Pin-point stars in night photography ?

Can someone please point me to some tutorials for taking crisp night stars/meteors?
I'm going to be in a place where it will be very dark for the Perseids peak August 12, and hope to do better than last year.

Thanks!

Sandy

http://www.davidkingham.com/blog/keyword?k=night+tutorials Dave Kingham has shared a lot of his experiences.

Two things I'll mention:
- Get the fastest lens you can afford to rent or buy. The shorter the ss, the sharper the stars. http://www.borrowlenses.com/blog/2013/05/the-best-lenses-for-night-photography-a-case-for-rokinon-primes/
- Take a separate exposure of the fg at a low iso to reduce noise.

However, the shorter the ss, the less time to catch meteor streaks. If you can get exposures around 15 seconds, that might be the best compromise. As usual, experiment with diff.settings.

Keep your Shutter Speed under 30 sec But what lens are you using? Also set up an intervolometer to have your camera take photos timed 3 sec longer than the shy=utter speed, set for 800 shot then start the camera and sit back and enjoy

The general rule of thumb for pinpoint stars is the 500 rule. Divide 500 by the focal length of the lens, that will give you the longest shutter speed you should use if you don't want the stars to begin looking like star trails.

So: 20mm lens 500/20 = 25 seconds
50mm lens 500/50 = 10 seconds
etc.

You didn't say what lens you'll be using but the faster the better.
Also August 12th, while the peak of the meteor shower, the moon will be at 97.7%. Rises at about 9:15 MDT. Adjust for your time zone. That won't help with dark skies.

Keith is correct regarding the rule of 500s, and it generally works well with fast lenses. Noise is also a factor to consider.

I purchased 'Seeing the Unseen' by Alister Benn when I first got into night photography. I don't recall what I purchased it for, but he now sells it for $15. His writing skills aren't as strong as his photography, but the eBook itself has loads of good information. I reviewed it here.

There continues to be a lot of misconceptions in night photography out there, and on the web sites referenced above.
1) First, ISO does not change sensitivity. Raising ISO above about 1600 just reduces dynamic range and loses star colors. Lowering ISO to reduce noise also doesn't work. It is exposure time times lens area that is important, and working at an ISO where downstream electronics is small compared to photon noise is the key (usually about ISO 1600, only higher if electronics are poor).
2) Fast lenses are not the key to night and especially meteor photography; clear aperture is. Meteors are fast, so exposure per pixel is a small fraction of a second. A large aperture (not f/ratio--the diameter of the lens) is the key to gathering light.
3) The 500 rule is poor for sharp lenses and modern high pixel density digital cameras. I see star trailing at 8 seconds with the sharp Sigma Art 35 f/1.4. More like 300/focal length = exposure time in seconds for sharp lenses.

This year's Perseid shower occurs just a couple of days after the full Moon, so the bright Moon will be lightening the skies and limiting exposure times.

See my guide to night photography: http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/nightscapes/
where I discuss many of the above factors. See Table 1, column J for the best lens type for meteor photography.

I recommend lenstip for lens reviews as they show star images:
http://www.lenstip.com/lenses_reviews.html
See the section on coma and astigmatism. For example, the Sigma 35 f/1.4 star images are amazing at f/1.4:
http://www.lenstip.com/359.7-Lens_review-Sigma_A_35_mm_f_1.4_DG_HSM_Coma__astigmatism_and_bokeh.html

There are no good 24 f/1.4 lenses that compare in star images. For wider angle on crop cameras, the Sigma 18-35 art f/1.8 looks amazing:
http://www.lenstip.com/374.7-Lens_review-Sigma_A_18-35_mm_f_1.8_DC_HSM__Coma__astigmatism_and_bokeh.html
but I have not used one.

See my nightscapes gallery for examples: http://www.clarkvision.com/galleries/gallery.nightscapes/

Roger

I will use my Nikon 14-24mm wide-angle.
Thanks, everyone!

Sandy

Keith is correct regarding the rule of 500s, and it generally works well with fast lenses. Noise is also a factor to consider.

I purchased 'Seeing the Unseen' by Alister Benn when I first got into night photography. I don't recall what I purchased it for, but he now sells it for $15. His writing skills aren't as strong as his photography, but the eBook itself has loads of good information. I reviewed it here.

Here is a demo with technical details why the 500 rule produces trailed star images. And this is for 30 degrees from the celestial equator. If on the celestial equator, the trails would be 15% longer The 500 rule for a 35 mm lens would 500/35 = 14.2 seconds. The image clearly shows star trailing at 14 seconds. The computed trail is 4.7 pixels. At 11 seconds, the trailing is 3.7 pixels and the formula would be 385/focal length in mm, but that too is clearly too long.

At 8 seconds, the drift would be 2.7 pixels and would produce oval stars. 6 seconds would produce pretty good stars. At 6 seconds, the rule would equate to 210/focal length in mm.

Of course it all depends on what one's definition of sharp is.

Edit: not sure why but the image was shrunk about 30% from full size.
I added the full resolution figure to my nightscapes page: http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/nightscapes/

Roger

"This year's Perseid shower occurs just a couple of days after the full Moon, so the bright Moon will be lightening the skies and limiting exposure times."

Excellent point that was overlooked. You're just not going to get great results this year due to this occurrence.