[icemanonline]

Hi All,

Planning on heading south from Edinburgh later tonight...... and into the borders to try and take some shots of the Meteor Showers forecast for tonight.........Planning on getting as far away from any town lights and as high up as possible. Will be trying to use tha Sigma 70-300APO on tripod in M........any suggestions on what settings I should use?

Infact any help at all would be good....Thanks in advance

icemanonline

Anybody? Just need settings to try! Cheers

[Yandros]

A quick google says a wide fast lens (no longer than 50mm), stopped down about 1 notch, pointing a wide area of sky. Exposure time apparently is largely dictated by local light pollution. Star trails are pretty inevitable.

Exposure times quoted seem to vary between 30 seconds and 30 mins, to give you more chance of catching a meteor, but in the case of 30 mins you'll almost certainly need to stop down to avoid light fogging. Take some test exposures first obviously.

[icemanonline]

Originally Posted by Yandros

A quick google says a wide fast lens (no longer than 50mm), stopped down about 1 notch, pointing a wide area of sky. Exposure time apparently is largely dictated by local light pollution. Star trails are pretty inevitable.

Exposure times quoted seem to vary between 30 seconds and 30 mins, to give you more chance of catching a meteor, but in the case of 30 mins you'll almost certainly need to stop down to avoid light fogging. Take some test exposures first obviously.

Cheers Yandros,

So the 18-55 should do the trick then?

Set it at roughly F3.5/F4.0 for whatever exposure time I want? In M

Thanks

icemanonline

[allymac123]

You want to catch as much light as possible but abviously have as little noise as you can. ISO 1600 would be best if it wasn't for the noise. Obviously the conditions in which you are shooting create most noise aswell.

You might want to try to see how long you can expose for at ISO 1600 and F3.5 and then do about 10shots like that. Going on the principal noise is random you could then combine them using this technique which might give a good image.

Also try wide open ISO 200 and 30s as a start point.


How far South are you planning on going? I'd quite like to give it a shot but the weather forecast says anything North of Newcastle is in for a cloudy night.

[loz]

see the pics I did of the space shuttle last night
I'm gonna photograph the Shuttle tonight!!!

I guess similar settings would work

I would suggest a wide angle lens.
shooting stars are very quick, you would never home in on them fast enough with a long lens
Also, they can cover quite a bit of the sky.

Just put it on a tripod with a wide lens pointing in the general direction and wide open

[wobblebottom]

I just got the Shuttle thingy....

[loz]

Originally Posted by allymac123

You want to catch as much light as possible but abviously have as little light as you can. ISO 1600 would be best if it wasn't for the noise. Obviously the conditions in which you are shooting create most noise aswell.

If you are going to leave the shutter open for a long time you want a low ISO else the ambient light will eventually overexpose the image.

However, if you are far from any light polution I guess it would be OK, and then you might track more fainter stars.

Last night photographing the shuttle I found I got good exposures at ISO 100 for 20 secs. I used the same set up again tonight but just left it open for 30 seconds instead. There wasn't much difference in the ambient light level, whereas at 1600 ISO it might have made a big difference.

[loz]

Originally Posted by wobblebottom

I just got the Shuttle thingy....

Oh my god! Did it blow up again at the end...

[wobblebottom]

dropped the remote so manually pressed button and it wobbled...

[allymac123]

Originally Posted by loz

If you are going to leave the shutter open for a long time you want a low ISO else the ambient light will eventually overexpose the image.

However, if you are far from any light polution I guess it would be OK, and then you might track more fainter stars.

Last night photographing the shuttle I found I got good exposures at ISO 100 for 20 secs. I used the same set up again tonight but just left it open for 30 seconds instead. There wasn't much difference in the ambient light level, whereas at 1600 ISO it might have made a big difference.

As long as you are away from light pollution there will be no ambient light to overexpose the image no matter what the shutter speed. That's how people get star trails. The duration of individual meteors will be around the second mark so the longer the exposure after that length the more trails you will be likely to get. The actual brightness of the trail will not be effected by the exposure length, just the ISO and F number. Higher ISO=brighter trails but also more noise.

[icemanonline]

Originally Posted by allymac123

You want to catch as much light as possible but abviously have as little noise as you can. ISO 1600 would be best if it wasn't for the noise. Obviously the conditions in which you are shooting create most noise aswell.

You might want to try to see how long you can expose for at ISO 1600 and F3.5 and then do about 10shots like that. Going on the principal noise is random you could then combine them using this technique which might give a good image.

Also try wide open ISO 200 and 30s as a start point.


How far South are you planning on going? I'd quite like to give it a shot but the weather forecast says anything North of Newcastle is in for a cloudy night.

I was actally only going as far as Heriot or back end of lauder or between lauder and gala.......There is a road there that takes you between the two and half way between there it is high and flat. Not sure if you know where I mean.

If you follow that road from the lauder side heading to the gala side it comes out on the A7 at Stow!

Anyway......heading up there in an hour or so...with bag and gear and torch and hope and .............em...............wife

Cheers Ally for reply


icemanonline

[icemanonline]

Originally Posted by loz

If you are going to leave the shutter open for a long time you want a low ISO else the ambient light will eventually overexpose the image.

However, if you are far from any light polution I guess it would be OK, and then you might track more fainter stars.

Last night photographing the shuttle I found I got good exposures at ISO 100 for 20 secs. I used the same set up again tonight but just left it open for 30 seconds instead. There wasn't much difference in the ambient light level, whereas at 1600 ISO it might have made a big difference.

Hi, I was thinking 30 secs using M at lowest iso (iso200 on D50) F3.5 using the timer to start the shot.

icemanonline

[allymac123]

Sounds good. I think experimentation will be the order for the night!!

[werewolf40]

i find it REALLY hard to focus on the skyAuto focus just dont work,and if i look through the view finder i cant see a thing to focus onIs it ME? how can i(if indeed i can) set the 350d to infinate focus???

[allymac123]

Originally Posted by werewolf40

i find it REALLY hard to focus on the skyAuto focus just dont work,and if i look through the view finder i cant see a thing to focus onIs it ME? how can i(if indeed i can) set the 350d to infinate focus???

It's a bit tricky with the kit lens as it doesn't have a focus scale like most other lenses do. The best thing to do would be to just turn the focus ring to the furthest point it will go in the infinity direction and then just turn it back by a very small touch.

[werewolf40]

Originally Posted by allymac123

It's a bit tricky with the kit lens as it doesn't have a focus scale like most other lenses do. The best thing to do would be to just turn the focus ring to the furthest point it will go in the infinity direction and then just turn it back by a very small touch.

Ok thanks for that allyi will give it another go

[werewolf40]

heres a couple of attempts...Not very good im afraid.First one is out off focus and some light pollution..........2nd one is morein focus,but not much happening in it,oh well i shall try again

1st attempt

2nd attempt

[Gadget Daddy]

I went out last night from about 12-3am had a drive into the hills to get away from the LP, saw loads of meteors but it wasnt 3 a minute as predicted....didnt manage to capture a single meteor though , still was worth it for the light show and to get some more night shooting experience, will upload some shots later although I think they are a bit "noisy"

Pete