5 common mistakes beginner astrophotographers make — and how to avoid them
Astrophotography is used to humble even the most confident photographers. What looks like a perfect scene to the eye often turns into blurred stars or trails of unwanted stars. The sky moves constantly, the light is light and everything is good takes more care than most other types of photography.
You will find below five of the most common errors that beginners often make during the photograph of the night sky and how to avoid them. Knowing that it can save you time, frustration and wasted shoots. Although the technique is essential, having the best astrophotographic camera and the Astro lens will help you get the best possible plans.
1. Do not nail the focus
Nothing kills an astro shot faster than a failed focus – and that happened to the best of us at one time or another. When you miss the attention, the stars will not be simply “soft”, they will look bad. For clear details, you must focus on Infinity, but it is not always as simple as to twist the goal all along – you must always refine your concentration.
To focus on Infinity, look at your LCD screen (or activate the live view) and enlarge the brightest star of your frame. Gently adjust the focus ring until this star is at its smallest most defined point. To make sure your goal is correct, take an exposure to the test and zoom in on the result to confirm. It becomes easier the more you do, so keep practicing.
Some more recent cameras even have Autofocus Starry Sky-we tested it during our review OM-1 Mark II OM-1 and we were stunned by the way it worked. It’s always a good idea to get comfortable with manual concentration as a backup, but if you want sharp stars each time, the OM system has your back.
2. Do not use the correct shutter speed
The shutter speed can also make or break your strokes. Too short, and you will capture time, lifeless stars. Too long, and the stars will stretch in trails instead of remaining sharp. The ideal point depends on your focal distance and the size of the camera sensor – this is where the Rule 500 comes into play.
For a complete camera, divide 500 by the focal length of your lens to obtain the maximum shutter speed. If you use a 20 mm lens, 500 divided by 20 equal to 25 seconds. For APS-C models, use 300 instead of 500, and if you use a four-thirds microphone, use 250.
If you exceed these limits, you will end up with trails of involuntary stars. If you go much shorter, you will eventually increase your ISO to compensate, which adds image noise.
3. Do not deal for the movement of the sky
The night sky is not static; It is constantly in motion, and if you do not plan this, your perfect composition can disappear even before having configured your tripod. A brilliant section of the Milky Way could be just above this mountain crest now, but 20 minutes later, it could have drifted outside the setting. The same goes for the moon.
Before leaving, use a free application to predict where your subject will be and when. Stellarium is a free application that you can download on your phone that allows you to get you quickly at night for any date and location. Others, such as photopills or Skysafari, give similar tools with additional photography -oriented features.
By planning in advance, you can position yourself so that the heart of the Milky Way is exactly where you want, or time for a blow for the moon to go up behind a benchmark. You will also avoid the disappointment to settle completely in the wrong place.
4. Use of ISO which is too high
Generating ISO may seem an easy way to light up the stars, but in astrophotography, the more is not always better. A higher ISO not only increases the sensitivity of your camera to light, but it also stimulates the sound of the image that eats at retail. Push too far and your beautiful milky way turns into a grainy mess that is impossible to save in the edition.
The trick is to find the “sweet spot” of your camera – the ISO which gives enough light without drowning the image in the noise. For many modern full frame cameras, it is somewhere between ISO 1,600 and 3,200. The best way to know is to perform a few test shots and compare the results.
Once you are a little more advanced, you can experiment with the shooting of various calibration frames to fight against noise and present more details in your images.
5. Do not shoot in gross
Pulling the night sky at Jpeg is like paint a nebula with a cheap box of 8 pencils – you throw most of the details and colors before you even start to edit. The JPEGs are compressed, so the camera decides what information to be kept and what information to be eliminated. This is bad news with regard to astrophotography, where subtle tones and weak stars count.
Grute files, on the other hand, keep all the data that your sensor captures. They contain more color, depth, dynamic beach and greater flexibility to adjust your exposure and noise. This is particularly crucial when you pull the weak in detail from the Milky Way or come out of colors in clusters of stars and nebulae.
Grute files are larger and they need treatment before sharing – but that’s the point. Astrophotography does not concern rapid snapshots; It is a question of creating the best possible image from the best possible data. If you want your night sky to be always at their best, start with RAW.
