Frustrating night picture

[evldave]

ok, need some help on how to take a nice night picture. Was near tahoe and had perfectly clear night, new moon, perseid meteor shower, the whole bit...and took crappy pictures...

So...this was w/a D90, kit lens (18-105 ED), F22, ISO 500, 18mm, 30 min exposure...i know the equipment works fine, so this is 100% user error

The ISO was set to auto, everything else was manual...I think I should have seet ISO to 200, dropped the f-stop all the way down, and then it wouldn't have been so noisy? Granted, it'll be awhile before I get this opportunity again, but I want to learn from my mistakes, so any help/suggestions are appreciated

note: the light on the lower right above the hill are the lights from Reno ~45 miles away...when I was growing up there was absolutely zero ambient light

 

[Tucson T4R]

Here's a great tutorial for shooting night skies.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/13098771_t6ehR

Here's a shot I took following Ron's tutorial. This was taken off my porch with lots city light coming from behind me.

 

[DrMoab]

It was most likely the auto ISO that got you.

I usually set mine as low as I can get it if I don't care as much about the length of exposure.

 

[Tucson T4R]

That and the F22 aperture not letting in enough light. I would open that way up to F2.8 - F4 to bring in the available light.

 

[Ryanmb21]

Here's a great tutorial for shooting night skies.

http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/13098771_t6ehR

Awesome link, I might have a chance now. Thanks!

 

[Tucson T4R]

Awesome link, I might have a chance now. Thanks!

Your welcome. Ron is an amazing photographer with outstanding results. Now I just need to get my butt off my porch and get out in the back country with some dark skies to practice more. :elkgrin:

 

[evldave]

Your welcome. Ron is an amazing photographer with outstanding results. Now I just need to get my butt off my porch and get out in the back country with some dark skies to practice more. :elkgrin:

x2 and thanks for the link!

 

[109 Pretender]

Yeah,
You need to open up the lens when shooting night shots. Most good lenses are optimized about one stop less than wide open - really great lenses can be cranked wide open w/little or no loss in resolution.
Probably always best to shoot manual settings when doing work like this. Auto settings are really good today for most cameras for NORMAL type work. Shooting at night doesn't qualify as normal work...

Probably the biggest error is shooting the frame for 30mins. Can't do that w/LCD unless you have a chip that is cooled. The s/n ratio is best at <3min./shot for these type land cameras.

Go to an astronomy camera if you want to shoot long timeframes (they use peltier cooling) - although most amateur astronomers still don't shoot at more than 5min./shot because of the noise that is generated. They 'stack' multiple frames to increase the picture density thereby increasing the signal way above the noise threshold.

Hope this helps

 

[AYIAPhoto]

Another vote for opening the aperture up. I don't know what the largest aperture on your kit lens is(some kit lenses only go down to around 4 something). On the cheap you might consider a 35 or 50 1.8. Used they aren't too pricey. While they will give you a little less FOV than the kit lens at 18mm they are much sharper and kick butt in low light.

 

[DrMoab]

I have a Nikon 50 1.8 and I've found for shots of the stars it's actually a lot sharper at 4.5-6 than it is wide open.

 

[AYIAPhoto]

I have a Nikon 50 1.8 and I've found for shots of the stars it's actually a lot sharper at 4.5-6 than it is wide open.

And his kit lens will go to 3.5 I believe, but at 4.5-6 the 35 or 50 will be sharper. Zoom lenses are great for all around use, but at any given aperture primes are sharper(given they are quality glass). The Nikon 20-2.8(which would give close to the same FOV as the kit lens at 18mm) is about 3x as much money as a 35. I would read the tutorial posted earlier and try with the aperture much lower(I don't do landscapes or stars so this is just my opinion) and see how far the kit lens could be pushed. The larger aperture will allow shorter shutter speeds and a lower ISO for less noise.