NZPhotographer Issue 32, June 2020

of the sun and moon, depth of field charts, exposure
tables, night augmented realities and so much
more… It’s the ‘Photographers Bible’ in an app and
for shooting the Milky Way is extremely helpful as it
help with location, time frames of when the Milky
Way will rise and when the core will be visible plus,
with the Night Augmented Reality feature you can
look at the screen of your phone and see the Milky
Way at certain times of the day so you can plan your
shot. I find it is worth its weight in gold but it does have
many different parts to it and does take some getting
used to so allow plenty of time to learn how it all works
before heading out!
SETTINGS
So, now you’ve got your gear sorted, the question of
“What settings do I use?” looms.
As with all types of photography, settings are
controlled by many different things. Sure there are
some rules, but once you become familiar with the
basics you’ll find yourself experimenting just as I did
and developing your own taste.
The easiest place to start is with something called
the “500 rule”. There are a few things to take into
consideration here.
Is your camera a Full Frame body or Crop Sensor
Body?
What focal length lens are you using?
With my own gear, I have a full frame Canon EOSR
and a crop sensor Canon 80D (crop factor of 1.6) and
as mentioned, a 20mm Sigma Art f1.4 lens.
Using the 500 rule you take 500 and divide it by the
focal length of the lens you are using. This gives you a
base for your shutter speed to prevent star trailing in
your images. This is something to experiment with as
different cameras and lenses perform differently so
start with the base setting and experiment from there.
Here are the equations:
Full frame: 500 divide by 20mm = 25 secs
Crop Sensor (1.6 crop factor): 20mm x 1.6 (crop) =
32… 500 divide by 32 = 15.6 so 15 sec
Using these equations and just applying your camera
and focal length will give you the basic setting for your
shutter speed.
For aperture, usually you will want your lens to be
as wide open as possible. Again this is something to
experiment with but I personally stop my lens down a
little bit from f1.4 to f1.8-f2.8 depending on what I’m
shooting. This also helps to get your stars as sharp as
possible. A lens wide open will usually be a little soft
so stopping down the lens helps with this and also
helps with something called “Coma” which is quite
noticeable at the outer edges of the frame.
Next is ISO. Again, camera and lens combinations
react differently so experiment to know what works
best for you, your set up, and how you want your
images to look. With my camera and lens combo
I personally start at ISO 1600, using a f1.8 or f2.8
aperture and a 25 sec shutter speed. I will then
check the image in the viewfinder and make any
adjustments I feel are needed at the time. Again there
is no wrong or right here… Just try it and find what
you’re happy with.
SETTING FOCUS
Another big question is “How do I focus so I end up
with nice sharp stars and not bokeh balls?” There are
a few different methods to cover this, here are the
most popular.
If your lens has the infinity symbol on it, use manual
focus. Turn your focus ring to line up the infinity symbol
with the mark on the lens and it should be pretty
good. However, the infinity symbol is not always exact
so sometimes you may end up with slightly blurry stars.
If your lens has no markings, go out during the day
and put some tape on your focus ring and lens body.
Focus on something a decent distance away and
mark the tape on the focus ring and lens body. This
will focus your lens at infinity. Then, when you go out
at night, switch your lens to Manual focus, line up the
marks and you should have a nice sharp image.
Lastly, the live view method which I use as I find it is
the most accurate and have never had any issue with
out of focus images at night. Once you’re all set up
at location, switch your camera to live view mode,
set your lens to manual focus, use the digital zoom on
the live screen (I have 5x and 10x digital zoom) get a
bright star in your viewfinder (you may have to crank
up your ISO to 6400 for this) open your aperture right
up and set you shutter speed to say 30secs (just to do
this). Once you have the bright star in the viewfinder
go to 10x digital zoom if possible, then using your focus
ring, adjust focus until the star becomes as small as
possible and boom… you now have perfect focus. Go
back to your normal full screen view, set the settings
you actually require as previously mentioned, hit that
shutter button and see what you get. I’m sure it will be
awesome!
Please feel free to ask me any questions
@tonyelkinsphotography and I will do my best to help.
In the meantime, I wish you “Happy Hunting and Clear
Skies”.
albums.excio.io/profile/tony@aepnz
June 2020 21