Starry Night Skies Photography actually falls under Astrophotography. A DSLR user interested to photograph Starry Night need to know few important points. It is obvious that to capture a photograph of a scene with stars, you need to use a long exposure, a tripod or some other means of steadying the camera, and a remote trigger to operate the shutter. Regular readers are already aware of topics like How to Calculate Exposures Longer than the Maximum Exposure Time, Guide to Long Exposure Photography with Neutral Density Filter etc. topics. How to Choose a Tripod can be interesting to some readers.
Our article bearing the title, Starry Night Skies Photography has more to offer than within a single article than any other photography website, because we will talk about the matters which most Photographers apart from who are related to Astrophtography has not much idea.
Starry Night Skies Photography and AstroPhotography
Starry Night Skies Photography is a broader terminology, whereas AstroPhotography is a specific field. Astrophotography is a popular hobby among photographers and amateur astronomers. Images of the night sky can be obtained with the most basic film and digital cameras. For simple star trails, no equipment may be necessary other than common tripods. There is a wide range of commercial equipment geared toward basic and advanced astrophotography. Amateur astronomers and amateur telescope makers also use homemade equipment and modified devices.
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Piggyback astronomical photography is a method where a camera/lens is mounted on an equatorially mounted astronomical telescope. We clearly are not going to discuss this particular methods of astrophotography, but we want to use our DSLR using the Starry Night Skies for the sake of Artistic Photography. Night Skies Photography includes :
- Normally Seen Usual Starry Sky
- Cloudy Night Skies
- Starry Night Skies
- Desert Night Skies
- Night Skies used as background for various niche
- Various special phenomenon like Aurora borealis, Shooting Stars etc.
We gave you an overall idea about the possibilities of Night Skies Photography.
Starry Night Skies Photography : Tips
Look for cool clear moonless nights unless you specifically want to photograph the moon and avoid light polluted areas like big cities or towns. Use a sturdy tripod and cable release; set up your composition, lock down the focus and make a test shot. This will help determine exposure, and if you need to make any changes to your composition. Shoot RAW as you can more easily make adjustments in post-production. Try to use a lens with larger aperture, use higher ISO. Manual focusing and turn setting it to infinity focus works nice. Set the shutter speed to either the bulb setting or a range of settings between about 2 and 30 seconds. It is obvious that, Starry Night Skies will work easier with these settings over taking shot of Shooting Stars.
Imagine a composition where there is really a shooting star on background and a wedding couple in foreground illuminated with reflectors. As like all niche, composition with Starry Night Skies Photography can go quite creative.
