X-T1 and the night sky

[oldfashioned1536]

Hello All.

 

I have always been obsessed with capturing the night sky (who isn't). Im relatively new to the fuji system and the following are two images I made recently. I live in Southern Connecticut and am frankly surprised at how much the combination of the X-T1 and the rokinon 12mm can see.

 

Camera Settings: Long exposure noise reduction on / RAW / used fuji camera remote app for iOS

 

Partial Milky Way Shot: 2000 ISO / F2.8 / 15sec

 

Perseid Meteor Shower Shot: 1250 ISO / F2.0 / 15sec

 

Both processed in Lightroom CC.

 

I would love to hear the communities comments on things I can do (camera settings) to get better shots. I'm mostly concerned about noise.

 

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[Vidalgo]

Since shot taken with a tripod (I believe), you can make several shots and stack all together at post-processing. Noise will be lowered.

[oldfashioned1536]

Since shot taken with a tripod (I believe), you can make several shots and stack all together at post-processing. Noise will be lowered.

 

Would you mind briefly going over the steps?

[kimballistic]

You cannot stack multiple long-exposure shots if you want stars that are pinpoint sharp.

 

The world is spinning.  Depending on your focal length, 15-30 seconds is the longest exposure you can capture before stars start to streak.  The wider the lens (12 mm is a great starting point), the more time you have to work with.

 

See "Selecting Exposure Time" in this article:

http://petapixel.com/2014/03/28/prep-work-post-processing-depth-star-photography-tutorial/

 

In theory you could stack multiple short exposures if they were all taken within the time allowed by the 500 Rule, but the result would be underexposed and the resulting improvement in noise may or may not be worth it.

 

To reduce noise, make sure long-exposure noise reduction is turned on, and experiment with the longer shutter speeds until the stars are no longer sharp.  More light collected = less noise.

[PatrickB]

I'm getring into astrophotography aswell. Google something called "DeepSkyTracker" and this software will let you stack your photos and allign the "stars" (lights) making up for earth's rotation.

 

Again I'm getting into it aswell.. For tutorials on stacking search google like I did . Good luck and share your good finds too please .

[Vidalgo]

Would you mind briefly going over the steps?

Stacking is basic function for every HDR software, Photomatix for example. 

Photoshop also do stack, for my version CC 2015 it's very simple: Files -> Scripts -> Load files into stack.

Another Photoshop way is more tricky: File -> Automate -> Photomerge -> open files to be stacked. In fact, this Photoshop script make panorama from opened files, but because we take files with the same scene, the result will be not panorama but copy of scene with some averaging of stacked pixel luminosity, so it works as denoiser.

[Vidalgo]

You cannot stack multiple long-exposure shots if you want stars that are pinpoint sharp.

Star movement is like to motion blur, it has nice predictable trace and can be zeroed with help of software later.

[kimballistic]

Star movement is like to motion blur, it has nice predictable trace and can be zeroed with help of software later.

 

Definitely true, but much more difficult if you include landscape or other non-moving features in your shot.

[calinandra69]

One picture taken with my new Fuji X-T10 and 18-55mm f/2.8-4

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[stargazer]

Quite like the pictures - very nice - though I have to say that I believe the "meteor" in your image is more a satellite orbiting the earth than a meteor. Meteors are more colourful. The perseids I managed to shoot are all green to orange colour. 

 

On a related note:

 

What techniques are you using to manually focus ?

 

I am talking about lenses like the XF 16 mm WR where there is a difference between setting the lens to "infinity" and the actual "inifinity" where stars are sharp. 

Typically under dark skies you barely can see any star anyway. So far I have been using "trial and error" for a few shots until I was happy with the result. Still sometimes it turns out that the pictures when viewed the other day were not 100 % sharp. 

 

I know there is a lot of techniques you can find on the internet - just wondering here what works for you.. Others are happy to chime in, too. 

[Russ]

You can increase your exposure time with the 12mm lens to around 24 seconds before you start getting movement in the stars, I would up the ISO as well to get more detail in the stars.

[Sundo]

Despite the topic, this isn't really X-T1 specific thread. Might be useful to move this to more appropriate area. Although I'm not sure which one that would be.

 

There's really no magical way to get rid of the noise. Increasing the exposure time and stacking exposures will help in getting rid most of it. Noise reduction algorithms will always remove some of the dimmer stars, but usually isn't really a problem since those faint stars wouldn't be visible in the final image anyway.

 

I doubt anyone here can give you better advice than what can be found from a number of different online tutorials, such as (these are in some kind of order, just don't ask me what it is):

http://www.lonelyspeck.com/

http://www.astropix.com/index.html

http://theartofnight.com/2014/06/the-art-of-astrophotography-tutorial/

http://www.astro-imaging.com/Tutorial/PixInsight/M33/en.html (processing tutorial)

https://www.reddit.com/r/astrophotography/comments/2acnqb/the_great_list_of_astrophotography_software/ (software list)

http://www.deepskycolors.com/

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-resources/astrophotography-tips/

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/I_ASTROP/toc_ap.html

https://photographylife.com/astrophotography-tutorial

 

 

Few other useful links:

http://app.photoephemeris.com/

http://www.lightpollutionmap.info/

http://www.blue-marble.de/nightlights/2012 (and the rest of the blue marble site) 

[jeremyclarke]

FWIW I find LR to be extremely useful at pumping up stars even with out PS. The "Detail" block (noise reduction/sharpening) is very useful and giving it time and trying things makes a big difference. As already said any NR is going to take out some of the smaller stars, but it can also significantly reduce the noise in the darkness, so you need to figure out the Goldilocks sweet spot where the noise isn't distracting but you still have all the important (i.e. obviously-not-noise) stars visible.

 

I've also been shocked at how much tweaking white balance makes a difference, especially local adjustments to give sky and foreground different white balances since they are lit completely differently from each other. 

 

Here's a shot I took in Bohol, Philippines with my X-E1 and 18-55mm (haven't had a good chance to use my X-T10+16mm yet unfortunately, it was cloudy when I was in the country last weekend):

 

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[Paul2660]

Google

 

Adam Woodworth.

 

He has an excellent series of videos on shooting the night sky. He stacks with his Milky Way work and explains how to do it.

 

He work speaks for itself.

 

Paul C

[stevezphoto]

Focus stacking is what is used when you want to make star trails.

 

For pinpoint stars, you just need to 1) shoot high iso  2) shoot wide open with fast glass  3) post process for noise.

 

I did my first stint of astrophotography last month in Hawaii. I used the XT-1 and the 14 2.8. Shots are at ISO6400, f2.8, 15 or 20 sec. Any more than 20seconds and the stars start to trail too much. I think with the 12mm you might be able to get away with 30s but I haven't tried it.

 

ISO6400 isn't ideal, you have to push the noise processing, but LR gets the job done. Looking forward to getting another stop with the XT-2!

[stevezphoto]

These shots were my first attempts at doing real astrophotography. I was super inspired by the super dark skies up at 11000 feet on the volcano. The 14 was a little limiting however. I'm now looking at the Rokinon 12mm f2 for next time. The extra stop would be useful as well as the extra width. It was really hard to get the trees and much of the Milky Way in the shot with only a 21mm equivalent focal length.

 

Oh, BTW, the shot that appears to be a sunset ... it isn't. When have you seen the stars above a sunset? ;-) ;-)

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 8, 2016 by stevezphoto

[MacPhail]

Great photos, Steve!

[Pedro Pulido]

I have shot the milky way with the samyang 12mm F2 with iso 1600 and about 25seconds (xt1). 30 seconds loses sharpness and you can already see some movement. but the lens is awesome to shot the night sky. 

 

Great images Steve! Well done! 

[sebas1430]

Really nice pictures!

[rxlouie]

Just curious how you made sure it was in focus?  I found the EVF hard to focus with in complete darkness at high ISO - just too much noise.  For me with the X-T1 it was shoot, adjust and shoot again until I got the focus right.  Do you find these issues?

 

Great shots, BTW.

[stevezphoto]

Yes, focus is tricky. For the shots with trees I use a flashlight to put enough light on the subject to use focus peaking.

 

I am a new at this so I also did focus bracketing once I was close to then pick the best one.

[henning]

i would do it with manual focus.

wonderful inspiring photo's by the way

[alex.reusch]

Steve, great photos! I just can recommend the Rokinon 12mm f2 for milky way shoots. It is a very simple (manual focus only) but brilliant lens. You will receive great value. I also use the Rokinon for star shooting. I think it just give me the perfect aspect ratio for milky way (very wide, but not too wide). Also, it is really sharp and very easy to handle. What I also recommend to get the last piece of perfection for your star shooting, is the iOptron Star tracker. It allows me to do 4-5 minutes exposures, while closing the lens to f/4 and stepping down the ISO values to ISO800. It requires to do two separate images (one for the background, one for the foreground), because the skytracker will move the camera.

 

You can see some examples here:

https://goo.gl/photos/HQgbLQB6ctZM12qd8

https://goo.gl/photos/b5Mqdk2PjvAXGbRz6

 

These shots were my first attempts at doing real astrophotography. I was super inspired by the super dark skies up at 11000 feet on the volcano. The 14 was a little limiting however. I'm now looking at the Rokinon 12mm f2 for next time. The extra stop would be useful as well as the extra width. It was really hard to get the trees and much of the Milky Way in the shot with only a 21mm equivalent focal length.

 

Oh, BTW, the shot that appears to be a sunset ... it isn't. When have you seen the stars above a sunset? ;-) ;-)