Taking night sky pix?

L6steel

L6steel

Joined
Sep 23, 1999
Messages
5,855
I tried to take some pix of the night sky with my digital camera and it didn't take any of them!
I guess I have to set the shutter speed or something to make it work. My camera is an Olympus Evolute 410.
Can you guys help me with the settings I need to make to get good photos of the night sky? I have a good tri pod and remote control.
Sure would appreciate any help you can give me!!!!!
 
What problems resulted from your attempts? Were your shots underexposed? Were the stars blurry?

I'd say it's easier to evaluate the problem(s) you are having and go from there, but there are plenty of online guides if you use a Google search like how to photograph the night sky
 
You are going to have to put the camera on a tripod for starters (or rest it on something solid). Then choose manual exposure - if the camera is a point and shoot then you might have to burrow into some menus to find this. After that it's pretty simple - just choose the longest exposure the camera can handle and go for it; it's almost impossible to overexpose the night sky. Leaving the shutter open for more than a few seconds may cause some electronic 'noise' on the image created by the camera itself (even some top end DSLR's do this); but you can get around this by choosing a slightly shorter exposure time.

So in summary;

1) Fix the camera (preferably on a tripod)
2) Manually choose a small apeture (large apeture number). This is to create a large depth of field so that everything is in focus.
3) Manually choose a long exposure (more than 8 secs is good)

The photo in my avatar was taken with a point and shoot style camera at night on an 8 second exposure (which was the max the camera would do)
 
As a tip, once you have manually set your settings, the act of hitting the shutter release button can cause your camera to shake. If you set your camera's timer, though, it will have stopped shaking by the time the picture-taking happens. :thumbup:
 
I take night shots by manipulating the ISO settings, aperture settings and exposure times
I usually use a LOW aperture like D2.8 or F3.5
The ISO setting is what causes the "noise"/graininess
Higher ISO=more "noise"
I usually use the lowest ISO setting (Usually 50 or 100) I can get away with
I depends on the amount of light
If there is NO LIGHT at all, I may have to use ISO 200 or 400
But, at those higher ISO's it's pretty grainy
I use the exposure time to get just the right amount of light that I want
I just turn the dial until it looks like the amount of light I want in the LCD screen
My camera goes up to 15 seconds
A tripod is a must for night/long exposure shots










All these shots were taken with ISO 50-100, F2.8
I used the exposure time to vary the light
To me if often comes down to how much I want the lights to "glow"
This one probably has too much of a "glow" from the lights, for example



Read about ISO noise here===>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_noise
ISO noise is often a problem with night shots
I don't notice the graininess as much during full daylight shots

Just mess around with the manual settings
You'll figure it out
I love taking night shots now that I know how to do it
I used auto everything for the longest time

If your talking about taking shots of the stars and the night sky===>
That one has me stumped :mad:
I think you need a nice telephoto lens:confused:
 
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