Noob night shots...

How does everyone get them so clear? (is my focus off?) I tried a few different settings in terms of ISO and exposure time...and I am not that good at pp so I havent figured out ways to improve them yet. Appreciate any CC/tips! Thx!

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Yes, out of focus I think. It's tricky, but if you don't have Live View on your camera, you can either investigate creating a little Bahtinov Mask, or the best thing might be to just set the focus as best you can and take a photo. Preview it, and if it's out of focus, adjust the focus slightly and take another photo and preview it. If it's better, but still not right, adjust the focus the same way a bit more. If the focus is worse the second time, adjust it back the other way. Carry on like this, adjusting the focus a tiny bit each time, until you get it really close. (Hand focussing when not tracking and taking relatively short exposures should be sufficient for quite good shots.)

You just need to make sure you're focused at infinity. Try focusing on something far away, far enough to outreach the lens... once you've focused on that, turn off auto-focus. Then recompose, point at the sky and shoot. You'll want to leave the shutter open a bit more as well. Keep trying!

Yes as said focusing is way off.

here is what to do.

1. Set up camera on a tripod and set to zoom lens somewhere in the range of 28 - 80mm 50mm is good.
2. Get a remote lead so you don't shake the camera when taking shots.
3. Set to raw mode
4. Set to MANUAL MODE
5. Set to ISO 800
6. Set mirror lockup or timer delay 10 seconds depending on your DSLR
7. Find that auto focus button and TURN THE BABY OFF, to manual
8. Using the focus ring on your lens, turn it all the way till it reads infinity, the number 8 on its side.
9. Take a test shot of 20 seconds and check results.
10 Nudge focus a little to get perfect focus

Now start taking 30 second subs and use DeepSkyStacker (free download, google it) to stack them into 1 image.

Volia, you are now a wide field imager

Sorry i forgot to mention what i did do...
I was in the woods, so I was basically shooting straight up (hence the canopy in some shots).
Stock lens 18-55 on a Xsi.
Autofocus off....
ISO to 800 and 1600(tried both)
I dont have a visual indicator for infinity so I 'tried' to focus the stars. Hard to do when all I can see is a pin prick of light when looking through the viewfinder. I tried autofocus to set it at first and then turn it off...but it couldnt get a hold on the stars of course.
Believe I was using 30 seconds for the exposure. Even when reviewing after taking these, they looked decent on the lcd screen...(but i didnt zoom in, that would have proved to me otherwise).


Thanks for all the immediate feedback! I am going back to this area tonite and will try again hopefully with some better results. Should I keep my length at 18 for the lower f# or go higher?

gshappell wrote in post #8369955
Sorry i forgot to mention what i did do...
I was in the woods, so I was basically shooting straight up (hence the canopy in some shots).
Stock lens 18-55 on a Xsi.
Autofocus off....
ISO to 800 and 1600(tried both)
I dont have a visual indicator for infinity so I 'tried' to focus the stars. Hard to do when all I can see is a pin prick of light when looking through the viewfinder. I tried autofocus to set it at first and then turn it off...but it couldnt get a hold on the stars of course.
Believe I was using 30 seconds for the exposure. Even when reviewing after taking these, they looked decent on the lcd screen...(but i didnt zoom in, that would have proved to me otherwise).

Thanks for all the immediate feedback! I am going back to this area tonite and will try again hopefully with some better results. Should I keep my length at 18 for the lower f# or go higher?

Low as possible FStop +1

Ie if my lens will do F1.4, I set to F2 as most lenses (unless uber expensive) are not as good at lower level for astro.

I would go for 25mm - 50mm at F Low + 1 if I was you to give it a go and remember to zoom to preview.

Stick to 800 iso on that camera.

Why not take a lappy so you can see the results immediately and save a lot of wasted time.

Good luck

gshappell wrote in post #8369955
Sorry i forgot to mention what i did do...
I was in the woods, so I was basically shooting straight up (hence the canopy in some shots).
Stock lens 18-55 on a Xsi.
Autofocus off....
ISO to 800 and 1600(tried both)
I dont have a visual indicator for infinity so I 'tried' to focus the stars. Hard to do when all I can see is a pin prick of light when looking through the viewfinder. I tried autofocus to set it at first and then turn it off...but it couldnt get a hold on the stars of course.
Believe I was using 30 seconds for the exposure. Even when reviewing after taking these, they looked decent on the lcd screen...(but i didnt zoom in, that would have proved to me otherwise).

Thanks for all the immediate feedback! I am going back to this area tonite and will try again hopefully with some better results. Should I keep my length at 18 for the lower f# or go higher?

Put it on auto-focus , zoom in to 55mm , find the brightest star and focus on that star . While holding down the shutter button and the green focus light in the viewer stays on showing focused then pull the switch back to manual-focus and let go of the shutter button . Don't try to fine focus after this but you can zoom the len back out to 18mm and point it at your object of interest and trip the shutter using a remote shutter control or the cameras self timer . Also if you don't have the center focus point chosen to be the only focus point in the view finder then read in your manual how to change it to center focus point only . When you focus on a star this makes it easier to focus cause you can put the focus point on the star when it lights up red in the viewer when it's close to your star . After you take your pict then zoom in and look at the stars in your image and if they look out of focus then you can do a fine adjustment focus with the focus ring on the lens . However trial and error is the subject here so mainly just practice with bright stars at night . Hope this helps some .

Most modern zooms are not parfocal, so the old-fashioned trick of zooming in to focus then out to compose is unreliable.

Madweasel wrote in post #8376165
Most modern zooms are not parfocal, so the old-fashioned trick of zooming in to focus then out to compose is unreliable.

indeed, I would not recommend this method.

The infinity mark on the lens is the right area, a quick 10 second series of snaps will help get the focus by trail and error much easier.

Infinity will be the lens focus ring all the way clockwise (i think).

A couple updates...a little more in focus. But still not the 'pow' im looking for...

Please take a look and edit/critique if you have a moment! Thanks!

http://www.flickr.com …l/sets/72157621​958304594/

And thanks again for all the tips!

I'm not sure what that "pow" is that you're looking for. The picture I looked at loked sharp. Perhaps the high cloud spoils the shot and you'd be better waiting for a clearer sky. You might want to darken the level of the sky and that would make the stars show up more, but basically it's a decent shot.

gshappell wrote in post #8407250
A couple updates...a little more in focus. But still not the 'pow' im looking for...

Please take a look and edit/critique if you have a moment! Thanks!

http://www.flickr.com …l/sets/72157621​958304594/

And thanks again for all the tips!

Image is acceptably sharp. Any softness you are observing here is due to long exposure, not focus.

Long exposure results in loss of sharpness due to (1) the earth's rotation relative to the stars, (2) variations in atmospheric density that can cause stars to flicker.

Thx for the feedback...
I was also a little surprised to see (what seemed) to be some blur due to rotation in just 30 seconds! I saw something about software being able to correct that and also an option for a tracker for longer shots. I tried playing with some settings in a trial version of lightroom and also in Canon DPP but everything I did just made it worse so I left them 'as is', besides resizing.
Thx again!