Shooting the Stars, an Introduction
Night photography can be incredibly fun, but it’s also a challenge that can push the limits of both photographer and camera. The good news is that once you’ve learned to capture the stars it gets easier, allowing you to focus more on composition and creative choice. When starting out though, it’s best to ignore all the artistic stuff until you figure out exactly what you need to do.
This is also one area where gear does matter. You will have an easier time getting the night sky with a full frame camera and an incredible fast lens. That being said, you can still get the shot with a crop or micro four-thirds sensor. You will have difficulties if you can’t get an aperture of at least f/2.8 (so you probably wont be getting anything with your telephoto lenses). So don’t give up if you don’t have the latest and greatest camera or the perfect lenses, just keep in mind that there will be limitations.
Often, the hardest part of getting a clean shot is finding the right location. Near cities there is too much ambient light that will overpower the stars. Weather can make the shot impossible. Even the moon being in the sky can ruin a composition. Getting the best possible picture will require patience and planning, so scout out locations beforehand and keep track of the weather before heading out. It’s frustrating to get everything set up (especially if you had to travel) just to have clouds roll in before you can start shooting.
Now, time to get into camera settings!
First, you need a tripod. Yes, it’s possible to have somewhere to set your camera, but a tripod will make things much easier, and give you the ability to move around as needed. So if you’re just starting out with photography, don’t skip over the tripod thinking that it’s not essential.
When you go to set up the shot, you’re going to want the widest aperture possible with your lens, and the shortest focal length. You also want to be using your fastest (and widest) lens for this (once you learn to get a clean shot you can play around with your other gear and fit it to your artistic style, but start out with the lens that gives you the widest aperture). This is going to give you the most wiggle room with your other settings, and you’re going to need it.
While most cameras can slow down the shutter to 30 seconds, this is too slow. You’ll wind up getting streaking with the stars instead of nice clean pinpoints of light. Generally, you will want to start at about 8-10 seconds on the shutter, and depending on your focal length you may need to speed it up even more. It’s something you will need to experiment with to get the slowest shutter speed possible while maintaining a clear image, but 10 seconds is a good starting point.
And now, for ISO. It’s going to be high. This is where higher end and full frame cameras really make a difference in what you can do, but don’t let that deter you from using whatever gear you currently have. You can still get some pretty good results without the most expensive equipment, especially if you do some light painting or multiple exposures to give a clear foreground. To set the ISO, just start with the highest you can go with the image still being usable, and work your way down from there. It will take some time and practice to figure out the best setting for your camera, but once you have them down you can focus more on the composition of your photo and not spend all night dealing with settings adjustments.
The final step is going to be focusing the lens. This can be tricky, and may take some experimenting depending on the camera you have. Generally, you want to focus to be just short of infinity for the clearest image, but you will have to dial it in manually to what works best. Auto-focus doesn’t work when shooting the night sky unfortunately, and if you don’t have a live preview on your camera’s LCD this step may take a while. Once you do get your focus zeroed in, you may want to put some tape (or a mark of some other sort) to mark the exact focus you need, so the next time you go out you aren’t spending all your time re-focusing.
Once you get that first clear shot of the stars, setup becomes much faster. This means that instead of spending all night trying to get the camera to cooperate, you can now spend that time working on composition, and introduce things light light painting to a foreground to really liven up your shot. So get out there, avoid the weather, and go capture the stars!