With the Dark Sky Festival upon us there鈥檚 no better time to try your hand at some nighttime photography.
To help you capture Jasper鈥檚 night sky, Ryan Bray, a local photographer renowned for his breathtaking pictures, has put together a cheat sheet so you can wield your camera like a pro.听
The equipment you need
- DSLR or modern mirrorless cameras
- A wide angle lens with aperture of 2.8 is ideal
- Tripod
Cheat Sheet for Beginners
- Camera on Manual, on a tripod and use the widest lens you have
- Shutter speed between 20-25 seconds
- Put your ISO somewhere between 1600 to 3200
- Aperture as low as it can go (2.8 is ideal if your lens can go that low)
- Put your lens on manual, and focus to infinity
With those settings you will get something, but it will be slightly out of focus and you will likely have lots of noise in your image, however you will be on your way to capturing great dark sky images. Dark sky photography takes patience and a little hard work, but in the end the results can be out of this world. Check out the rest of the guide to get great results.
Equipment
When it comes to dark sky photography, a simple point and shoot camera won鈥檛 cut it. To get the most spectacular shots you will need a DSLR (or a modern mirrorless camera) with a wide angle lens ideally with an aperture of f2.8. A 鈥渇ull frame鈥� DSLR will provide better images than a crop sensor DSLR, but a crop sensor camera will still provide you with jaw-dropping results. The reasoning behind this is that you want to get as much light into your camera sensor as possible, with as little noise as possible. A wide angle lens with an aperture of f2.8 or better will allow enough light to hit the camera鈥檚 sensor to produce a dazzling image. Also a good, sturdy tripod is a must due to the long shutter speeds. Without it your photos will be all blurry.
Location
Jasper is an ideal location for dark sky photography. That is because we are the second largest dark sky perverse in the world. This means that we don鈥檛 have lots of light pollution. The more street lights, car lights, and house lights there are, the less we can see the stars. These lights from major cities can pollute the skies hundreds of kilometers away. You also want to pick a location where you can get a good foreground, like a mountain, rock outcropping, or a lake.
Time
For dark sky photography you might have to top up on coffee or tea to stay up late. Depending on where you are and what season it is, you might have to stay up past midnight for it to be dark enough to get the perfect shot. You also need to know the moon phases and what direction you want to take your photo, as a full moon acts as light pollution and blocks out many stars. In fact a long exposure of the moon makes it look like the sun. Be sure to look up online what the moon phase is and when the 鈥渁stronomical darkness鈥� is for best results.
Settings
Now this is where the patience part comes in. We need to think about a few basic camera functions to get the most out of our shots.
Aperture
To get the most light into your camera we want your aperture to be large as possible (large aperture is a lower number) f2.8 works great, however you can get decent results with f3.5 depending on your camera. Regardless of your gear, give it a shot.
Shutter Speed
You want to leave the shutter open longer to gather all the stars light, but if you leave the shutter open too long the stars start to streak. This is because we are moving, well the earth is, so the stars will start to look like lines. Ideally for crisp star photos you can only leave the shutter open for maximum of 24 seconds. For more advance photographers, look up the 鈥�500 rule for photography鈥� for really crisp results.
ISO
With ISO, the higher you put it, the brighter your photo will be. So you might think you want to put it as high as your camera can go. However, with a higher ISO, you introduce more noise into your photo. It might look good on the small preview screen on the back of your camera but at home on the computer or when you print it, can look very grainy with all the noise. 听The sweet spot for ISO will depend on your camera. Expensive full frame DSLRs can push the ISO up to 1600-6400 ISO for nighttime photography with little noise, whereas inexpensive crop sensor cameras might only get up to 800 ISO before the image is unusable. Play with your camera settings and review it on a computer to know where your camera's limit is.
Focus
This is the hardest part of getting great star photos for beginners, and will take some practice. You might think that if you focus to infinity on your lens you would get the stars in focus, however if you do this, your stars will be slightly out of focus. So how do you focus on stars? There are two different ways to get it right. The first method is to focus to infinity and review the photo and zoom in closely to the stars. Then ever-so-slightly pull back the focus and review the image again, eventually you will find the sweet spot. The second and easier method is using 鈥渓ive view鈥� on your听 camera (if you camera supports it). Turn on the live view and tilt your camera to the brightest star in the sky, zoom in and try to find it. Focus on the star and you are good to go. To ensure you don鈥檛 have to repeat the process, tape your focus down with a piece of tape for your evening of shooting.
Ryan Bray special to the 51暗网
