Any samples of night-sky photography with a G3?

Yesterday I had a reasonably clear sky at home and I went out on my balcony to take some pictures of the night sky. Last week I used my 6D, yesterday I decided to try the G3 with 14mm f2.5.

I set it up at iso 800, 15/20" (15" for correct exposure, 20" to expose to the right) and f2.5,a nd the results were horrible. Incredible amounts of noise that made every picture unusable. I went outside again and tried iso 400, but images still looked horrible. I wondered if there was any chance for the light pollution to be the culprit, so I picked up the 6D and went shooting from the same spot with similar settings. Images looked perfectly clean, no clouds, no haze, no light pollution.

Has anyone managed to take good night sky images from a G3 without stacking or using a tracker? I know it's an old camera and it's currently my "for fun" body waiting to be replaced, but it's so easy to use with the swiveling screen and EVF that I'd really like to make it work for night skies!

Page 4 of Rec menu – ‘Long shutter noise reduction’.

Have you turned it on?

FaFik wrote:

Page 4 of Rec menu – ‘Long shutter noise reduction’.

Have you turned it on?

It's off. Should I leave it on even if I only use raw files?

kiri wrote:

Yeah I'm pretty sure you want to keep that NR setting on. At least give it a try.

I remember trying it without once and it was a total mess

"Total mess" is a very accurate description of all the pictures that I took...

Thanks for the tip, tonight I'll try again! I was not expecting those results at iso 800, so I'll give it a try.

kiri wrote:

Yeah I'm pretty sure you want to keep that NR setting on. At least give it a try.

I remember trying it without once and it was a total mess

"Total mess" is a very accurate description of all the pictures that I took...

Thanks for the tip, tonight I'll try again! I was not expecting those results at iso 800, so I'll give it a try.

Anything not higher than ISO 400 might have a better result. IMHO ISO 200 would be the best option w/ NR on.

Some years ago I shot long shutter night scenery with the tiny sensor LC5 on tripod having unexpected clean 5Mp images.

kiri wrote:

I've never shot with a G3, but I took this with my EM-5 at ISO3200 a couple of years ago. I'd imagine you could get similar results from G3, maybe at a bit lower ISO. There's definitely noise there, but its not too bad for 3200 from an m43 sensor I think.

25 sec. ISO 3200

Have you used the in camera noise reduction for that? In your image I can tell there's a bit of noise but it looks overall nice. What I got from my G3 at iso 800 (not to mention iso 1600) with long exposure noise reduction off was absolutely atrocious and unusable.

Since the G3 is my backup hiking/cycling camera, it would be awesome to make it work for night skies, in order to avoid missing the 6D on a starry night out.

TyphoonTW wrote:

Yesterday I had a reasonably clear sky at home and I went out on my balcony to take some pictures of the night sky. Last week I used my 6D, yesterday I decided to try the G3 with 14mm f2.5.

I set it up at iso 800, 15/20" (15" for correct exposure, 20" to expose to the right) and f2.5,a nd the results were horrible. Incredible amounts of noise that made every picture unusable. I went outside again and tried iso 400, but images still looked horrible. I wondered if there was any chance for the light pollution to be the culprit, so I picked up the 6D and went shooting from the same spot with similar settings. Images looked perfectly clean, no clouds, no haze, no light pollution.

Has anyone managed to take good night sky images from a G3 without stacking or using a tracker? I know it's an old camera and it's currently my "for fun" body waiting to be replaced, but it's so easy to use with the swiveling screen and EVF that I'd really like to make it work for night skies!

It is possible but not easy, my G3 (which is my only camera) has a lot of red channel noise which is difficult to remove on long exposures.

I would not call these excellent as it is extremely difficult here in Florida because of light pollution and high humidity but I was pleased with them and they print up nice.

This one is just to show exposure, the stars are elongated from a tripod vibration.

Moon, Spica and Mars

This one is with my 7.5mm fisheye so stars are distorted at edges which I did not crop out.

This is the fantastic 75mm f/1.8 single exposure.

Comet Lovejoy 2014 (Greenish blob at bottom middle)

And this is what you can do with tracker and stacking. I used an Ioptron Skytracker and about 40 subs of 40 sec each.

Comet LoveJoy 2015

When I entered digital from film I promised myself I would only upgrade my camera every five years or so. So I am quite exited as my G3 is almost 5 years old and it is time to upgrade. I am waiting for GX8 specs and hopefully OMD EM1 mark 2 before I decide. I think the night sky's will be much easier with the newer generation sensors.

Good Luck

The red channel noise is definitely something I noticed as well. Your pictures, just like the other poster, look much better than what I got yesterday at iso 800/1600 with long exposure noise reduction off. Were you using it during your shots?

TyphoonTW wrote:

The red channel noise is definitely something I noticed as well. Your pictures, just like the other poster, look much better than what I got yesterday at iso 800/1600 with long exposure noise reduction off. Were you using it during your shots?

Yes, on single exposures I use dark frame subtraction but not when stacking photo's.

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