Album Night Shots and Star Trails

Circular structure found just outside of Moab Utah. Cold night. Doing multiple squats and pushups through the long exposures was helped make this possible! Plus a liter of hot tea!

Two exposures. Foreground was 4 minutes. Stars was 30s. All illumination was from the thinnest crescent moon, that now looks like the sun in the photo.
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I would like to take some pictures like the ones on this thread. They are stunning.
However I have never had a camera that was capable.
If someone would indulge me a few questions.
What length of exposure do you need to get stars? Is it possible with a point and shoot camera? Right now I can't step up to a big camera. So is there anyway can I sneak into this group of great photos but as a cheapskate?
 
JackBurns said:
I would like to take some pictures like the ones on this thread. They are stunning.
However I have never had a camera that was capable.
If someone would indulge me a few questions.
What length of exposure do you need to get stars? Is it possible with a point and shoot camera? Right now I can't step up to a big camera. So is there anyway can I sneak into this group of great photos but as a cheapskate?
Click to expand...

Hey JackBurns!
This would be difficult with a point and shoot camera, still worth experimenting with. Here's what I would do. a tripod will be crucial. Nothing fancy, even just prop the camera up on something so it doesn't move at all. Hopefully your camera can go into pure manual mode. Play with your ISO settings. Go as high as you can until the image looks too grainy. Then back off a bit. Change your f/stop to the lowest number your camera will go. For exposure times that depends on your focal length. Rule of thumb is the 500 rule. Take your lens focal length and divide it into 500. That's the longest exposure you can do with minimal star trails. If you don't know the focal length set your camera for as long as it will go. Probably 30s. If you see trails make it shorter. Or maybe the trails would be cool? Just do lots of experiments with those settings and see how it goes. Then of course there's post processing after you take the photo. But that's another topic...

Also! set your camera on time delay, 2s or 5s. So if it wiggles when you push the it'll stop by the time the photo is taken.

Good luck!
 
JackBurns said:
I would like to take some pictures like the ones on this thread. They are stunning.
However I have never had a camera that was capable.
If someone would indulge me a few questions.
What length of exposure do you need to get stars? Is it possible with a point and shoot camera? Right now I can't step up to a big camera. So is there anyway can I sneak into this group of great photos but as a cheapskate?
Click to expand...

tozo has given some great advice above. In short, you need to be able to allow as much light onto your camera's sensor as possible, whilst still taking care not to under or overexpose parts of the image. To do that you'll need to consider all or some of the below:

- Get away from the light pollution in cities and towns
- Depending on the effect you want, set your camera's ISO (light sensitivity) to higher than 800
- Depending on the effect you want, shoot exposures for between 10 secs to several mins
- Use a wide angle lens (maybe 14mm or wider)
- Use a fast lens (f2.8 aperture or faster)
- Shoot in RAW format if possible, to capture maximum image data
- Use a tripod, remote control or self timer to eliminate camera shake

Astrophotography is generally a trial and error combination of all of the above to get the photo you want. I'm sure i'm not the only one who shoots the same image maybe 10 or more times with a variety of shutter speed, ISO, aperture combinations before selecting the one that came out best when i'm reviewing them at home.

Mirrorless or DSLR cameras generally produce better results due to their larger, superior sensors but you may be surprised by the results you can get with some point and shoots. Have a read of this great article about shooting the Milky Way with a P&S on the Lonely Speck site, and in fact have a read through the entire site itself. There's lots of great info and tutorials on there for shooting the night sky!
 
This is all excellent info.
Thank you.

Costco has a Sony A6000 bundle with a $550 off coupon on Back Friday.
Still out of my range right now.
Jack
 
I should have finished by asking if that (the sony) would be a good way to go.
Jack
 
JackBurns said:
I should have finished by asking if that (the sony) would be a good way to go.
Jack
Click to expand...

It's a really fantastic camera, I have it myself. The kit lens will do reasonably well for night photography but it's a little slow, with a widest aperture of f3.5, something wider and faster will get even better results. I have the Rokinon 12mm f2 lens, which is one of the most popular night sky/landscape lenses for mirrorless cameras thanks to it's great quality and reasonable price.
 
Playa San Miguel at low tide on a full moon Christmas night. 10:00pm, 15 second shutter speed.

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I took these last January on an ill-fated solo boat trip out on Powell. I was camped up on that mesa in this first photo over the 15/16 new year. Makes me want to head back out this winter if the storms ever slow down long enough.

The sunset that wouldn't stop.
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These are from an absolute spur of the moment overnight bikepacking trip to the Medicine Bow Rail to Trail last summer. All I did was grab my camera, my lens', my tracker, my binoculars, a sleeping bag and my bike.

20 minutes before true darkness.

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After the stars came out

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