What Settings for a Simple Star Shot?

Hi,

If I just want to aim the camera up at night on a tripod and try out some shots what settings are recommended?

High or low ISO?
What would be the best f/stop?
Manual focus on infinity?

Any pointers would be appreciated.

I did take a couple last night at ISO 100 - but would like the advise of experience.

Also the tripod - manfrotto with 3 separate levers - won't let me go way back on the angle. Do you have to get a "ball" head to allow the camera to point higher up?


Thanks

My approach is to let as much light in as possible.

I use the highest aperture on my camera - 6400 (without going into the extended 12800)
I use an exposure time of 25 seconds (longer than that I start to see trails - stars look like lines)
Manual focus on infinity
Widest aperture possible (f2.8 for this picture)

Results are like this:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/22918854@N04/6​007114143/

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/22918854@N04/6​045338393/

mckinleypics wrote in post #13165715
My approach is to let as much light in as possible.

I use the highest aperture on my camera - 6400 (without going into the extended 12800)
I use an exposure time of 25 seconds (longer than that I start to see trails - stars look like lines)
Manual focus on infinity
Widest aperture possible (f2.8 for this picture)

Hi,

I'll state the obvious and say nice pics!!

Okay, so high ISO and wide open and I note the time as well.

Thanks for that mckinleypics

I think it is either a meteor or a satellite. I should disclose that these were taken on a fly-in fishing trip to NW Ontario so there was almost no light noise.

To the OP - your 5DII should do much better than my 7D, given the higher ISO performance.

One more thing - try to get something in the frame that isn't the sky. Makes it much more interesting. Here's my brother-in-law lighting a cigar:

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/22918854@N04/6​007113481/

nice shot dave, but your stars look to digital with black halos, if you want, ill post a re-edited version

I probably over-sharpened - knock yourself out!

spit wrote in post #13166606
nice shot dave, but your stars look to digital with black halos, if you want, ill post a re-edited version

To me it looked like compression artifacts, but overall it is a nice shot.

could be, i really dont know- monitors tend to over pixelate images- at least mine does, im used to CRT's and trying to get accustomed to led monitors- black halos are usually caused when you try and make the stars smaller, but i didnt seen any bloating here- i came up with this

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Ok - for educational purposes - here's a shot SOOC - shot in RAW

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …/22918854@N04/6​186758451/