From the initial starry sky and star trails, to the current shooting of the Milky Way and Silver Arch, to the sunrise and sunset shooting of the starry sky, there are more and more ways to play starry sky photography. Although shooting starry sky is not new for a long time, there are still some friends who are not very familiar with starry sky photography. Let’s take a look at how to shoot various starry sky subjects.
·What do you need to shoot the starry sky, must it be full frame? NO!
First of all, let’s talk about the choice of shooting equipment. Many friends are discouraged from shooting stars because they think that only expensive full-frame DSLRs can be used to shoot stars. In fact, this is a misunderstanding. The advantage of good equipment is that the photos are more pure, but for starry sky shooting, in fact, the choice of equipment is not so tangled now. Many advanced card cameras can complete the shooting. Let’s first look at what is needed to shoot the starry sky.
·What do I need to shoot the stars? Can be manual, high sense, large aperture
What kind of equipment can shoot the starry sky? In terms of shooting requirements, starry sky shooting has two requirements for the machine itself: a usable high-sensitivity lens above ISO 800, a large aperture lens; and one requirement for control: manual control or starry sky mode. If you want to capture the shape of the nebula in the sky and the color of the Milky Way, a large aperture is more realistic than a high sense. The colors of some nebulae cannot be obtained by increasing the sense of height, and the effect of increasing the aperture is more obvious.
Therefore, if you want to shoot the starry sky, most equipment is fine; if you want to shoot the Milky Way, it is best to have a large aperture lens, f/2.8 aperture is the best choice. In short, for starry sky photography, if you want to shoot better, an excellent large aperture is actually more important than a high-feeling machine. Many mirrorless lenses have many f/1.4 wide-angle large apertures. These lenses In fact, it is better to use than full-frame with a small aperture.
·What is needed for accessories? Actually a tripod is enough
In terms of accessories for starry sky photography, a stable tripod is the most important one. A stable tripod can provide long-term exposure without shaking during shooting. As for other accessories, in fact, ordinary starry sky shooting does not require any optical filters, but deep sky shooting still needs some special filters to avoid the effects of light damage, but for example, daily CPL, ND, etc. are not necessary. But the shutter release is very helpful, especially when shooting star trails.
·Basic content, what you need to know about shooting starry sky
Let’s take a look at the basic methods of shooting starry sky. In fact, shooting starry sky can be divided into shooting star trails and shooting starry sky. There is a lot of content about starry sky shooting on the Internet. Here I choose a few very important basic content to let everyone know.
·Starry sky positioning and when can the Milky Way be photographed?
In the northern hemisphere, the starry sky will continue to rotate along the North Star. Therefore, we have the effect of star trails. In the southern hemisphere, although the starry sky is rotating, the North Star is not visible. For different regions, the closer you are to the equator, the more stars you can see, and the closer you are to the poles, the faster the stars will rotate.
For the Milky Way, the Milky Way is also constantly rotating, but due to the different months, the Milky Way appears at a different location every night. From January to December, the appearance time of the Milky Way core is gradually advanced, but in the first 1-4 months of the year, the Milky Way core has not yet risen before dawn; and after October, the Milky Way core waits until dark and has fallen on the horizon. under.
Therefore, the appropriate shooting time of the year is from April to October. The Milky Way in April appears at dawn, and the Milky Way in October is after sunset. (The opposite is the case in the southern hemisphere) The core of the Milky Way is generally located in the south, which varies according to seasons and time, but the south is the basic direction.
·About star trails
First of all, the stars are constantly moving with the movement of the earth. The stars in the sky will rotate clockwise with the North Star as the midpoint (Northern Hemisphere), so as long as we expose them, the stars will have trajectories. For shooting the starry sky, whether you want to shoot the star trails, or simply shoot the starry sky, or shoot the Milky Way, there will be star trails. For the movement of the star trails, there are the following principles: the longer the time, the longer the star trails; the larger the aperture, the higher the sensitivity, the thicker the star trails; the longer the focal length, the longer the star trails at the same time. Of course, if you use an equatorial mount, there will be no smear, you can use a long time exposure, so the sensitivity can also be used lower.
500 principle: For shooting the Milky Way, the star trails produced by the long exposure will cause the Milky Way to smear. Usually, we can follow the 500 principle when shooting, that is, when shooting the Milky Way, the equivalent focal length × exposure time <500. ·The basics of starry sky shooting
Three basic principles for shooting starry sky: large aperture, high ISO, and long exposure; requirements for shooting exposure: increase the brightness of the picture as much as possible. Normally, for the clarity of the starry sky: aperture ≥ sensitivity> exposure time; for noise control, in order to produce as little noise as possible in actual shooting, the exposure should be increased as much as possible without overexposure. In order to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, bright pictures will always have less noise than underexposed pictures.
·Star Trail Shooting
For star trail shooting, there are two methods, one is superposition and the other is direct shooting. For the field without light pollution, long time exposure will not overexpose the sky background, so direct long-term shooting can be used; but for illuminated areas, such as urban areas, only the superposition method can be used. Direct shooting will inevitably appear on the ground Of overexposure or flare in the sky. When shooting star trails, if it is facing north, the star trails will be round, otherwise it will be diagonal.
