For stars, you can also take a series of the longest photos you can take without elongated stars and then combine the images, aligning the images on two widely separated stars, then trim the outer edges. Ten 15s images without tracking, but combined can give close to the effect of one 150s image with tracking. Even with tracking, you can combine a series of 60s images with good results.
I believe Photoshop can combine images.
With this technique, you may find a lens at F4 to work fine.
I appreciate the stacking / etc suggestions but I want the fastest best wide lens for stars shot with one shot as a starting point, without star trails.
I am leaning to Zeiss 25 f2.0 ( and zeiss 35 1.4) as the best for fast with best iq. My looks show that it has better iq at f2 than canon 24 1.4 at f2.8, particularly in the corners. And way better than 24-70 2.8 or 16-35 2.8.Zeiss 21 2.8 seems very good at 2.8 but can't do f2.0.
Is there another possilble lens? with better iq at f2 or lower?
650/24mm=27s max before star trails. But for even less star trails, I want to limit to 15s. If f4 at iso 3200 is 30s. I should get 7.5s at f2. Or 15s at f2 at iso1600.
Most of the fast wide lenses suffer from coma and/or field curvature when used wide open, either of which is detrimental to the look of the image near the edges of the frame. The Zeiss 35 f2 is the only one I am aware of which seems to be free of these problems; I just wish the wider Zeiss lenses were as well behaved.
Scott, you might want to consider subscribing to Lloyd Chambers' site, where he reviews all of these lenses in great detail. To quote from his review, "The Zeiss 35mm f/2 Distagon can reproduce a starry sky better than any lens I’ve tried before". I bought mine based largely on his review, and it's a superb lens, although I have yet to actually get out and try any night shots with it.
The 35mm 1.4L is superb. Of the 24's the TSE II is the best but slower obviously. The new 24 IS is supposedly very good even wide open so that might work also.
For long exposures the 5D3 and the 1DX are the best DSLRs available IMHO.
If I had no budget and not using any astro tracking system I would get a Zeiss 15 or 14L + 17 TSE + 24L II + 16-35L II on FF for these purposes to cover the wide end. I've read one photographer that takes some of the best milky way shots I've ever seen without a Trac that recommends 450/FL to avoid star trails when printing big. I've seen shots from him using 14L, 24L, 50L and 16-35L if i'm not mistaken.
someone suggest the focal rule of 650. if you use that for your calculations you will be very disapointed. i woul suggest a max of 600 and to be sure i work purely on 500
trailing will also show depending on where you point your lens, looking north you can push your exp by around 4-5 secs, looking towards the south / equator loose 5-10 secs off your previous time limit.
i use the nikon 14-24 and it is excellent for wide field use. one thing you will find annoying onn the canons wides open is coma and other lens abberations such as fringing.
I use a 14 f2.8 and 15mm 2.8 fisheye on a 1Dx. This all depends on whether you want some type of foreground or not. To capture the Milky Way you need to go as wide as you can. My two cents.
Have you ever heard of a scotch mount or barn door mount ? This is a homemade device that follows the earths rotation. I built one using a 1rpm hobby motor for a total cost of 30$, using tools I had with me on vacation.
parsons wrote:
someone suggest the focal rule of 650. if you use that for your calculations you will be very disapointed. i woul suggest a max of 600 and to be sure i work purely on 500
trailing will also show depending on where you point your lens, looking north you can push your exp by around 4-5 secs, looking towards the south / equator loose 5-10 secs off your previous time limit.
i use the nikon 14-24 and it is excellent for wide field use. one thing you will find annoying onn the canons wides open is coma and other lens abberations such as fringing.
It's just a guideline to get you in the ballpark. If you've never tried night photography you may have no idea about what sort exposure you need and how the exposure changes with FL in order to avoid star trails. I would assume anyone doing this seriously would do some tests and see what exposures you really need, but at least you won't be too far away if you start with this formula. 600/FL may well be a better starting point but we are only talking a few seconds either way.
I've done night photography a few times with the intent of shooting the Milky Way with a foreground in Bug Sur and in Yosemite. The Canon 14 f 2.8 on a 1Dx was the widest I used. You have to take a photo first as your baseline wih the correct exposure with right ISO and start at 30 seconds, f/2.8 and adjust the ISO accordingly. The 600 rule is theoretically 600/focal length=total number of seconds to avoid start trails or streaking. If I use the 14 that given the 600 rule, it should give me 42 seconds without streaking but I noticed that at 37 seconds you start to get a bit of streaking / star trails.
I have long lenses like the 500 f4 IS, 300 f2.8 IS but haven't really applied this for night phitography or astrophotography except when I shoot the moon with a landmark combined with TPE software. My mentor is a seasoned astro photographer and the longest focal length he used was a 15mm fisheye for the Milky Way.
I'm not stating this as a hard and fast rule but you can choose your focal length depending on what you want to achieve. I also have the 35 1.4 and the 50 1.2 but the FLs are too long if I wanted some type of foreground with a lot of the Milky Way on it.
Pixel Perfect,
what do you shoot with 600 for night photography? Do you use a filter to color correct? I'm curious because I sure would like to use my long focal lengths. Do you combine that with an equatorial mount or astro trac? Thanks!
JPeter,
Care to share how you built your scotch mount or barn door mount? What materials do we need to build something similar and how is your motor powered. I'm assuming you can get this from a hobby shop or radio shack. If you can send me a link on where you based this from, I can take it from there.
I was in Jackson Wyoming with my jeep toolbox and leatherman to work with and managed to build one of these. I bought shelving and hinges at a hardware store. I used a 1/4-20 for the drive and got an insert that hammers into a wooden hole for the 1/4-20 nut. In the photo, the bottom part has rubber feet, which I set on my car hood. This has been altogether removed and replaced by a tripod mount. So the 2nd set of hinges and bottom board is eliminated. I just didn't have a beefy enough tripod to start with. Setting the unit on the car hood has the problem of not being able to sit in the car to stay warm when its 15 below zero.
I added the drive motor by drilling a hole in the end of the 1/4-20 screw and pinching it to yield an oval. my drive motor had a flat on the shaft, so it functions as a poor mans universal joint. How it goes together is hard to explain, but from the bottom going up: Drive motor (loosely mounted), bottom board, washer, drive screw, drive screw nut into top board. Motor is 3v edmunds scientific, 2 d cells.
It does work, hardest thing is getting good aim at polaris.
jpeter wrote:
Have you ever heard of a scotch mount or barn door mount ? This is a homemade device that follows the earths rotation. I built one using a 1rpm hobby motor for a total cost of 30$, using tools I had with me on vacation.
JP
Nice looking mount! I looked into this as well. There are variations (maybe yours does this) that also take into account inherent errors with longer tracking times with the original design. In the end I wanted something more portable and probably more accurate.
I really like the Samyang 14mm f2.8 for doing a lot of night photography, sharp wide open. Something to really check out and the price is pretty good. On night shots the moustache distortion is not a factor. the link to some of my shots was posted earlier in the thread, basically anything with a 14mml. I have a zeiss 35mm f2 and Zeiss 21, f2.8 they both work well for astro work, however the slight longer focal length will show star trailing quicker. I will typically use the Zeiss with a Polarie or the Astrotrac but then you get blurry backgrounds so it is all a compromise. Some of the 14mm shots: http://www.aps-photo.com/category/astronomy/
The manual lens works really well even on other camera bodies.
