night sky pictures

Camera equipment and technique for taking photos.
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vonmackle
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by vonmackle »

Nice! Great pictures! Keep 'em coming.

Matt...Love the Milky Way over Durango shot.

The Garden of the Gods shot inspired me to post one of my own that I took on Christmas morning. I had just bought a new 50mm lens and wanted to see what it could do. With just a hint of light on the eastern horizon, I put my camera on the tripod, opened the lens all the way, set the exposure to 30 seconds and the focus to infinity. It's wasn't a perfect result, but I kind of like the dreamy feel created by combination of the unintentional soft focus, the star trails, and the vignetting in the corners.
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realhillboarding
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by realhillboarding »

I decided to add some stars to the big dipper while on vacation in Minnesota this past summer :D
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TCUTED
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by TCUTED »

vonmackle wrote:My wife and I camped a couple nights near treeline along Matterhorn Creek this week. This is the view from our camp as I woke up at 4:15 on Thursday morning to hike Uncompahgre and Matterhorn:

Great shot! how do you get the foreground so bright and focused like that? I assume high F-numbers on your aperture, and a longer exposure, but even then...was the moon out?
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vonmackle
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by vonmackle »

TCUTED wrote:Great shot! how do you get the foreground so bright and focused like that? I assume high F-numbers on your aperture, and a longer exposure, but even then...was the moon out?
Thanks! Yes, I believe it was around a quarter moon. I love shooting using moonlight. For this shot I used a five minute exposure at f4, ISO 400. Everything was far enough away that I could use a wide aperture and still have everything in focus. I manually focused on the moon (which was above and behind me) and then carefully recomposed the shot so I wouldn't bump the lens back out of focus.
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by mattpayne11 »

vonmackle wrote:Nice! Great pictures! Keep 'em coming.

Matt...Love the Milky Way over Durango shot.

The Garden of the Gods shot inspired me to post one of my own that I took on Christmas morning. I had just bought a new 50mm lens and wanted to see what it could do. With just a hint of light on the eastern horizon, I put my camera on the tripod, opened the lens all the way, set the exposure to 30 seconds and the focus to infinity. It's wasn't a perfect result, but I kind of like the dreamy feel created by combination of the unintentional soft focus, the star trails, and the vignetting in the corners.
Really nice shot, man. Good work.
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vonmackle
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by vonmackle »

Matt, I just recently checked out your photos on Flickr. You have some great stuff on there!
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by mattpayne11 »

vonmackle wrote:Matt, I just recently checked out your photos on Flickr. You have some great stuff on there!
Thanks man... been trying to expand my horizons a little bit... doing a 365 project this year so it is keeping me thinking!
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by Dancesatmoonrise »

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Moonrise, Raspberry Mountain, Pikes Peak
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vonmackle
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by vonmackle »

I was in Dinosaur National Monument for a few days last week and actually made the effort to get out and practice some moonlight shots. Despite being a couple days before the full moon, that moon was bright! Can't wait to get out and try some more moonlight photography the next time around.

Steamboat Rock from Echo Park
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Echo Park
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View from the overlook above Green River Campground
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by prestone818 »

some awesome pics. the ones that look like daylight, is that from moonlight or iso 5 million?
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by Leigh »

I love night photos - probably because I barely see any stars where I live, so it's nice to see them in pictures.

One thing that has helped is buying a remote shutter release (very inexpensive Nikon model) so you don't shake the camera when you press the shutter.

These two are probably my favorite so far, taken from a camp on the Colorado River in Canyonlands National Park - a full moon was rising and lighting up the canyon walls
Image

Image

For those with the star trail photos, how long of an exposure does that typically require? I haven't yet had the patience for those!
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vonmackle
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Re: night sky pictures

Post by vonmackle »

prestone818 wrote:the ones that look like daylight, is that from moonlight or iso 5 million?
In my Dinosaur NM set, it's more of a combination of bright moon, longer exposures, wide apertures and exposure adjustment in Lightroom. I try to keep the iso setting lower to reduce noise.

Here are the settings I used for the three pictures.

Photo 1:
2 minute exposure at iso 200, 24mm at f4 I had to increase exposure in lightroom because it was underexposed.

Photo 2:
20 second exposure at iso 400, 50mm at f1.4

Photo3:
30 seconds at iso 200, 50mm at f1.4

Leigh wrote: from a camp on the Colorado River in Canyonlands National Park - a full moon was rising and lighting up the canyon walls
Nice shots. I love how the Big Dipper sits just right over the canyon walls.
"To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable." -Ludwig van Beethoven
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