her own name. Why not? This could be true...

I fell head over heels in love with the Cosmos. And at an older age, a passion for independent travel and a desire to explore our wonderful planet appeared. This passion was shared by my wife. Therefore, we saved up some money, took sleeping bags with a tent and went to travel to South America for 5 months. Love for space and travel are perfectly combined. It's always dark in the wilderness. It is enough to get out of the tent an hour and a half after sunset and you can see something completely new.

For example, the ruins of the ancient city of the Incas in the jungle against the backdrop of the Milky Way

Or a star waterfall in the forests of Patagonia:

It's almost like being on another planet.

The remarkable thing is that modern cameras can see at night much better than our eyes. It is thanks to the sensitivity of their sensors and long exposure that such photographs can be obtained. And there is no big secret and special difficulties in getting such a photo. It is available to everyone.

Dust and reflection nebulae IC 4603 and IC 4604

Mikhail Roskin: Tell me how to photograph the starry sky? How is star photography done? What is needed for this? What technique, what weather? What does a beginner need to do to get the first photos?

Yuri Star: Astrophotography is divided into three areas: night landscape, deep space and the solar system. All three areas differ significantly in approaches to the equipment used, methods of shooting and photo processing.

Astrophotography of deep space and the solar system requires significant material costs, a telescope and astronomical patience to figure it all out. The genre of the night landscape is the simplest and most accessible for beginners. All you need for the first photos of the starry sky is a camera, a tripod, a flashlight (so as not to get lost in the dark), as well as a burning desire to photograph the starry sky, which will drive you out of a warm sleeping bag / house on a cold and dark night.

Here simple instructions on how to take the first shots of the starry sky:
First, your camera must be able to take long exposures up to 30 seconds. It is in this shooting mode that it needs to be transferred. Now almost all cameras can do this. ISO values should be set higher, for example 1600 or 3200.

Secondly, it is desirable to use the widest possible lens. For many lenses, this value is on the order of 18mm. The aperture should be as wide as possible to let as much light as possible into the lens. It is very good if the lens allows you to set the aperture value to 2.8 or even 2.0. Now we set the camera on a tripod and adjust the focus, because we need sharp pictures. But autofocus works very poorly at night - it does not have enough light. Therefore, you have to switch the lens to manual mode and adjust the sharpness manually.

You can focus in different ways: on a bright star, on the moon, or on the lights of cell towers. But if there is none of this, and the stars are poorly visible, then you can simply take the included flashlight 30 meters from the camera and focus on it. Now it's time to select a frame and point the camera at the starry sky. More stars will be visible in the southern part of the sky. It is there that the Milky Way is located, which is clearly visible at the end of summer and autumn in our latitudes, and in winter in the south there are some of the most beautiful and bright constellations: Orion, Taurus, Gemini, Charioteer and others.

For planning filming, planetarium programs are well suited, which show a realistic view of the star on any given date from anywhere on the planet. The most famous such program is Stellarium. In addition, it is completely free and available for mobile devices. Then it remains only to point the camera at the selected area of the sky and press the shutter button. You need to press the button carefully and smoothly so that the images of the stars are not blurred from camera shake. Better yet, set the shutter release delay to 2, 10, or whatever number of seconds your camera allows. This will eliminate vibration and get clearer pictures.

And you need to take into account one more thing - the starry sky is moving, because our planet is rotating! Therefore, during the shooting of one frame (about 30 seconds), the stars will stretch into dashes, but this is not scary and almost not noticeable, especially if the picture is reduced. But if the stars still stretch too much into lines in the picture, then this means that the shutter speed needs to be reduced and the stars will again become like dots. This is quite enough to take the first steps in night photography.

Lonely pine tree on the Demerdzhi plateau, Crimea

Mikhail Roskin: What are the most common challenges you face while filming? Do people interfere? Or just the weather?

Yuri Star: Difficulties arise, let's say, not a few. Most often, the mood of astrophotographers is spoiled by the weather (although in landscape night photography, clouds can fit very favorably into the frame).

Secondly, it is artificial illumination. Any large city produces what is known as light pollution. Lamps for night lighting of cities emit so much light that they create huge domes of illumination around cities, inside which it is almost impossible to shoot.

For example, from Moscow you need to drive about 200-250 kilometers to see a really dark sky. Although, it is worth saying that lunar-planetary photography is not afraid of flare. The moon and planets are so bright that they are not afraid of any metropolis.

And, of course, at night you need to be as careful as possible. When traveling to a dark place behind the stars, you need to follow safety precautions. First of all, it concerns people. The local population may not be very happy about your presence. Therefore, it is better to choose places that are not visible from the roads and are located away from cities and villages. And of course you need to take into account the factor of wild animals. For many of them, the night is a time of activity, so no one is safe from a chance meeting. I have repeatedly met moose, wild boars, foxes and smaller animals. As a rule, animals avoid such meetings, but a lot depends on you. You should not stop where there are traces of animal activity. For example, pitted earth with many boar tracks. It is very likely that they will return to this place at night and most likely will not be happy with your company.

Mikhail Roskin: What equipment can be used to shoot the starry sky? What is needed for this? Is an ordinary soap dish enough or is it necessary to have a cool SLR?

Yuri Star: With the development of digital technologies, photographing the starry sky is becoming more accessible and popular. Someone even manages to photograph space on a smartphone. Now, even entry-level cameras often have all the features you need to take good photos of the night sky.

Of course, the “cooler” the camera, the more opportunities it has, and an advanced DSLR or mirrorless camera will be able to see more than simple “soap dishes”. But this is far from the limit. Enthusiastic astrophotographers use specialized astronomical cameras. These are very heavy, complex and bulky instruments, sometimes costing tens of thousands of dollars. Moreover, when we talk about photographs of deep space and planets, then an ordinary photographic lens is no longer enough. Here you need a full-fledged telescope, special devices - mounts - that smoothly turn the telescope after the stars, and much more. This is a big and complex science. But there is nothing supernatural here. Astrophotography is available to everyone. With due diligence, you can get world-class results even on very modest equipment. The key here is patience and consistency.

Mikhail Roskin: In what programs does the processing take place and what do they do with the pictures? How many shots do you need for one high-quality frame of the starry sky?

Yuri Star A: Again, it depends on the genre of shooting. If we are talking about a night landscape, then one frame is enough. It can be processed in any graphics editor, such as Photoshop, by slightly increasing the contrast and saturation. Although some photographers are fond of processing and from their pen come out completely surreal images that are very distantly related to photography.

Deep space imaging requires more advanced techniques. Here one frame is not enough, because objects in space are very dim and they are very poorly worked out in the pictures, they are simply not visible behind the noise. In addition, the camera sensor during the exposure unfortunately registers a lot of side and unwanted signals and noise. As a result, almost nothing is visible on single frames. Therefore, to obtain one frame with some kind of nebula or galaxy, you have to take dozens of frames of the object and hundreds of so-called calibration frames. These frames are then used in image processing to calculate and eliminate the noise and defects that are present on the original material. All this is done in special programs such as PixInsight, DeepDkyStacker, Iris and others. This process is quite long, especially considering our weather. It can take weeks or even months from the moment you start shooting to the moment you publish your photo.

With lunar-planetary shooting it is easier. Video technology is used to take photographs of the Moon and planets. Simply put, a video camera is attached to the telescope and a video is shot with the planet, for example, with Jupiter. Then the frames of this video are sorted by quality in special programs (for example, such as RegiStax or Autostakkert!). Blurry frames are discarded, while sharp frames remain. From these sharp frames, the final image of the planet is then formed with a large number of details and small details.

Two Universes. Alpine plateau Lago-Naki, not far from Mount Oshten.

Mikhail Roskin: Are there any professional secrets of photographing the starry sky in the mountains?

Yuri Star: Yes, but these are not even secrets, but rather an experience. At night, everything is different: the famous path will be lost in the dark, something, where it is located in the camera menu, will be forgotten, the lens cap will fall into the gap between the stones, a strange sound will be heard somewhere behind ... and with all this, fingers and toes will freeze . And you need to focus on shooting.

In general, everything that can be prepared in advance must be prepared in advance: what to shoot, where to shoot, when to shoot. It is better to bring the camera control in the dark to automaticity, so that the hands themselves know where, which buttons. You need to dress warmly, not warmly according to the weather, you can put heating pads in gloves. In the mountains, you should be as careful as possible, not take risks. Health and life are more important than the frame. It is better to go not alone, but in the company of someone. In general, accuracy and maximum advance preparation.

Mikhail Roskin: Were there any unusual, funny or scary cases?

Yuri Star A: Something always happens. In addition to photo frames and the romance of the starry sky, the night gives a lot of memorable events and adrenaline. Once during a night shoot in Chile in the Atacama Desert, I lay down to take a nap. I climbed into the sleeping bag on the street, without a tent, and fell asleep. When I woke up, I found next to me, right in front of my face, a poisonous scorpion. Everything ended well, the scorpion did not show much interest in me, but still my heart skipped a beat.

Another case - I was returning to the tent at night after filming on the ruins of the Inca city of Choquequirao in the mountains of Peru. I walked along a narrow path: a steep cliff on the left, a cliff on the right. Suddenly I hear, or rather feel, that a clatter is approaching me, the earth is shaking. Instinctively, I press myself against the rocks on the left. A herd of horses runs past me to meet me. That's the meeting!

And one day, having pitched a tent at night on the Crimean coast, in the morning my wife and I discovered that we were not far from a military facility - a radar station. The military looked with curiosity at our faces poking out of the tent. They must have been as surprised as we are.

In addition, at night you can implement all sorts of strange creative ideas. For example, I have long had a desire to take an astro selfie with a guitar in a snowy field at night under the moonlight. Well, you know, sometimes you want something like this) And most recently I took this photo:

Mikhail Roskin: Can astrophotography make money? And if so, what is the price range?

Yuri Star: There is a fundamental possibility for this. Selling photographs, such as spherical panoramas, can generate some income. But still, astrophotography is a passion. This is not something that should be done for the sake of money. Rather, on the contrary, astrophotography is usually done by those people who already have money. But now the situation is changing. More and more people are learning about astrophotography and getting to know the Cosmos through it. There is photographic equipment available. There are enthusiasts. Astrophotography is another thread that connects us to the Cosmos. It's great that it is becoming more and more popular and accessible.

Mikhail Roskin: What is your advice to those who are just starting their journey in astrophotography?

Yuri Star: It is difficult to give specific advice to a beginner astrophotographer. Astrophotography takes a lot of skill. You need to be a bit of an engineer to build and set up an astrograph, you need to be a bit of a physicist to get good sources, and you need to be a bit of an artist to process them well. This takes time and patience.

Mikhail Roskin: Thanks a lot! It was very interesting and informative. I even roughly understood how to photograph the starry sky!

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Altair, Vega and Ras Alhague

Many people who admire the starry sky on a clear night have a desire to photograph the sight they have seen. Unfortunately, these attempts are far from always crowned with success, especially since a person who is accustomed to photographing exclusively during the day with an excess of light often does not understand at all which side to approach shooting in such seemingly unfavorable conditions. However, getting a beautiful night shot with rich colors, well-defined constellations and a whitish band of the Milky Way crossing the sky is easier than it might seem at first, and in this article I will try to cover the practical side of the issue as clearly as possible. I note that we are not talking about high astrophotography, but rather about ordinary shooting of the starry sky in the context of landscape photography. Detailed shooting of deep space objects (galaxies, nebulae, quasars, etc.) requires very specific skills and tools, while decorating the night landscape with a general view of the Milky Way is within the power of everyone.

There are two kinds of photographs with a starry sky. In the first case, the stars are represented as separate points, i.e. just like we see them in real life. To obtain such photographs, relatively short exposures (by night standards) are used - up to 30 s. In the second case, very long shutter speeds are used - up to several hours (or a series of short exposures is stitched together later using a special program) - and due to the rotation of the Earth, the stars manage to draw long luminous trails in the sky, twisting around the celestial pole. Such images look very unusual, but I personally prefer the first type of photographs, as they are more realistic and at the same time more artistic. And since, in addition, they are also much simpler technically, it is about obtaining such images, i.e. depicting the stars conditionally fixed, we'll talk.

Equipment

Camera

You will need a camera with a large sensor (crop factor no more than 2) and manual exposure settings, i.e. SLR, mirrorless or, at worst, an advanced compact. A soap dish with a small sensor is useless even with manual settings, since any stars will drown in noise, up to complete indistinguishability. A mobile phone at a night photo shoot can only come in handy as a flashlight.

I hate to write about this, but shooting a starry sky is one of those rare cases where a full-frame camera has an objective advantage over cropped models. Ceteris paribus, a full-frame sensor gives a noise gain of about one step compared to an APS-C format matrix, and in conditions of acute light deficiency, this is a lot. However, as practice shows, moderately cropped devices also allow you to get quite good pictures of the night sky - just the picture will be a little less clean.

SLR cameras are preferred over mirrorless cameras due to the presence of an optical viewfinder. The electronic viewfinder of some mirrorless cameras sometimes fades in the dark, while the traditional optical viewfinder allows you to more or less compose the frame even in the light of stars.

Lens

Get the widest, fastest lens you have. Wide angle to fit more of the sky into the frame and reduce the effect of star blur due to the rotation of the Earth, and fast aperture because there will be really little light, and the opportunity to open the aperture by an extra stop will seem more valuable than ever before.

The ideal option is a lens with a fixed focal length of 20-24mm (35mm equivalent) and aperture of f/1.4 or f/1.8. An f/2.8 zoom or prime is acceptable, but nowhere near as good. However, even if all you have is an 18-55mm whale zoom with a maximum aperture of f/3.5 at wide angle, don't be discouraged: it will do.

I usually don't like fisheye lenses, but for shooting starry skies they (if you know how to use them) are quite appropriate.

Tripod

Any tripod that can support the weight of your camera will do.

remote trigger

A remote control or cable release is convenient, but not required. We will be using shutter speeds so slow that any vibration caused by the shutter release will take up only a small fraction of the total exposure time and will have virtually no effect on the sharpness of the final image.

Lantern

A flashlight is needed so that in pitch darkness you don’t fall into a ravine and step into a cow’s cake, as well as to facilitate focusing. In addition, the flashlight allows you to highlight the elements of the landscape, if the artistic intent requires it. The more powerful the flashlight, the better.

Location and time for filming

The farther from the city, the less illumination from street lighting and the better the stars are visible. Light pollution is the main and most stubborn hindrance when shooting the night sky. It is because of him that the sky in night photographs often looks brown or even orange instead of black. In a word, the more remote place you choose for shooting, the better. It is desirable that the nearest settlement with minimal street lighting should be at least a couple of kilometers, and the distance to large cities should be measured in tens of kilometers. If you wish, you can use the Blue Marble map to estimate the extent of light pollution in your area.

By the way, moonlight also illuminates the sky quite well, and therefore, if your main goal is the stars, and not the landscape lit by the moon (which, in general, is also beautiful in its own way), then you should shoot on moonless nights if possible.

Obviously, the sky needs to be clear, so it's a good idea to check the weather forecast so you don't get caught off guard by overcast skies. On the other hand, the presence of slight translucent clouds in the sky can sometimes even decorate the picture. In fact, even the light glow from cities lying at some distance can be used for artistic purposes, if you still can’t escape from it.

As for shooting time, at least two hours must pass after sunset (valid for 54 ° north latitude, where I live). The closer to midnight, the better (by the way, in Belarus, astronomical midnight comes at about 1:00). The darkest nights, with stars as bright as gems, usually occur in winter. The only pity is that in winter the weather in our country is most often cloudy and the stars are not visible in the sky, and the rare cloudless winter nights are always accompanied by severe frosts.

Composition

Composition, you say... Well, when you look through the viewfinder, you can distinguish the sky from the ground. However, sometimes you can still see something. In this case, it usually makes sense to place the horizon line as low as possible. The earth is often too dark to be of serious artistic interest, but the starry sky, for which, in fact, everything was started, I would like to make the main area of interest. You can, for example, let the Milky Way through the entire frame from corner to corner, you can find familiar constellations, bright stars, planets (I recommend Stellarium to those who want to improve their knowledge of astronomy), and if there are separate clouds in the sky, use them as structure-forming elements. Vertical shots work well.

It is not necessary to completely exclude the earth from the frame - the picture will become too abstract. It is better to look for objects that have an expressive silhouette (trees, boulders, old buildings) and place them at the bottom or on the sides of the frame. The main thing is that they do not take up too much space. If there is a lake nearby - great - you will have the opportunity to show not only the starry sky, but also its reflection in the water.

With a strong desire, you can highlight the foreground objects with a flashlight, if you are not afraid that they will distract the viewer's attention from the starry sky. As a rule, this is justified when the night is not too dark (flare or moonlight interferes) and the sky does not look expressive enough to become the main compositional center.

Camera settings

RAW or JPEG?

I refer the reader to the relevant article. In my opinion, RAW is preferable, as night shots almost always require quite intensive processing, but shooting in JPEG you can get good (albeit less controllable) results.

Focusing

If you point your camera at the night sky and try to use autofocus, nothing good will most likely come of it. The brightness of the stars is usually not enough for the autofocus sensors to catch on to them (with planets, it happens that it works). Manual focusing in the traditional way is also unlikely to succeed, since when using wide-angle optics, individual stars are practically invisible in the viewfinder. Therefore, the lens must be forced to focus to photographic infinity. How to do it?

Old manual lenses allowed you to blindly aim at infinity by simply turning the focusing ring all the way. Modern autofocus lenses not only lack an emphasis, but also the focus distance scale, to put it mildly, is not very accurate. In principle, such a scale can be used (if you have a flashlight, of course), but first you will have to carry out a kind of calibration by examining which values on the scale correspond to real photographic infinity. In daylight, let autofocus focus on some of the most distant objects near the horizon and, looking at the scale, remember or write down the desired value to use it when autofocus is powerless.

Some budget lenses do not even have a primitive focusing scale. In this case, you still have to resort to the help of autofocus, even if he does not want to focus on the stars. Look around for any sufficiently bright object that is at the maximum distance from you (most often it will be the distant lights of some settlement), and try to focus on it. If everything worked out, turn off autofocus and try not to touch the focus ring in the future. If there are no suitable light sources nearby (which, in general, is not bad, for the reasons described above), use a flashlight. Put the included flashlight on the ground, a stump or a stone, then move as far as possible and focus. If you do not suffer from excessive pedantry, then, on average, for wide-angle lenses, everything that is further than ten meters from the camera can be considered infinity.

exposition

There is even less sense from the exposure meter in the dark than from autofocus, i.e. none at all, in connection with which the camera should be switched to manual mode and set the exposure by touch. Exposure assessment will be difficult for a number of reasons. Firstly, the camera screen in the dark seems very bright, and therefore underexposed pictures can look normal, and normal ones look overexposed. Secondly, exposing by highlights (as I usually advise you to do) is not a good idea in this case, because the stars are too bright objects and trying to avoid clipping in the highlights will drown the frame in darkness. Therefore, you will have to accept that both shadows and highlights will lie outside the dynamic range of the camera. Thirdly, long exposures make the experimental selection of exposure parameters an extremely labor-intensive process.

Below I will try to show how, without further ado, to get a more or less correct exposure, without resorting to the help of a light meter and without doing tedious selection.

Diaphragm

Open the diaphragm to the limit, i.e. set the minimum aperture value available for your lens. Every photon is dear to us now, and this is exactly the situation when, for the sake of a less noisy picture, you can sacrifice a little sharpness.

Excerpt

The longer the shutter is open, the more light will hit the matrix, which, of course, is good, but the more the stars in the picture will be smeared due to the rotation of the Earth, which is not so encouraging.

For such cases, there is a popular "rule of 600", according to which, by dividing the number 600 by the equivalent focal length of the lens in millimeters, you can get the maximum allowable shutter speed in seconds. For example, for a lens with a focal length of 20 mm, the shutter speed will be 600 ÷ 20, i.e. 30 seconds. The longer 35mm lens needed a faster shutter speed: 600 ÷ 35 = 17. Since not every shutter takes 17 seconds, the result can be rounded up to 15.

However, my experience is that even using shutter speeds one and a half times slower than what the 600 rule dictates (call it the "900 rule" if you like), you get pretty decent shots. Yes, near the celestial equator at 100% magnification the stars will be slightly blurred, but this effect will be so insignificant that it can be easily neglected.

For those who are just starting to master night photography, I would recommend an even simpler and more liberal approach: if you are using a wide-angle lens (or a standard zoom at wide-angle), set the shutter speed to 30 seconds and do not fool yourself, especially since for many cameras 30 seconds is the maximum shutter speed available in normal modes, and you don’t need to set a lower shutter speed.

ISO

If you followed my advice and set your shutter speed to 30s and widened your aperture, then, depending on your lens speed, you should set the following ISO sensitivity:

Diaphragm	ISO
f/1.4	800
f/1.8	1250
f/2	1 600
f/2.8	3 200
f/3.5	5 000
f/4	6 400

The values indicated in the table should be taken as starting guidelines, from which it is permissible to deviate up or down if such a need arises.

Noise suppression

If your camera allows, turn on Long exposure noise reduction, as long as you have the patience to wait an extra half minute after each exposure for the camera to take a control shot with the shutter closed. A photo taken at high ISO values will still turn out to be quite noisy - you need to be prepared for this, but if there is an opportunity to improve image quality even a little, this opportunity should not be neglected.

White balance and image style are of no importance when shooting in RAW, but in case you shoot in JPEG, or just want your pictures to look decent already on the camera screen, I allow myself to give you a couple of recommendations. .

white balance

Automatic white balance when shooting a starry sky is absolutely unacceptable, unless, of course, you are deliberately trying to give the sky a hazy gray-brown-crimson hue. You can set the white balance for incandescent lamps (Tungsten or Incandescent), i.e. about 3000 K, but, in my opinion, this makes the picture too cold. The best out-of-the-box presets are usually those for fluorescent lamps, such as White fluorescent - 3700 K or Cool-white fluorescent - 4200 K. If your camera allows you to set the color temperature manually, then start at 4000 K and shift Tint a little towards Magenta. The final values can be selected experimentally.

Picture style

For the starry sky, the Vivid style or some similar style is best, i.e. with the most saturated colors and high contrast, and the color saturation can be further increased by adjusting the Saturation parameter. Unlike daytime landscapes, here you should not be afraid to get unrealistically saturated colors, since the scene will look very unusual anyway, and additional colors will not harm it in any way.

Thanks for attention!

Vasily A.

post scriptum

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Hey! I'm in touch with you, Timur Mustaev. I often see images of stars in the sky from professional photographers. They are taken in different ways and from different angles, in different places, but they are certainly beautiful: a landscape against the backdrop of many stellar objects, the Milky Way or a real starfall created by the movement of luminous celestial bodies. Would you like to have such shots in your portfolio? My article is at your service.

Photographer's focus

The main question: how to photograph the starry sky? How to convey exactly the splendor that we see or how we wanted it to look? In Photoshop, we can work wonders, but it will not be so valuable, because there will be no documentary and real reality in the photo.

Therefore, I advise you to be fully armed at the time of the photo shoot and try to get an almost perfect shot. To do this, you need to consider the following factors:

Composition. Contrary to the possible idea that shooting a sky with stars is only stellar bodies and the sky, it is worth concentrating on the surroundings as well. As in any kind of photography, you need to think about what objects will be included in the picture. For example, trees of an unusual shape, mountains, valleys, interesting natural objects, beautiful architectural structures - take your pick.
Time. It is clear that you will have to take pictures at night, but when - when the stars are clearly visible and represented in the maximum number. The night should be without clouds. It is advisable to follow the phase of the moon: how bright it is and where exactly in the sky it will be at a particular moment. The time of year doesn't really matter.
terrain. Firstly, you should choose a location that is more or less picturesque, since you will probably want to take pictures of the landscape, at least partially. Secondly, going out into nature is useful not only in search of beauty, but also in order to avoid getting into the frame of light from the lights of the city. Artificial lighting illuminates the sky, it, in principle, will be superfluous in the picture.
Technique. And here are two points: the camera itself + optics. Of course, it's good to have a high-quality camera that allows you to shoot in high resolution, take clear pictures, and it would not hurt if there was a separate noise reduction function. But do not be upset if you do not have a very advanced and modern camera. Even on Nikon d3100 you can take a good photo.

Pay more attention to the chosen lens. If you plan to increase the illumination of the photo due to the open one and play with the f indicator, then you can’t go anywhere without high-aperture optics. Also, the device must be wide-angle, for example, 16, 24 mm, etc. With such data, you can cover a very large part of the sky and the rest of the landscape.

Additional accessories. Any of your illuminators will come in handy, even an elementary flashlight or flash, which in capable hands is capable of much. Light is most likely needed to illuminate nearby objects, which could be more easily focused. You can also remember about color at this point to make the original backlight.

But more important when shooting the sky at night is something else - good. It should be high enough and stable. It is he who will fix the camera when you set the long one. Why did I mention endurance? Find out below, where we will talk about the settings.

How the professionals do it

This, of course, will focus on the camera settings.

Manual control. The camera can be almost anything, any brand (for example, Canon or Nikon). But what he definitely should have is a manual mode, with which you can maximally adapt to rather difficult external conditions.
Low ISO. Perhaps, beginners may be surprised: we are shooting in almost absolute darkness, without high sensitivity we will get only a black picture at all! This is not so: the photosensitivity should be no more than 200, so as not to create noise. When shooting the sky and stars, the emphasis should be on shutter speed. And read more about it.
Diaphragm. You shouldn't open it too much, because we need the largest one, since we want to capture the entire landscape. A large aperture, by the way, in such circumstances, in any case, will not give a noticeable increase in illumination.
Excerpt- is of paramount importance. It is on her that all lighting depends, and how the stars will turn out, that is, either clear (short shutter speed) or blurry, in motion (long). It is better to choose a specific value yourself, already at the place of filming. Remember that the earth rotates, therefore, with the set average time intervals, the stars can also be fuzzy. Keep in mind that in many low and mid-range cameras, 30 seconds is the longest. This is enough to show stellar movement, but in a small range. Thus, a slow shutter speed will both lighten the photo and turn dot stars into dash stars.
Focus. The most difficult thing with him: what to focus on in the dark? Turn off auto mode immediately, it just won't help you at all. With sleight of hand and a natural eye, we will have to adjust the focus. You won't see much in the viewfinder, so it's worth finding at least some lights and focusing on them. There is an option to highlight the foreground of the scene, for example, with a lantern, and focus on it.

When photographing with an amateur type camera or a professional expensive camera, in any case, the image of the starry sky will have to be retouched to a certain extent. So don't worry if something goes wrong, but don't get carried away with post-processing either! Count on yourself and actively use the acquired knowledge.

If you want to get to know your DSLR better than what it is capable of, then a video course will become your assistant. Why these courses? Everything is simple. They are designed for beginner photographers. Everything is told and shown in them in a very simple language, which will become clear from the first viewing. Many beginners, after viewing the course, talk with their SLR on you!

Digital SLR for beginners 2.0- who has NIKON.

My first MIRROR- who has CANON.

Bye! Look for something new, set goals, grow, and above all, above yourself! Don't forget to visit my blog - the blog of your faithful guide to the world of photography!

All the best to you, Timur Mustaev.

In this tutorial, I will talk about how I photograph the starry sky myself and give you some important, in my opinion, tips. We are all fascinated by the beauty of the night sky, and especially when the Milky Way is clearly visible, and we all want to capture this beauty in the picture. How to do it?

You can easily master the technique that I use when photographing the starry sky. If you are interested in the post-processing process, then I advise you to read the lessons of Michael Shainbloom and.

Photographing the Milky Way

I'll start the lesson by answering the most frequently asked question: How did you find the Milky Way in the sky? The answer will probably disappoint many, but if at night you can’t see the Milky Way above your head with the naked eye, then photographing is almost pointless.

What you will need:

A very dark night. I always check the phase of the moon before scheduling a shoot. If the light from the Moon is too bright, then it will not be possible to capture the Milky Way in all its glory.
Dark place for shooting. To find such a place, I use a special light pollution map from Google and NASA Blue Marble Navigator's Dark Skies Map.
Tall and stable tripod. I use a 72” tripod from Really Right Stuff, which is perfect for our task.

Things that will certainly improve the quality of your photos of the starry sky:

A very fast, in other words fast, wide-angle lens (allows you to set a small f-value). Such a lens allows you to absorb as much light as possible in a minimum period of time.
I shoot with Nikkor14-24mm f/2.8G or Nikkor 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye. At f/2.8, both of these lenses are very fast. Other lenses may also work fine.

Now I will list a few programs and applications for the phone that I find very useful and that I often use when I plan to shoot stars.

PhotoPills (only supported on Iphone). I have been using this application for about two months, it has become indispensable for me. The application has many functions that you can familiarize yourself with by clicking on the link.
Star Walk Astronomy Guide (for Android and Iphone) is a real guide to the starry sky, this app is second to none. It is enough to raise the phone to the sky, and the screen will display the planets, constellations and other space objects currently above your head. With it, you can also find the place from which it is best to observe the Milky Way.
The Photographers Ephemeris (for Android and Iphone). I use this app almost every time I'm going to shoot at sunset or sunrise. For shooting the night sky, it is useful to have information about the phase of the moon, the time of its rise and set and brightness, and this application will provide you with this information.
Stellarium is an excellent program thanks to which you can learn a lot about space, stars, and planets. You can download it to your computer or install the application on Android.
Google Sky Map - A free application developed by Google in which you will find the location of all space objects.

The 500 rule for star photography

What is the shutter speed for a night sky photo?

Some people use the 600 rule, but in my opinion the 500 rule results in sharper images and is a starting point for taking good photos of stars. Divide 500 by the focal length of the lens you plan to shoot with to find the maximum shutter speed at which the stars will stay sharp and not create tail blur.

If you set the shutter speed higher than the maximum, then most likely unwanted blurs will appear. Do not forget that the value that you get after the calculation is just a starting point, do not be afraid to experiment.

If the stars in the picture leave a blurry trail, then reduce the exposure time by a few seconds. If the stars seem not bright enough - on the contrary, increase.

It's all about practice and understanding how your camera works within this rule.

Below I have presented a table with already calculated excerpts, which will make the preparation process a little easier for you.

Those who shoot on non-full-frame cameras, pay attention. In this table, I have included the most common matrix sizes and the maximum exposure time for them.

focal length- Focal length; Sensor Size, Full Frame(35 mm) - Matrix size, Full frame (35 mm); Crop Sensor 11.5X, 1.6X(mm) - Crop matrix 11.5X, 1.6X (mm); MaxExp. Length(seconds) - Maximum exposure length (seconds)

I will list the technique and settings that I use myself. But this does not mean at all that shooting with a different camera or a different lens, you will get a worse image.

Camera model:
Nikon D800
Lenses:
Nikkor14-24mm f/2.8G
Nikkor 16mm f/2.8 Fisheye
Tripods:
BH-55LR Ballhead
TVC-34L Versa Series 3 Tripod
BD800-L: L-Plate for Nikon D800/800E

If, after taking a test shot, you find that the stars are not bright enough, then, using the 500 rule described above, set the maximum shutter speed. If, after increasing the shutter speed to the maximum, the stars are still not bright enough, increase the ISO value. But do not spoil the image quality and resort to ISO, if the situation can still be corrected by increasing the shutter speed. You can also try using Rule 600 instead of the Rule 500 I described.
If your camera has a built-in level, turn it on and use it.
When photographing, don't forget to take your camera away from time to time and look for something really impressive not through the viewfinder.
Remember the Golden Ratio and use it when composing your shot.

Camera settings

Mode: Manual

Format: RAW

Metering Mode: I personally use Matrix Metering on my 800. The brand's cameras also have this mode, but it's called Evaluative Metering. As an experiment, I tried all the metering modes while shooting the starry sky, and Matrix was out of the competition.

White balance: I set the white balance manually to get the most natural look of the sky. Good results, of course, are achieved by trial and error.

Focal length: From 14-31mm, I like to shoot at 14mm or with a fisheye lens that has a focal length of 16mm.

Focusing: As a rule, I focus on infinity. To get started, take a few test shots, and, starting from the received, adjust the focus. If you need to capture an object in the foreground, then I advise you to take two shots: one with this object in focus, and on the second, capture the stars separately. Then these photos can be combined into and get a sharp picture.

Diaphragm: f/2.8 or whatever the smallest f-number available on your camera. I prefer to shoot in the f/2.8 - f/4 range.

Excerpt:

ISO: I get good results at ISO 2000-5000. Depending on your camera, increasing the ISO can affect the quality of the photo (the appearance of noise). Experiment, take ISO1000 as a starting point. But remember that you should resort to ISO adjustment only after setting the shutter speed, according to the 500 rule.

Experiment with the big three: aperture, shutter speed until you get the result you want. The smallest change in each of the components significantly affects the result.

A lesson on shooting star tracks

When taking photos of stellar tracks, you don't have to focus on the accuracy of calculations, which is necessary for filming the Milky Way. But, nevertheless, some useful tips and understanding of Rule 500, which we already mentioned above, will not be superfluous.

Please note that some of the tips that I will describe below have already been said in the previous lesson, as they are relevant for both types of photography.

What you will need:

You can take pictures on any night, the main thing is a clear sky. I like shooting star tracks better when the Moon illuminates the sky well, in which case I don’t have to raise the ISO above 1000, so I avoid the appearance of noise in the photos.
Stable and high tripod. I shoot with a 72” Really Right Stuff tripod, which is great because its height allows me to look at the screen of the camera while shooting.
A camera with the ability to work in manual mode.
Timer/intervalometer. A key factor for shooting at shutter speeds over 30 seconds.
PhotoPills is an app that doesn't have to be downloaded at all, but it can help you calculate the exposure time needed to capture star trails. Also in this application you can find information about the phases of the moon.
Photos of star tracks are also, of course, better to shoot with fast lenses. For this type of night photography, I recommend f/4, although I tend to shoot in the f/1.4 - f/2.8 range.
Fully charged battery. You have to shoot continuously for several hours, so make sure that the battery is fully charged. I carry a couple of spare batteries with me just in case.

The 500 rule for shooting star tracks

Be sure to read the Rule 500 I described above, without understanding and mastering this simple rule, it will be much more difficult for you to take a good photo of star tracks.

Equipment: What do I use

I will not describe all the equipment that I use, since I partially did it in the previous lesson, you can return to it and look again.

I want to note that it is not at all necessary to photograph with a wide-angle lens. I shot tracks using all the lenses I have and I must say that all these photos looked great, although they differed due to the crop factor.

Camera settings

When it comes to shooting star tracks, I prefer the multiple exposure method to all other methods. During each exposure, a small fragment of the tail following the star is captured. The camera settings remain unchanged, and the only thing that changes is the position of the stars in the sky. Next, I combine all the photos I took in Photoshop to make a single long trail behind each of the stars. I like this method because it keeps the ISO and exposure time (about 15-45 seconds) small.

Note: You can shoot star tracks with a single slow shutter speed. But, in my opinion, this method seriously degrades the quality of the photograph, although under good conditions quite acceptable results are obtained. After learning the technique described below, you will be able to calculate the exposure time yourself.

Focal length: Any focal length will do for star track photography. But keep in mind that the larger the zoom, the longer the tails that follow the stars will get in a shorter amount of time. If you do not want to spend half the night shooting, then zoom lenses are what you need. In the event that you want to capture the entire trajectory of the star in wide-angle format, then the process will drag on for several hours. To see for yourself, for the sake of experiment, try to take several test shots with different lenses or different focal lengths in a given period of time and look at the length of the tracks.

Focusing: As a rule, I focus on infinity. If you need to capture an object in the foreground, then I advise you to take two shots: one with this object in focus, and on the second, capture the stars separately. Then these photos can be combined in Photoshop and get a sharp picture.

Diaphragm: For star track photography, I usually set my aperture to f/2.8 (or in the range f/2.8 - f/4).

Excerpt: The standard for me is 30 seconds. Sometimes I shoot at 50 seconds to capture more distant and therefore less bright stars. The longer the shutter speed, the more light the camera absorbs, the better we can see objects that are far from our planet.

Advice: I usually add a few seconds to the shutter speed calculated according to the 500 Rule.

ISO: Since I shoot mainly in moonlight conditions, I can not set high ISO values. Start shooting at ISO 300, increasing the value as needed. Don't forget that you don't need long tracks, as the photos will still be combined later on, as we said earlier, in Photoshop.

Advice: Raising the ISO is the last resort, you can always increase the exposure time if the pictures are not bright enough.

Shooting time/Number of exposures

The PhotoPills app helps you calculate how long you need to shoot star trails of different lengths. Remember that the more space the sky takes up in the overall composition of the photo, the more time is spent on the process of creating a picture. But if you have a couple of hours of time, then take coffee with you, something to eat and, with peace of mind, set the required number of frames, delay and wait.

Timer setting

Once you have figured out how long it will take you to capture the desired length of star trails, you will need to set the timer. I recommend shooting at 1 second intervals or less if your camera can. This frequency is necessary to avoid empty areas between star tracks during processing in Photoshop.

post-processing

Now I will briefly outline the post-processing process in Photoshop.

Upload all the captured photos to a RAW converter like Lightroom or Adobe Camera RAW.
From the entire series, edit one photo to your liking, using the settings for White Balance, Highlights, Shadows, etc. Make the picture the way you would like it to be at the end of processing. Next, synchronize the processing of this photo with all the shots. This is easy to do using the Sync option in Lightroom.
Export all photos in the format you need. I recommend the JPEG format, since there will be about 100 pictures, and to work with, for example, the TIFF format, you need a very fast computer with huge RAM.
Open all images in Photoshop in one file as layers. I do this through Adobe Bridge using the "Load Files into Photoshop as Layers" feature (Load files into Photoshop as layers).
Select all layers except the bottom layer and change the blend mode to Lighten.
Ready. You should see a photo with connected star tracks, forming beautiful traces of the trajectory of the stars.

A few final words

Perhaps the hardest part of creating a star trail photograph is getting the length of the shot right. If you don't take enough shots, the final photo may not have the stellar tails long enough. Therefore, it is better to take more pictures and not worry about anything. It is also equally important to find a balance between and exposure time.