Astrophotography

[newbie to fuji]

Hi everyone I'm from Florida, and I am new to astrophotography and fuji camera world. I have a question can I use the x-h2 for astrophotography? I am torn between using my Fuji or buying a different brand. I have an 18-55mm lens f/2.8. If you could advise me on what the settings should be? I saw someone mentioned 18mm 2.8 iso 1600-3200.   Any suggestion would be great.  

[jerryy]

Welcome to the forum.

You absolutely can use a X-H2 for astrophotography.

It should give you wonderful results. One quick note about using Fujifilm bodies for astro work, the sensors and the protective sensor “glass” are already more sensitive to the red (hydrogen alpha — Ha) and other colors than bodies from other manufacturers, those usually have to get something called astro-modded done to be that sensitive. That is similar to modifying a body for Infra Red (IR) photography.

With the lens you listed, you are ready for landscape astrophotography, combining night skies with interesting foregrounds, or constellations, etc. If you like that type, then the 8mm through 60mm range is usually used for these images, you can find many used lenses in excellent shape for these images. For various reasons, go with prime lenses, the zoom lenses can work, but the primes work better.

Your lens should be fine. Practice Manual Focusing! A lot of camera bodies do not auto-focus very well on stars.

Your lens is not really well suited for close-ups of what are called deep sky objects (nebulas, galaxies, supernova remnants, etc.) you will need to use 90mm or longer focal lengths for that, the 135mm lens is very, very popular for that. A lot of folks will tell you to use a telescope to get the good stuff.

Settings can be tricky. Use the lens wide open unless you need to stop it down to prevent chromatic aberration (CA) or coma — odd shaped stars in the frame corners. ISO 1600 at f2.8 should be okay, ISO 3200 may be a bit much if the area you are imaging in has light pollution, your image will not turn out well. If you have a lot of light pollution, you might need to drop back to ISO 800 or less and use stacking frames type of approaches to get an image rather than single frame image approaches.

As far as time settings go, you will be taking long exposures, if they are too long, the stars turn into streaks, it is called star trailing, when done deliberately it is a cool effect,  but can be annoying if you do not intend to do that.

Try the 300 rule, that is divide 300 by the focal length to get the longest time setting you can use before the stars start trailing, 300/18 is about 16.7 seconds or 15 seconds using an intervalometer for the exposures. Full frame cameras use the equivalent 500 rule.

Hopefully, this is enough to get you started. People write lots of books about these subjects and there are plenty of sites dedicated to the differing aspects of astrophotography.

Edited August 6 by jerryy

[newbie to fuji]

Thank you so much, Jerry. I am so excited not only that I can use the camera for general photos and video, but also Astro. This has been a great investment for many years to come. I almost wanted to spend money on a dedicated Astro camera, but now I am confident in my purchase. I am planning on going to Mexico on a cruise, and I am intrigued to see if I can do Astro on a cruise ship. I have a balcony to try it out. Do you have any recommendations for a good intervalometer? I did notice that I can not use a 9v power for the x-h2. How do I charge for long exposures should I invest in a power bank?

[jerryy]

Hmm, intervalometer: start with the one built-in to your camera; https://fujifilm-dsc.com/en/manual/x-h2s/menu_shooting/shooting_setting/#interval_timer_shooting

scroll down to the interval timer section. One thing to make certain, shoot completely in manual mode, set the shutter speed, f-stop (if you are using a lens) and iso all manually. Turn OFF long exposure noise reduction -- this type of noise reduction can be dealt with in your image editor by taking some blank or "dark" frames (with the lens cap on) right after you you shoot the "light" frames, put all of the dark frames in the editor as layers whose blend mode is set to average or better yet median, merge into a single layer and use as your master dark frame. Put it as a layer on top of the "light" frame and set its blend mode to subtract. Merge the two layers and continue onward in your processing (Uh, this may seem obvious, but also save everything separately as you are working in case you have to start over -- which does happen. Save early, save often). This removes hot or stuck pixels and can remove something called bias noise (if it is there).

Save your money, save your money, save your money. Some folks (without any traces of irony or maybe just a hint of a smile) will tell you astrophotography is a black hole perched over your bank accounts. For every problem you encounter, there is a solution, it costs money, fixes the problem and creates an entirely new problem that has a solution that costs ....

Turn OFF IBIS and OIS, these get in the way.

The section I listed has some advice about tripods and power banks. In the summer time just use the camera's battery, along with a second back-up battery. Use the power bank with the appropriate adapter in the winter time (when the temperatures drop below 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 degrees Celsius or so). Make sure the batteries are charged before you go out imaging, you should be fine for some few hours.

Depending on your budget, the most important purchase you can invest in is the tripod and mount. Be careful about using low cost tripods or high dollar tripods because a lot of them are built with terrestrial photography in mind. When you are shooting at 1/200 or faster, small little minor vibrations will not affect the image. Shooting at 20 seconds or five minutes or so is a different matter, you may start thinking the vibration from heartbeats is finding their way into your image and smearing things. 😃 Here is one approach: https://www.berlebach.de/en/ (The site is in Germany, the prices are in Euros, replace the comma with a period to get an idea of US versions, i.e. 159,00 ---> 159.00, the prices will need to be converted into US dollars -- it is common outside of the US to use commas the way periods are used in the US.). Carbon fiber tripods can be good, if they are rated to hold 50 lbs. or more (23 kgs. or more) because these begin to be stout enough to absorb the teeny tiny, itsy bitsy vibrations that happen. Uh, remember if other folks are in the apartments or on the ship's deck, there will be vibrations.

Try to have a lot of fun, because it should be fun, and can be very frustrating if you want it that way. The universe wobbles, so does everything in it.

If it is possible, join your local astronomy club. You may be the only one imaging, maybe or maybe not, but you can get the chance to see how the equipment works and find out why. Because you are going to encounter things that will make no sense at all as to why you do that, but you need to do if you want the images.

Edited August 7 by jerryy

[jerryy]

Once you absorb that, and try some ideas to see if they work for you, it will be time to chat about star trackers and goto mounts. Alt-Az and German Equatorial Mounts! (Remember the bit about joining the local astro club).

oh, there is nothing at all bad about using dedicated astro cameras, they work extremely well and can get you fantastic images if you put the effort into learning how to use them. But they are single purpose dedicated equipment, they do not work so well if you want to grab a camera and photograph kittens and puppies in action or birds in flight.

Edited August 7 by jerryy

[e-light]

everything is brought to the top point by jerryy

Perhaps the hint that "seeing" the clarity of the sky without thermals (for example in the second half of the night in summer when the country has cooled down) brings the chance for good photos.

This works best far away from large cities with large amounts of light pollution.

After many AF attempts, I gave up and only use manual optics whose infinity is very well adjusted. But you then have to enter “Photo without lens” on the camera and set the manual focus.

An example would be a 23mm or 35mm TTartisan which is available for a low price; and they have three screws on the circumference of the distance ring with which you can actually adjust the worm to infinity with the scale at the stop.

The 300 rule actually just says "the longer the focal length, the shorter the possible exposure" Example 300/ 35mm (or 500/ 53mm full format) = 9.6 seconds so a maximum of 10 seconds. Since the "rule" is 300/12mm = 25 sec (500/18mm full format) =28 sec, ?

So you can expose with 8 mm then 38 sec on crop 1.5 and even 41 sec with 12mm full format!! BUT THAT IS WRONG!

The limit of 20 seconds (for short focal lengths) or better 15 seconds should NEVER be exceeded. Anyone who adheres to this also receives round stars !

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited August 7 by e-light
photo

[jerryy]

Welcome to the forum.

There are plenty of star trail exposure time calculators available for the various guidelines (“rules”), such as

 https://www.photopills.com/calculators/spotstars

Put the body on a tracking mount and periodic error is the more important obstacle to keeping stars round. On a tracking mount, 3 to 5 minute exposures are typical for each frame for cameras that have the ability to store longer exposures without over saturating the pixels.

For some camera bodies, a 20 second limit is a good idea, but that is more due to the full well depth size for that camera body rather than to prevent or allow trailing. 20 seconds for some bodies is the limit where brighter objects begin losing color by over saturating, turning the pixels white, especially when shooting in jpg instead of raw.

Edited August 7 by jerryy

[e-light]

Thank you for the warm welcome in the forum

The 20 seconds are my experiences for images that are not tracked!

With “our neighbors” it even worked ad hoc from the car roof with 15 seconds and a 10 second advance trigger! It was 80 KM west of Nantes France early late summer morning on vacation without a tripod or Vixen GP mount!.

I use the camera to slow down, to balance out work; that's why I make slides like I did 40 years ; they're called JPgs ooc today! It shouldn't be work. . . . I use Olympus Master 2.3 (out of the first digital and af Cam system) for crop reduction for the web and here and there B/W conversion. The Sony (a7 + Canon FD Lenses) data will not be changed; Fuji allows itself to be occupied by Olympus; but the camera is called correct. If you mainly use TTartisan manual lenses, of course no lens data is given. I use the X-A1/2/3 because of its Bayer sensor and the compactness with TTartisan lenses.  I must say I am a 23mm / 35mm  looking guy how sametimes use the 35mm/50mm as a "Normal-Optic" ; -)

 

Edited August 7 by e-light

[DMJpix]

Newbie - welcome to the Fuji family. I am a proud owner of an XH2, two XH2s and an x100V. My favorite lens for celestial pix is the Viltrox 13mm, followed closely by the Fuji compact primes 16mm and 23mm F2s. I am also trying to learn DXO Photolab 7, which in my opinion, has the planet's best detail and color-grading capabilities. Definitely turn off the noise reduction setting as mentioned above.

I recently tried to shoot the Persieds and stumbled onto the Northern Lights see my IG post here, kinda funny. Also get Photpills on your fone and watch the numerous tutorials on their website.

https://www.instagram.com/p/C-lUyedyQQn/

 

best wishes and hope you can find dark skies near home.

 

david