This is a story of how I thought I was starting a new hobby and found out my location may not be the bets possible for it. Some learning was one, however. Note: Unless otherwise stated, pictures have not been edited aside from straightening horizons.
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30 s, f/2.0, ISO 3200
21:20 PM |
Guess what this is! Yes, my first attempt at astrography, photography of the stars! Could've gone better. Rather baffled, I started to tweak the settings, wondering what I'd done wrong.
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10 s, f/2.0, ISO 800
21:24 PM |
Apparently I'd ignored the warnings about light pollution near cities and moon. Slight tweaking of the settings and I did get something visible.
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10 s, f/2.0, ISO 800
21:25 PM |
Not quite.
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1/10 s, f/2.0, ISO 800
21:26 PM |
Nope.
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1,6s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:27 |
So I tweaked the settings a little and pointed at Niuniu. Which revealed the awful amount of light pollution from the city lights around us.
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1/8s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:27 PM |
Though to my human eyes the scene looked like this (and the background lights did not look that bright in reality)...
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1s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:29 |
...with proper camera settings I could create an illusion of tons of light, almost like daylight.
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1s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:30 |
I quite like these. The focus is not exactly where it should be, but since it was too dark, I had to use manual focus, and since it was too dark, getting the manual focus right was nearly impossible.
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1s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:31 |
On the left: what the camera actually gave me on normal settings. On the right, same picture lightened a lot to show there actually is a dog. (1/30s, f/2.0, ISO 6400)
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1s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:36 |
Tweaking of settings and there we have it.
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1s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:39 |
So... No stellar star pictures.
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0,5s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:39 |
But it was nice to hang out in the moonlight with Niuniu.
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0,5s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:39 |
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1/4s, f/2.0, ISO 6400
21:43 |
Some more tries at the night sky, now that I'd established the fact I should ignore the advice of using high ISOs and lowest possible shutter speed (since there quite simply was too much light for that).
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0,3s, f/2.0, ISO 3200
21:44 |
So, this is the best I got! The big dipper!
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13s, f/2.0, ISO 100, lightened on computer
21:46 |
There are stars. Quite a few of them. I can help the situation a little by trying again when the moon isn't shining. But it won't help much, there's quite simply far too much light coming from the surroundings, and I won't be getting anywhere truly dark anytime soon. Hence, I guess night sky photography shall not be becoming a new hobby anytime soon...
Let's finish with how a skiier appeared on the ice, alarming Niuniu. This is what happens, when one doesn't have a chance to properly finish a long shutter speed shot of the night sky.
Conclusion: Try again when no moon. Do not expect too much. Wait for a hiking trip to the middle of nowhere.
And a camera with ISO 6400 teamed with a lens of aperture of f/2.0 can save ok:ish pictures in amazing lighting conditions!
