Photographing The Night Sky by Sean Bagshaw

Night photography certainly isn’t new, as David Cobb pointed out in his article on long exposure night photography. There have always been diehards willing wait hours to expose a single image for chance to reveal the magic light that only cameras can see at night. Night photography has long been the realm of the persistent, strong willed and sleep deprived few. But recently there has been an explosion of interest and participation in night photography largely due to the capabilities of the latest generation of digital SLR cameras.

One of the biggest challenges of photographing at night has been capturing the night sky. Traditional film photography required very long exposures to get anything to show up in the image. If the sky was part of the composition this meant that the stars would stretch out into long streaks (star trails) as the Earth rotated on its axis causing the stars to move across the sky. Star trails, when done well, can be a very visually interesting and artistic element of an image, giving a sense of motion and the passage of time. However, I don’t think star trails can match the amazing beauty and reality of a stationary star field on a clear, dark night, the way that we experience it with our eyes.

Some intrepid night photographers, called astrophotographers, use special tripod mounts with elaborate computer guided motors that turn the camera to match the motion of the stars in the sky. Such an apparatus allows one to take long exposure images of the sky with sharp stars and no star trails. Astrophotography is only useful for taking images of the sky without the land, however. Due to the turning of the camera on the mount any fixed objects in the composition, such as land, buildings or trees, will be motion blurred while the stars remain sharp.

Enter the current generation of digital SLR cameras, which have completely changed the game when it comes to photographing the night sky. The ability to increase the ISO (sensitivity to light) of modern SLR cameras to very high settings has made it possible to take images of the night landscape with a sharp star field. By increasing the ISO setting between 1600 and 6400 the increased sensitivity to light allows an exposure of 15-30 seconds to capture what would have taken anywhere from many minutes to many hours using traditional methods. At 30 seconds, using a wide angle lens, there is only a very slight degree of star trailing visible. At 15 seconds star trailing is almost unnoticeable.

The ability to quickly and easily capture night images that include the night sky has caused night photography to become highly popular in the last couple of years. New and more amazing night sky images are showing up on photographer websites and photography sharing forums every day. I took all the images accompanying this article on early morning photo sessions during my recent trip to Grand Tetons National Park in Wyoming. I’m really just starting to learn about what is possible. There are many photographers out there who are doing some truly amazing and ground breaking night sky work.

Following are my basic tips for getting started taking high ISO photographs of the night sky and a list of photographers and resources you might want to check out for further inspiration and education.

Sean’s Basic Night Sky Photography Tips:

• Look for a location with very clear atmosphere, few to no clouds and as little light pollution as possible. A bright moon will light the landscape but cause the stars to dim.
• Use a sturdy tripod
• Use a wide angle lens (12-30mm range). Apparent star motion and depth of field are less of an issue at wide angles, plus you want to include a nice wide view of the sky.
• Open the aperture as wide as it will go. An f/2.8 or faster lens is really what you want.
• Make sure there are no objects within about 10 or 15 feet of the lens, turn off auto focus and then set the focus to infinity. Everything will be beyond the hyperfocal distance so the entire image will be in focus.
• Experiment with combinations of ISO between 1600 and 6400 (if your camera goes that high) and shutter speeds between 15 seconds and 30 seconds. Higher ISOs will have more noise but require less exposure time. Longer exposures will bring in more light making lower ISOs possible, but star trailing will be more noticeable. Remember that at 30 seconds, using a wide angle lens, there is only a very slight degree of star trailing visible. At 15 seconds star trailing is almost unnoticeable.
• The Milky Way is a very bright and visually interesting feature of the night sky to include in your images. There are many websites and smart phone apps that will help you determine where the Milky Way will be in the sky on any given day and time.
• Read up on and experiment with different techniques for controlling high ISO noise and processing night images for greatest artistic and visual impact. New techniques are being developed all the time and could fill several books. Some are fairly basic while others are seriously advanced.

My Favorite High ISO Night Sky Photographers:

Brad Goldpaint

Ben Canales

Grant Collier

Terje Sorgjerd

Arild Heitmann

Alister Benn

Night Sky Photography Resources:

http://www.thestartrail.com/tutorials

http://bencanales.wordpress.com/

http://shuttersalt.com/blog/10-examples-incredible-starry-night-sky-photography-and-how-video

http://www.thenocturnes.com/resources.html

http://availablelightimages.com/blog/night-photography/

I hope this has provided you with a starting point for your own night sky photography. If you have any of your own night sky photography tips or resources you’d like to share be sure to leave a comment.