Thoughts on my first attempt at Astrophotography? (5D Mk II)

Seeing a clear winter sky tonight, I grabbed my camera and headed for the moon (well to be more specific, I drove in the direction of the moon). About 20km from the major city I took my first attempts at astrophotography shots.

I don't think my composition is anything special at all, but I was focusing on the technical side of the photo this time. Having said that, I can't decide if I like the street light shining in the photo or not. In a way I think it adds some warmth to the photo, like there's a house there in the middle of a starry night, but another part of me thinks it's distracting.

Any thoughts at all on these two photos? Thanks!

Both were taken with the Canon 5D Mark II and a 17-40mm f4 L lens at 17mm, f5.6 and ISO 3200. Used Photoshop RAW processing to shift the overall color of the RAW image, use noise reduction and such.

I like the first one the best. You can tell what your looking at.
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Ray
http://www.pbase.com/rayavera

That's awesome. Makes me want to go out and try it now. Or...at least when it gets dark out. ;-)

Galen
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galenevans.com

Very nice! You don't want to see my attempts - they look like they were taken by a phone by comparison!

I'm guessing you must further from the equator than me though - even in the UK which is quite far away I get a bit of blur from the Earth's rotation at 30 seconds (can see a little in your second shot, but not much).

Thanks guys!

I live in New Zealand, which I think is a similar distance from the equator to the UK (but I could be wrong!) however the more zoomed in you are to the stars, the faster star trails will appear. I took these at 17mm wide, which probably really helped in giving me the length of shots without the star trails. If you give it a go again try your widest lens and see how that goes.

Or apparently you can take multiple quick images and layer them using special programs. I can't say I know how to do that myself but some people here surely will.

Greetings!

I also took some shots of the sky at night, and one thing that I found out very useful is that you should reduce the ISO to the absolute minimum, because the pitch black portion of your photo will have some noise. It's better to expose just a bit longer, but have a noise-free image.

I also like your image, and I think foreground objects gice depth and context to the photo.

Cheers,
Joao

Thanks, that sounds like a good idea. I'll give it a go next time and see how far I can push down the ISO and up the exposure length before I get trails.

LostBoyNZ said:

Thanks guys!

I live in New Zealand, which I think is a similar distance from the equator to the UK (but I could be wrong!) however the more zoomed in you are to the stars, the faster star trails will appear. I took these at 17mm wide, which probably really helped in giving me the length of shots without the star trails. If you give it a go again try your widest lens and see how that goes.

Click to expand...

I took mine at 9mm, so equivalent to 18mm on a full frame! (They were only beginning to blur though)