Astro Photography

[Yellerz]

I would like to have a go at astro photography but don`t know much about it.  I have heard many say that the Samyang 12mm is the perfect lens for this.  Can anyone tell me why the Samyang is particularly suited to astro, is there something that makes this lens unique or is it the focal length that works, would my 10-24 be just as good or even the Zeiss 12mm. 

[quincy]

It's not the only lens that works for astrophotography, but it does indeed have some properties that make it, let's say, easier to get good results, depending on what you expect, of course.

 

I'll try to keep this short and simple, so there will be a few things I don't mention or won't go into great detail about. If I miss out on something that is of interest to you, please just mention it and I'll see if I can help.

 

In astrophotography, the subject is not very bright. In order to counter this, the gain (/amplification/ISO) as well as the exposure time need to be increased. With higher gain comes higher noise, but for starscapes, ISO-values between 3200 and 6400 will be needed anyway.

Instead of increasing the gain, the exposure time could be increased further. The problem with this is, the stars are moving. The longest exposure before the startrails become visible is approximately 500 seconds divided by the focal length (in 35mm-equivalent terms). Thus, it is beneficial if the lens that is used transmits a lot of light, has a low f-stop number. Depth of field is no concern, because the lens is focused at infinity.

 

And those two points are the reasons why the Samyang does fairly well with astrophotography: it is a very wide lens (18 mm in 35mm-equivalence), thus you can expose for 25 seconds before the stars start to form streaks, and it has a maximum aperture of f/2, which is one stop faster than the Zeiss and two stops faster than the XF10-24.

 

And finally, its optical characteristics are good for astrophotography: It has nearly no coma. Coma is an optical abberation that deforms points (stars) to slightly cross-shaped objects with a comet-like trail towards the corners.

 

 

Of course, all of this only helps if your goal are starscapes. If you want to take images of nebulae, you need a longer focal lenght. As said above, with a longer focal lenght star trails (and the movement of the sky in general) shows earlier. And longer focal lenghts often have a lower f-stop. therefore, you need a tracking device that moves your camera with the firmament.

[Yellerz]

Thanks for the reply quincy, much appreciated.

[mdm]

Here you are some readings - http://www.lonelyspeck.com/lenses-for-milky-way-photography

[Yellerz]

Nice link, thank you.

[Newman exRN]

As a newbie to Fuji and this forum it would seem I'm also a bit late to this post however I would like to thank all contributors as I found this very interesting especially as Yellerz says the link. Off to MPB website to see what lenses are available and affordable. Thanks

[Johan O E]

I loved my Samyang 12mmf2,  sold it and got the XF16mm1.4.  But now selling my 16mm to go back to Samyang. 

It's easy to manual focus and takes great astrophotography shots. Also great for travel and skateboard photography. 

 

@xftales 

 

 

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